Final Reflection Essay

Before the class, I had thought a lot about ethics in design but I had never been given this much academic space to consider it. I think as a senior graduating with hopes of designing for a better world, this class gave me the foundation of how to approach these conversations based on our discussion sections — with an openness, optimism, and ability to balance many opinions. Whenever my group would report back to our section, whether on ads about HIV / ethics of data / role of government & policy in managing the ethics of corporations, and more, there was never an easy answer. But I feel like a better designer, and a more understanding person having been a part of those discussions.

I’m grateful that in the class I had the opportunity to grow both through individual work and through collaboration. I learned through studying Bjarke Ingels’ architecture, making a design that advertised baking to learning that play-doh was initially made for cleaning supplies. In section I learned from the amazing people beyond me who always brought up things in a way I had not seen them before.

I also had never been exposed to architecture before and absolutely loved learning about Bjarke Ingels — even though I think in the future I will make more of an effort to study women, Bjarke’s work and the way he combines work and play resonated with me a lot. I’ve always really enjoyed thinking about design as a way to connect people and bring people together, especially using physical space. I explored this through the Stanford Women in Design conference and just throughout life but I loved learning about the way Bjarke has made a career of it. I’m so excited to see the new Oakland Athletic’s stadium. This project made me consider architecture school and just had a big impact on me — stayed up to 2 am one night for fun looking at Bjarke Ingels’ website.

In the future when facing these questions I will approach the questions with a listening first mindset and open ears. I think it can sometimes be easy to value intelligence and worth with being a louder person in the room, but this class reaffirmed my belief that sometimes the best way to learn is to listen and then to speak. Especially in this moment in time, with Black Lives Matter, and Pandemic and everything else going on, I want to approach life wanting to learn and with open ears, acknowledging how much I have left to learn. I’m really grateful to this class for giving space to a topic that deserves an infinite amount of space and I’m dedicated to continue tackling these topics for the rest of my life.