This class has been a challenge for me in many ways. I tested my abilities to be creative, to learn to work with people who are very different than me, to embrace a new way of thinking, and in the end, to attempt to conquer one of my biggest fears – public speaking.
Firstly, I would like to speak on the challenge that I faced with design thinking. It was a new concept to me, and I struggled to accept it, especially in the beginning. I will be honest in the fact that I was not a huge fan of our initial idea for a housing group – I wanted to focus on a group that I thought was in greater need of housing developments, since a lot of housing now is geared towards upper middle class adults. I believe this was a large part of the issue. However, when I finally accepted that in group projects, I have to learn to accept the ideas that the majority of my group wants to go with, I could then continue with the process of design thinking. We also had issues as a group of following the ideas of design thinking. As I have mentioned in other blogs in the past, we had trouble shedding our own ideas of what we thought undergraduates needed and purely paying attention to the insights that arose from our research. Additionally, we all had different methods of conducting our initial research, which brings me to my next challenge in this course.
My group dynamic was another challenge I faced. Although we communicated well outside of class, the personalities in my group were very different than mine. This can be an advantage in other situations, however in this situation, it made it difficult to communicate ideas to come up with a solid product, especially in the context of our document for part 1. Because we were all on separate pages, and because of a lack of proof reading, our document was disjointed. This was discouraging to realize, and we tried our best to regroup for group 2. However, I still found it incredibly difficult to communicate ideas to my group. However, I believe that this was truly a good life lesson. It put me out of my comfort zone, and I think that the process resulted in a product that is very solid and that I am very proud of.
Another challenge I had in the course came at the very end – the presentation portion. At this point, as I mentioned above, I was very happy with how the process had ended up panning out. I was happy with our product, and although I struggled to accept our ideas in the beginning, I liked where we were going. However, the presentation portion of our project loomed over me. Public speaking has always been something I have struggled with. I believe that I get a little better each time, but I still find it to be an incredibly difficult process to prepare for. I prepared, drank many cups of tea, and exercised before-hand to be prepared for this presentation. I am proud of how I performed – this is the first presentation I have ever given where I didn’t go up and read off of notecards. Although I believe I stumbled, I think this is a huge step for me in my quest to conquer my fear.
All in all, I am glad that I am now aware of design thinking. After reflecting, I think it is an incredibly useful process that I can apply to my future career. I think it is a good method for creating products that are beneficial for the well-being of humanity. This is important to me because I want to benefit society with my time on earth. I think that this process of thinking is a good way to do that. I also learned other valuable skills in this course that will help me with my goals.