My Journey of Design Thinking Class
Tags: Class, Design Thinking, Experience, Journey

Well, well, well…where do I even start from. Guess will have to start with the subject’s name itself. When I first received the schedule of my new semester, there it was “Sunday- Design Thinking Studio(DT)” from early 7 am to 9am. I was clueless of what kind of class that was because I literally had no idea what design thinking meant. I used my pathetic common sense and thought maybe it was “Thinking” with “Design” like fashion. Damn, I was such a fool. I still laugh out loud at myself for coming up with such an assumption. And guess what, I still am laughing right now. Too bad, you can’t see me.

Now where was I, oh yeah my first class of DT. Excited to know if my assumption was correct or not, I paid attention in the class. There were two teachers, Mr. Anjan and Mr. Rakesh who took turns to teach us online basically. I wonder how they would look if I ever get the chance to meet them in person. Talking about them, I want to say that, they are the teachers who laughed more then the students. I liked that. When I used to see them enjoying their work, it motivated me in some ways. Their team work was really amazing.

Talking about the Design Thinking, I really think the college did the best thing ever including it in our course. Well, my assumption turned out to be wrong. As, Design Thinking is set of steps to solve a specific problem of a particular person or a group by involving them. Isn’t it awesome, to be able to come up with a solution to solve a problem. It can save a person, a business, a country or even a whole world. First, you should know what is the exact problem. Not knowing what is the problem is also a problem. So, when you know the exact problem then you can move to find out why is it the problem. After knowing why is it a problem then you can proceed into finding the solution. Which I thought so. But no, the most important of all is to learn how to empathize the person who is having the problem. What do they want, why do they want that. The answers to these questions must be clear because if you come out with the solution which is not needed by the sufferer of the problem then that solution is useless. You need to stand in their shoes, view from their perspective. Like I said, empathizing is very important. I will never forget this lesson from this subject because it has helped me in my life as well. So, I wanted to share this lesson to you all as well.

Likewise, we had lots of other topics such as Agile, how to create a good presentation, to make a business model canvas and prototype. But my favorite is learning how to Empathize. I will never forget that we had a panic attack when we had to do a presentation in three minutes which we failed horribly. Then next presentation was for four minutes which I surprisingly was able to finish on time. Practice makes people perfect proved. Personally, during this class I have improved my public speaking and drawing skills. Overall, I had a really great time in this session and think that it would have been more fun if we had a physical classes. Because there were many things we missed out due to having virtual classes only, I felt that. But none the less, I am glad to be part of this journey.