A story of my d.Studio journey
April 2011….
When I heard about this new course called “d.Studio” from a few of my friends at Sauder in the spring of last year, I wasn’t sure exactly it was and how it would add value to my degree and I did not really understand the concept. However the idea of a “studio” course really interested me as in the past have taken many visual art studio courses so I decided to research more about the course and find out what it is all about. Having found out that it was about design thinking and how that applies to managing business in a very different setting then the rest of the typical Sauder class, I decided to register. (so happy I did!)
Fast forward to January 2012….
At the beginning of the course in January, I still had no real idea what we would be doing in this course. I knew it was about “design thinking” and that it would be interactive but coming into that first class I wasn’t sure what to expect.
As the journey of the course started, we talked and learnt about different thinking strategies for business, making observations and insights, idea generation and collaborated with teams and business professionals. In my first blog post about our thinking process, I wrote about my love for list making and how I think in a very logical (or so I think) way with lists. I love to visually see everything that I have to do or all information that is presented to me and work it out from there. Since I am used to gathering all the information and putting things into lists so I can see what is do be done, this type of thinking did not perfectly match up with the style that Moura and Florin thought the class. During the term, our projects did not always have specific guidelines or exceptions which I (and the majority of the classmates) were not used to. This forced us to starting thinking about things differently and made us apply the strategies that we were being thought in class.
April 2012…
Now that it has come to the end of the term and the course is wrapped up… what did I learn and how has my thinking process changed?
Needless to say, it has been a course far different then any other I have taken! It has been a great experience and has certainly gave me a new frame of mind in regards to thinking about a problem or situation and the way I go about conducting my thoughts.
Having taken your typical business school courses for the past 4 years, projects and assignments tend to be accompanied with a full description of what is expected… and as this course is not like the others… our activities came with little descriptions. This was hard but very valuable to me as it made me realize how things that seem ambiguous allow you to be creative. At first, I was worried about doing things the “wrong way” since the guidelines were not specific, but throughout the course after each project or assignment hearing the feedback from Moura, I realized that when talking about design thinking, creativity is encouraged and doing things differently is when the great ideas emerge.
Over the course of the term, we were introduced to all the various thinking strategies which played a big role in helping me realize it’s okay to do things the “wrong way”. From the free writing exercise (that was a big challenge for me as I was thought “I am doing this all wrong”) to the fun improv activity, I have been able to widen my thinking and allow myself to free my mind.
So the d.Studio has helped me change my thinking process in a way that I now know I don’t always have to use the “organized visual list” approach that I’m so fond of, as doing things that seem crazy,weird and wrong can bring forward some great ideas and thoughts I would not have discovered otherwise. I seem to have that block at times but with a great toolkit of thinking strategies under my belt, I know how to conquer those blocks when I get to them!