Futures Thinking was a course in the first semester of year two that put my learning and positioning as a designer into context in the real world. As a course it helped me enormously to develop a sensitivity as a designer for understanding the broader context of the design world and being able to ideate on possible future scenarios within a business perspective by practicing different techniques like visual mapping and CMF sketching. This course is also how I got interested in CMF and started seeing material design as a more central part within my PIV development, which is where I am now.

To summarize this elective for myself, it put the subject of (product) design into the context of the real world. It showcased us how certain thinking patterns and habits work and don't work in the real world in relation to what we have learned thus far in the bachelor. It also very much destroyed the egocentricity and protectiveness of ideas and designs I feel is present within our faculty; by that I mean that people tend to exaggerate their solutions and products to a point where it feels detached from reality. This elective showed; great ideas don't come from nothing, they're iterated and they're the results of an immense amount of effort from tens or hundreds of people who are experts in their craft. To consider your own idea better because you like it more is ignorant.

After this elective I also feel more confident and prepared for real world designing beyond the study itself. I feel like I have been given the right tools and materials to develop myself further as a designer: make connections, be curious about things, explore the world around me as a designer and take it in with a critical eye. I am very eager to showcase my learning in an internship and further develop my skills there.

Additional Material

• Reflection on Futures Thinking

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