Academic Year 2023 - 2024
Semester 2

NUSMods Description

In this course, students use design principles to develop their creative potential and practise design thinking using a people-centered approach to solve problems and create new possibilities. Through practical activities, students will discover tools and mindsets that guide them in navigating ambiguity in a creative process, observing and learning from others in unfamiliar contexts, and generating and experimenting with ideas quickly. While students draw on design thinking as a personal creative skillset, they will also value the impact of design that affords people the opportunity and privilege to shape the world that they, and others, inhabit.

Review

This is a CHS class I was forced to do in Year 3, since I skipped it in Year 1 and 2. I originally planned for this to be taken in Year 4 but CHS admin says no.

Again, I was surrounded by Year 1s (very young people). However, I tried to make friends with them and give them some actual good advice for university. I also tried to put in effort (so as not to set a bad example unlike my seniors who keep asking me to screw it and SU).

There were the team-based workshops which is basically just tutorials. It was actually great fun which is great to unwind from CP3209 UROP and use your brain in other creative avenues. The pain part is probably the homework submissions. Could be just me, but I think I overkilled with all my reflections with very deep analysis. I basically used Bloom’s Taxonomy learnt from ES2660 and CS2101 (both communication classes from SoC, taken prior). I got an EE for the midterm feedback.

It seems like a high workload class but really, its up to you. I just spent time on it whenever I have that time. For the prototype, I just used some basic items to build my “scented alarm clock that doesn’t ring”, and I think I did ok for the prototype portion.

I think this module is good in a sense it gave me an insight on what designers go through to come up with ideas. Thinking out of the box is very important here. User awareness and systematic creativity is taught. I think if practiced enough, it can become second nature for you. In a sense, I am grateful for this module. I also highly encourage SoC students to take this module, because it has alot of relations to the non-technical aspects of software engineering (which apparently everyone wants to do). I also managed to use the skills I learnt in this class to come up with very novel ideas for my research project which further highlights the transferable skills learnt.