Learning Outcomes

Four foundational pillars inform the learning outcomes of this major: Make, Care, Adapt, and Spark

[1] MAKE: The knowledge and ability to prototype and make across a wide range of mediums, existing and emerging. 

• Students can contextualize and apply design principles across disciplinary domains. They have broad material literacy and can build and analyze in many mediums, like physical products, code, policy, and emerging technologies. 

Learning goals: 

• Experiment rapidly at low resolution using a wide range of physical and digital mediums

• Recognize emerging technologies that may impact design work 

• Build professional fluency in a subset of design methodologies

• Investigate needs and opportunities in multi-stakeholder systems

• Apply foundational design abilities and processes to challenges in other disciplines

[2] CARE: The care and responsibility to be leading stewards of the planet, all people, and the data we generate. 

• Students know how to work slowly and fast, with appreciation and respect for varying time scales of change. They learn from and with other humans and the environment. They realize the importance of equity, ethics, and implications. They prioritize people and the planet over profit. 

Learning goals: 

• Scope a design project that meets a societal or planetary need in relation to the context, constraints, time scale, and opportunities of the problem space 

• Use equitable and inclusive research approaches focused on learning from/with others

• Predict implications, and impact, of work on complete systems and alternative approaches

• Consider ethical questions and implications to design work on multiple time horizons

• Integrate historical, environmental, cultural, and contextual awareness into design work

[3] ADAPT: The flexibility of adaptive learners. 

• Students can synthesize and integrate ideas and experiences from across the different aspects of their Stanford education and beyond. They can articulate their capacity and needs as learners when tackling open-ended problems. As emerging leaders, they can establish the conditions for others’ creativity to emerge. 

Learning goals: 

• Navigate ambiguous projects and processes with appropriate methods

• Develop a reflective practice on past learning and work to consolidate skills and knowledge

• Integrate learning from a wide range of life experiences to develop habits and mindsets that foster life-long learning and essential preparation for tackling emergent design opportunities

• Overcome emotional or intellectual disorientation or discomfort in individual and team contexts when faced with the unknown

[4] SPARK: The quirky creativity that produces new world ideas. 

• Students see trends, spot new opportunities, and have the courage to try something untested boldly. They relish disciplinary intersections, embrace ambiguity, and can collaborate and communicate with diverse people. They can set visions and paths for them. 

Learning goals: 

• Synthesize information from disparate sources, quantitative and qualitative

• Create design experiments that utilize engineering and scientific principles to evaluate the efficacy and impact of new-to-the-world ideas

• Move fluidly between abstract ideas and concrete details on design projects

• Collaborate and communicate as a member of a multidisciplinary design team

• Communicate deliberately with a range of audiences in a variety of storytelling media