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>> ANNA LISE DE LORENZO: Design Thinking is a subject across all the different degrees,
that brings all the different disciplines together to explore some of the more fundamental
parts of design and how it works, in terms of being really strategic and being really
creative and looks at how you can develop tools to engage with design in a really exciting
way and open up what the possibilities of design are.
>> MICHAEL OíHALLORAN: The subject covers all design students who apply in the first
year. So that's across all the disciplines that there are in the design faculty. So that's
industrial design, interior design, visual communication, fashion design. They're all
thrown in together to learn some of the basics that apply to design thinking behind designing.
>> ANNA LISE DE LORENZO: I think that design thinking is really important for first-year
students because it challenges the assumptions that they come to the course with about what
design is and what their discipline is and what the possibilities are within that. I
think they all turn up with quite a narrow view that's really completely acceptable and
completely fine and it excites them and motivates them. But by the time they're finished with
this course, that's just been blown completely open. I think they're so much more inspired
about what they could do and what the possibilities are. They're also much better equipped to
articulate what it is that they love about design, how the design, what the processes
are, how they think about design and come out with a really fantastic toolbox for engaging
with the other subjects and their peers across different disciplines. So I think it's a fantastic
subject. It's got to be said that the camp on Cockatoo
Island is a massive highlight. So when we take all the students, I think this year it
was 350 students and 30 staff, went and spent three days on Cockatoo Island. That really
immersive experience was a lot of fun. >> MICHAEL OíHALLORAN: We do design exercises
there in a very intensive way, which involves exploring the island and also gives them a
great opportunity to get to know each other . . . outside, I suppose, the standard classroom
environment. >> ANNA LISE DE LORENZO: The biggest challenge
for students undertaking this subject is the way that the core concepts challenge what
they think design is and can be. I think that it requires them to realise that they've been
thinking about it in a very small box and that they've got to pick their brain up and
put it into a whole new sort of set of boxes. >> MICHAEL OíHALLORAN: I think the thing
that I would want to stress is that tutors are there for them. I would really love to
encourage the students to see that the university is a whole world of resources that are there
for them to make something out of. It's not a sausage processing machine. It's not a system
that is meant to grind you through. Students should feel that they can actually create
the learning that they want to have. >> ANNA LISE DE LORENZO: I think you've got
to engage with first-year. It's a little bit like going on a rollercoaster - you don't
necessarily know how it's going to be and you don't know what's going to happen, but
you've got to just jump in there and enjoy the experience. You've got to go along for
the ride because you're not going to know the answers before you begin. If you jump
in for that experience, you'll learn so much and you'll get so much out of it and you'll
have a lot of fun.