After finishing the last day of Sustainability Inspired Innovation and Design, I’m sitting down to write my very last blog post: a reflection on the class itself. To do this, I’ll be highlighting the three course objectives listed below:
- Understand the issues and opportunities related to product/service sustainability, especially within the context of innovation
- Develop your own sense of what it means to “enhance life” and how this relates to business and to your pending career
- To help you develop the skills and mindset of innovativeness and entrepreneurship, aka “I&E” (these are shared across our various I&E courses and we will address each of these to varying degrees in this course):
And I’ll discuss how I personally feel I’ve met these objectives. Before I start, I do want to reflect on my overall impression of the course. It was likely my favorite of the semester, as I really felt like I was honing my creativity in the area of something related strongly to my personal beliefs. So many of my classes have to deal with learning the technical skills (i.e. math and code) that I’ll need to later pursue passion-driven projects, but in this class I was able to feel like I was already there, working on something I was eager to open my laptop and write for, or eager to come to class and learn about, and I’m thankful for that opportunity; it’s a great outlet for my creativity.
Object #1:
Never before have I had to think so much about how to make something sustainable, and it was fantastic to stretch my brain like that. On a personal level, I feel it’s my duty to buy and act sustainably; but how can we translate these notions to actual widespread consumer behavior? This question is still in the process of being answered but this course clued me in on it in the first place. Now, I find myself asking more and more questions related to sustainable products and services. How do you promote this? How do you make it profitable? Should you even try and be making it profitable—does everything need to revolve around returning equity to shareholders? I never got to talk about these questions before as rule #1 in economics would suggest profitability is always the answer; from this course, I’m wondering if a bit of sacrifice is needed, which brings me to my next point…
Objective #2:
How and I going to take my lessons from this course and apply it to my life and my career, potentially in business? I think I would be kidding myself if I said I expected to do research for my entire career; I find it fun but don’t expect anyone in my generation to stick to one thing for 50 years straight. I’m interested in entrepreneurship and making a difference in the current business world; so how do I put this in practice? For now, I’m a consumer of goods and services, which means my actions multiplied could create actual change in the market in terms of demand. If I make a point to buy fewer but perhaps more expensive and long-lasting goods, then perhaps others will be doing the same thing somewhere else and supply of cheaply made, easily broken items will decrease. My life isn’t going to be enhanced by constantly having to consume and buy new things or use new things; people enhance life, activities enhance life, health enhances life, and I have less time to enjoy them if I’m out buying new clothes every month.
I also want to keep in mind these life-enhancing aspects for my senior year and all the years after: if work, in whatever form, is detracting so much from what’s important, it’s time to reevaluate the work I’m doing, because working and working and working on something that isn’t fulfilling is not sustainable over a lifetime. I’m passionate about sustainability, and moreso because of this class, so perhaps it will have some important part to play in my future “work worth doing.”
Objective #3:
I like to think I’ve been working on the skills and the mindset of an innovative, entrepreneurial person for a couple of years now, but with every class I take in the I&E program (this is #4) I am reminded of them specifically and how I can work towards keeping my mindset and skills strong. Like anything, if you don’t practice your skills they’ll become weaker and weaker, like legs that haven’t been running in months. I definitely feel as though this class has helped me keep my skills sharp and my mind fresh, as I think Design Thinking embraces so many of those aspects and it was a large part of this class.
Looking forward, I want to be more mindful: mindful of what I consume, of what I say and do, and how I set my goals. Am I doing my part to help us all sustain a high standard of living? Am I causing unnecessary harm to my environment? Is there more I can do to promote the circular economy and to disincentivize harmful consumerism? Is my work burning me out? Am I focusing on what’s important? These are questions I find myself asking more and more and I hope that continues. Having a solid idea about sustainability in all of its dimensions is something that takes mindfulness and constant work, which I challenge myself to continue years after this course has ended.