Design Thinking 101

I’m joined by Eugene Korsunskiy. Eugene is a design thinking consultant and the Senior Coordinator of Design Initiatives at the University of Vermont. Both there and at Stanford, Eugene has taught classes like “Design Thinking” and “Designing Your Life.” In our conversation today, we’ll talk about how and why he became a designer, his insights from teaching “Designing Your Life” to Stanford students, and aspects of creating good design thinking learning experiences and design teams. When he was in college, Eugene thought he wanted to be an architect. As he studied architecture and interned in the field, he learned that it’s a lot more about fire codes and occupancy permits than he had hoped, and his romantic notions of the field faded away. He still knew, though, that he wanted to be in an occupation that involved creating something for people while using both halves of his brain. Eventually, design replaced architecture, and Eugene went to grad school for design instead. The most interesting part of a design