After fourteen weeks full of new beneficial information, I can say that this is the most effective course that I took in AUC, with the most relevant information to real life. Before the registration day, the majority of my friends who already took this course advised me to avoid it for its difficulty and confusion, but I decided to try it anyhow. I am really glad that I took such decision, which I did not regret later. In the beginning of the course, I was partially affected by what my friends told me about such course, but as weeks passed by, I realized that the content and issues we discuss is so relevant to our lives. Taking this course was an opportunity to be creative, or in better words; the course helped to embrace the creativity in me. Most importantly, we learned how to learn. Some of the course outcomes were teaching us who we are, how to be ourselves, and how to express our opinion. Knowing who you are is the greatest goal that anyone could achieve, yet not so easy. Who you are is not just your name, profession, sex, and religion, it is much more than that. Although the learning outcomes of this course are a lot, but the information we grasped about ourselves were the best and most important outcomes of all. The variety of the topics which we discussed was also a good aspect of such course.

What helped me learn in the course was mainly the way we were interacting and communicating through every detail with the professor in the class throughout the whole semester. The Assignments and activities also played a huge role in the way which the messages were conveyed to us. I don’t think there was a single chapter that wasn’t accompanied by an activity to help us understand the concept and relate it to real life examples. Moreover, the assignments we were assigned almost after each topic were very helpful. In all types of assignments, whether reflections on videos/articles which helped to reflect our opinion in a creative way, or concept maps which helped me organize my thoughts about a topic and reflect it, i learned a lot and my performance improved more after each assignment. However, the design challenges we had in this course were somehow difficult, but with group work it became easier as we had different minds with different backgrounds and knowledge working to accomplish the same goal.

The assignment that contributed most to my learning was the creative CV. As a senior who is expected to graduate this year, a CV is a thing I update regularly for internship opportunities and for the future to apply for a job. The CV is the first impression of an employer or a company about the interviewee or applicant. Other than the components of the CV which we should’ve learned in other courses as well, we learned how to be creative in the way which we present the CV itself. This assignment specifically, was very useful and relevant to me as I literally made a whole new CV to use when applying to jobs after I graduate. I started to think about what an employer look for and expect from an applicant, specially a fresh graduate. Therefore, I put myself in the employer’s shoes so I can redesign my CV to have a good first impression, hopefully leading to a real opportunity for an interview in this job or internship. 

The most important thing that I have learned in the course was to to be creative, ironically as the name of the course says. In all the design challenges, reflections, concept maps, and essays we had to be creative to complete. All the assignments required creativity, which somehow forced us to be creative, thus let us unconsciously use creativity in all assignments and tasks in life. Dividing the students into groups made it even more competitive in the level of creativity we reached in accomplishing our tasks. In addition, in the design challenges, we were asked to prepare for redesigns that would solve problems in an existing product. Redesigning an existing product takes a lot of creativity since we have to first identify the problems and then create a way to solve them. The methods we used in these challenges can also be used in solving real life problems, whether in work environment or in personal life.

Because of this course I know feel that I am capable of looking to everything from lots of different views. From the simplest things like what to look at when watching a video or a movie till important things like solving a crucial problem. My way of thinking has changed throughout this course to the better. I have learned that there is never a single way to look at things. Furthermore, five years from now I will remember almost everything in this class; my classmates, professor and most importantly the learning outcomes. I will remember how, for the first time, I was excited for the upcoming classes of this course in the semester; eager to learn more about different interesting topics. The way our professor communicated what she’s teaching to us made me hungry for more. I thought that after 4 years in university, learning became so boring and not at all interesting, but I’ll remember how such course changed that in my last year at university. 

 

Finally, After those fourteen weeks of this course, with all the new information and outcomes we grasped, the activities we engaged in, presentations we presented, and the videos we watched, I can say that I am a different person now with a new way of thinking, or maybe I am the same person but I now know who I really am. I regret not taking such course before, maybe I would have changed my major in college, or maybe I would have chosen another university. However, the full credit and gratitude goes to our exceptional professor who was able to convey all of these messages to our class, in a way which literally affected our lives, and taught us who we are, where we belong, and a new way of thinking.