Why this course?
I was looking for an interesting core course and my friend advised me to register it as the assignments are interesting and not similar to other academic courses.

The gift giving design challenge made me experience an adrenaline rush that is similar to what I experience in last minute assignments submission.

I remember that I registered this course because my best friend registered it too. However, she dropped it because it clashed with her major course. I was thinking of the dropping the course too but then I noticed that the course is called creative thinking which I actually found interesting. The fact that I am reflecting about this course  now shows how unplanned things are the most are the best beneficial. In this essay, I will be reflecting about the course in terms of content, atmosphere inside class, activities and assignments.

I was always told that I was creative but I never really understood the real meaning of it. This class helped in defining the term creativity. I used to think like other people that creativity is related to art only but in fact it can involved in anything. What helped my learning in this course was the challenges done inside class and articles posted on blackboard. The challenges demonstrated the idea that the professor is trying to explain and how it can applied immediately in our real lives. The articles posted on blackboard were short and straightforward to the point and is written in a simple language which made it easy to understand. I liked in this class the diversity of assignments. For example, there would be essays yet there are projects in order for people who hate writing can enjoy the class. However, I believe that there are some unnecessary essays that were written like the reflections. I guess two or three reflections would be enough and the word count can be 300. Reflections didn’t benefit me because I tend to express myself better in action and not writing. I would have learned better in this course if there was more challenges and group projects than reflections. Also, concerning the TED videos watched at class, they are very impactful and I suggest that a real guest speaker can be invited to talk to the students in class about their successful story. Moving to the career module, this was the most beneficial part of the course as it focused on individuals more. Having Mrs Dalia Awad telling her story was actually inspiring and that’s why I suggested above to invite speakers to class. Regarding the design thinking process, I partially disagree with the process because sometimes you can get an idea suddenly that is great without going through this long process. However, having a challenge concerning the design think process helped in demonstrating the process smoothly. Another suggestion for the class activity is actually having a class outside or field trips. Taking students to field trips can make the class more interesting and it will build a bridge between what is taken in class and the outer world.  For example, it would’ve great if the class went to the creative summit and other similar events. 

The biggest obstacle in this course was not the the process of learning but the agenda of the deliverables. I believe that there is no even distribution of assignments along the semester. Risking the percentage of many assignments by the end of the semester makes it hard to handle all of them. For instance. currently I am having architecture jury submissions that clash with important assignments in this course just because the assignments with the most grades are left till the end of the semester which is unfair. Another obstacle was the activities that had time constraints. I usually panic when I am given a task to finish within a short time, my mine=d stops functioning. This the exercise that we used to do in class I fond it unfair because not all people work the same under the same environment. Not producing many words in the list doesn’t mean that I am not creating or that I am not learning a anything at class

The few last classes in this course are going to stick in my head for a good time as we discussed in class about career goals and its issues which is something that I have been thinking about lately. All tips given about the CV and interviews are very helpful. I remember we watched a video  of a scripted CV interview, I guess it would have been a great idea to make students act the interview in order to create more engagement in class. Regarding the padlet, I don’t really find it useful because it acts as a reflection paper but the difference is that it is more visually appealing. Moreover, working in group was a great feature in this course because it helped me in getting out of my comfort zone and work and share ideas with new people. Five years from now, I will remember about this course the debate of how much salary do you expect because most probably I will be asked this question during a job interview and I will not how answer it.

To conclude, this course was different from the other courses that I am used to because it involved all types of assignments and a new concept of thinking. I used to escape engineering courses by taking this course. Lastly, I prefer that this class is taken in a different classroom because the class requires lots of movement thus a larger are is needed with better lighting.