Students
You might be wondering how students apply to the d.school and what degree they get. Or, what's the difference between the d.school and Stanford's Product Design Program? Great questions.
It's important to note that the d.school does not directly admit students nor grant degrees. Students who participate in the d.school come from degree granting programs all across the university. We've had business school students, engineering students, computer scientists, biologists, designers, psychologists, education students, doctors, and many others take d.school bootcamps and classes and participate in d.school labs and projects.
Being a part of the d.school is an additional commitment to your normal degree requirements. It's about adding design thinking to your analytical thinking. It's about knowing how to innovate, how to gain empathy for other disciplines, and how to collaborate radically with people unlike yourself. The d.school gives you experiences putting people at the center of your process, gaining insights into human values and latent needs, and experiences using prototyping as a way to lead groups to big ideas. The bottom line is this; you leave the d.school confident in your own personal innovation process and your ability to lead teams that innovate routinely.
Fellowships
As part of the dynamic d.school start-up team, fellows play key roles in the d.school community. This is an exceptional opportunity for fellows to develop innovation leadership skills, contribute to the design thinking movement, and to help build one of the most outstanding new organizations on campus. D.school fellows will leave Stanford as members of an inspiring network of leading industry and academic design experts with the confidence, experience, and skills to make a unique and lasting impact on the world.
The d.school fellows position is a 1-year post-masters full time role that coincides with the academic school year. Ideal candidates come from diverse backgrounds, have shown competence in design thinking, and demonstrate potential for leading innovation.
Fellows collaborate with faculty to create and lead d.school courses in areas such as:
- Design for Extreme Affordability
- K-12 Education
- Business & Design
- Health & Wellness
- Sustainability
Fellows also herald major d.school initiatives and build the d.school through programs in:
- Executive Education
- Environments & Learning Spaces
- Publishing
- Design Thinking Workshops
- Online Strategy
The application deadline is 5PM, Monday April 7th 2008. Completed applications must be emailed to d.fellows.app@gmail.com or delivered to the d.school (Building 524, 481 Panama Mall). Interviews for select candidates will be conducted the week of April 14th, and decisions will be announced by April 30th 2008.
Download the 2008-2009 d.school Fellowship Application.The d.school and the Product Design Program
So where does Stanford's Product Design Program fit in? In short, the programs are separate but strategically linked. The Product Design program has been around for 40 years and it continues to be Stanford’s degree granting design program. The product design program shapes students who are expert at design thinking in the same way the business school shapes students to be expert at business thinking and the computer science department shapes students to be expert at software thinking. The question is, where do all these students go to work together on projects that require the combination of their points of view? That's where the d.school comes in. It's an innovation space for the university. Product Designers, MBA's, Engineers, and Social Scientists all play here, students and faculty together.
