Life Design Lab
D.Life
The Life Design Lab (d.life) at Stanford teaches courses, delivers programs and tools, and conducts research applying the innovation principles of Design Thinking to the problem of designing your life, education, and vocation. Connect with d.life through the website and/or signup for the quarterly newsletter for the latest news.
Currently offered d.life courses:
Designing Your Stanford
ME EDUC118S/ME104S
Fall, open to Sophomores only, Winter and Spring open to FrOSH and Sophomores
Course Website
Schedule and Registration
Course Description
Designing Your Stanford is a class that helps students craft a more satisfying college experience. Many frosh arrive each year having heard that the next four years will represent the best of our lives. But as wonderful as the Stanford experience often proves to be, it almost always presents a slew of difficult decisions and stressful tradeoffs. How do you choose a single major given the disparate interests you have? How do you discover all of the exciting opportunities Stanford has to offer? And once you’ve discovered them, how do you possibly choose among them? Most critically, how do you leave Stanford after four years feelings satisfied with the experience? Designing Your Stanford aims to help students navigate these thorny questions. Using a process rooted in Design Thinking, the course equips students with tools to design a college experience that better aligns with who they are and what they hope to get from Stanford.
Designing Your Life
ME104B
Open to Juniors/Seniors
Course Website
Schedule and Registration
Course Description
The course uses design thinking to address the “wicked problem” of designing your life and career. This class offers a framework, tools, and most importantly a place and a community of peers and mentors where we’ll work on these issues through assigned readings, reflections, and in-class exercises. The course employs a design thinking approach to help students from any major navigate the challenges of their twenty-something “Odyssey Years” and develop a constructive and effective approach to finding and designing their vocation after Stanford.Designing the Professional
ENGR 311B
Open to Masters/PhDs/Postdocs
Course Website
Schedule and Registration
Course Description
What is it you really want out of the life that your Stanford education is making available to you? Have too many ideas for your career - or not enough? Wondering how to weave together what really fits you, is doable, and will be satisfying and meaningful? Learn to apply design thinking to designing your professional life following Stanford. Topics include: Intro to "design thinking", framework for vocational wayfinding; tools to investigate alternate professional paths. Complete a personal "Odyssey Plan" to innovate multiple prototypes for post-Stanford life and career.
Have questions? Contact d.life at lifedesignlab@lists.stanford.edu
