‘Sketching’ the new designers - going wide, going deep and doing it together

Abstract

This paper presents the work developed in a ‘social’ service design course from the 3rd year of an undergraduate course in Design (a generalist one including product design as well as communication design). The course appears in the last semester of the course and students see it as a very thought-provoking one. That occurs since it enrols students in a transformation process that implies a philosophical conscience and activation, an ethical commitment to sum up with the need to display and make use of several critical abilities such as personal skills, interpersonal skills. The demand for the stimulation and use of student’s emotional intelligence and for their critical view regarding their behavior and attitudes as human beings towards the others disclose a kind of ‘revelation moment’. The critical presentation of the structure of the course, the work developed and its results as well as the assessment made by students to it in our view do contribute to the enrichment of knowledge in the design education field. This type of courses allow us to participate as teachers in “sketching” of new designers, ones that act in broader and deeper ways in a collaborative manner.