I had never taken a business course before this class and was nervous as to how it would go. This experience has been very fruitful, and I feel I’ve learned a lot in terms of academic knowledge and in practical skills as well. It was new to learn about sustainability and environmentalism from a business perspective and I truly enjoyed the change.
Top Five Takeaways
- An optimistic perspective is possible.There are positive developments occurring on the sustainability front. People are trying to make corporate America eco-friendlier and its environmentally viable! It was great and uplifting to learn about sustainable developments and practices occurring today in business. In most ENSP classes the future is pretty doom and gloom, so I truly enjoyed approaching the problems from a more optimistic perspective and focusing on how we can solve the problem versus what the various causes and problems were.
- Benefit from pooling skills.The focus on group work in this class was extremely beneficial. I think I got really lucky with my group. We all got along well, did our work, and put forth effort in every assignment. Working together was pretty easy and we had a very encouraging environment. The biggest thing I got from the group was seeing and benefiting from the combination of different skills and interest in one project. #TeamRAGE
- Importance of a people-centric perspective. Throughout the whole project process, we had to continuously think about what really enhances someone life. This provided a new problem-solving framework for me and a legit purpose. Thinking with the customer in mind helped us generate better products and ones that people would use. On top of giving us a concrete purpose, keeping the consumer in mind provided focus and allowed us to get creative and ‘crazy’ but stay grounded with a distinct goal.
- Importance of feedback. Feedback is important to any innovative project, whether from your teammates or target group. I’ve never participated in such a collaborative and evolving project, listening to my group members or customer feedback is what ultimately led to a cohesive and better project. As mentioned above we all have different sets of knowledge and you can glean different and valuable insights from everyone.
- The interdependence of issues and solutions. As learned in past classes, the current system of business and corporations cause a lot of pollution. The current production & consumption system we have in place create and support a throwaway culture. This gives a negative view of business as a whole, but through this class, I’ve seen the ways that the system can be changed to better interact with the Earth. Minimizing waste and one a done culture while still being economically viable. I had never heard of the Circular Economy before this course. It was a revolutionary idea upon my first exposure, but the more we talked and learned about the more it made sense. It was great to realize that part of the problem could be used as a solution and that people have already been thinking and developing ways to accomplish this.
