I found the topic of participatory design very interesting and important for us design students. It is a topic I’ve considered incorporating into my thesis this year. I had heard the term and I knew about the concept of what is what but I didn’t know the history of it. So, I thought learning the back story of it was interesting. I feel like it is a topic that hasn’t been brought up enough in my design education here at IE, especially since many classes are related to products, services, and strategy. We’ve learnt about ethnography, from Michael Luebe, and the importance of getting non-designer’s voices heard. But typically as design students, and university students in general, when we do research for classes it is typically just our university friends. This typically leads to biases due to them being our friends. But if we were taught more about participatory design and if we were able to apply it affecitvely, it would be really beneficial for us students after we graduate and pursue a full-time job (what I want to do) or pursue a master’s degree.