This textbook is designed to weave together with your own projects. To see what that means, I'll show how it worked for one student, Stephany. Do you think it will work for you? What might we need to customize?

Meet Stephany

<aside> <img src="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/c2ba1b0e-6a87-4236-a3d9-70db4cefdbc5/Screen_Shot_2021-08-15_at_1.03.27_PM.png" alt="https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/c2ba1b0e-6a87-4236-a3d9-70db4cefdbc5/Screen_Shot_2021-08-15_at_1.03.27_PM.png" width="40px" /> Stephany has a few social design projects:

• She makes organizational processes for a company in Kenya, and
• She wants to improve community practices around death in the modern world.
• She wants to throw unusual dinner parties in many cities, to help decide where to live next, and to build community. </aside>

The Interview

Before a student pays, we interview them about their projects.

When we interviewed Stephany, we asked: What population does she want to make meaning with? How could the projects go wrong? How could they go even better than she hopes? What values might guide her design of death rituals, dinner parties, and organizational practices?

Here are some of the values we found in Stephany's interview**:**

1. With the death rituals, she thinks families who have someone with a critical illness are underserved, and so are children, when siblings or family members die. She has a theory that rituals around continuing the practices of the dead or dying person might help.
2. With the dinners in various cities, we found two potential values: one about networks that increase their members' capacity to engage with one another, to be vulnerable, to spread agapic love, and to make things more meaningful for others; another is about guests at an event feeling held, supported in a structure designed by the host, knowing they have a role.

<aside> 💡 NOTE: Stephany makes intimate rituals and events. Other students make larger-scale things, like voting structures, alternatives forms of land ownership, and social networks. There's a surprising amount of overlap. I'll mention how we help larger projects as I go.

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Our students make various kinds of things.

Stephany's Roadmap

Immediately after this interview, we write a roadmap for the student. Stephany will learn each practice just-in-time, with mentors at her side, based on her own project milestones.

Here's part of Stephany's roadmap. In the second image, you can see how we've broken down each milestone into 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 group sessions, 👩‍🔬 mentor meetings and 📝 homework, with an exact hourly time for each.

<aside> 📂 Each element is a toggle which can be opened, to see exactly which homework and meetings are involved.

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<aside> 📂 Inside each toggle, you find an hourly breakdown.

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Stephany's roadmap—like most students—involves gathering values from populations she wants to serve, various design imagination and prototyping steps, writing-up her best ideas, and conversations with experts in her field.

<aside> 💡 Each student's schedule is a bit different, but here's a common sequence.

First month: Values-articulation. Weekly meetings with your guide, a few group sessions, 2-3 meetings with mentors, and possibly a transformative experience.

Next six weeks: Extending your design imagination, sketching, and prototyping. Meet with mentors to try other design directions. Test prototypes that help with particular hard steps.

Final two weeks: Talks with experts in the relevant design subfield.

Each student can also come to Joe's office hours each week with questions about the material, and will meet regularly with their guide.

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<aside> 👉 For more about the practices and methods, see Practices and Methods

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Deciding Whether to Take the Course