In 2014, the d.school's Stanford2025 project invited the Stanford community to imagine the future on-campus experience in the face of challenges raised by online learning. This produced deep insight into fundamental student needs and values. Now, in 2026, we invite students to enroll in this course and design the future in the face of questions, risks, and potential sweeping change from AI. Design teams will imagine possible futures and plan for college-age experiences within them. nWe will formulate and wrestle with questions such as: How might we view consciousness, perception, values and emotion in the future? How might college-age students view their career and life trajectories, if specialized skills are widely available to all? What will people need to master and how will they learn over their expanding life course? Will love, friendship and other human relationships be very different? What could go terribly right or wrong in any or all directions? Students in the class will work in small teams and build to think, prototyping in many mediums, with AI and without. Mid-quarter you'll make short science fiction films set in various futures that are neither utopias nor dystopias, but complicated future worlds people actually live in. We will then explore what might replace current college in some of these scenarios. The quarter ends with a showcase for the Stanford community, and public artifacts built to stand on their own and influence the university's future
3 units · Letter or Credit/No Credit
In 2014, the d.school's Stanford2025 project invited the Stanford community to imagine the future on-campus experience in the face of challenges raised by online learning. This produced deep insight into fundamental student needs and values. Now, in 2026, we invite students to enroll in this course and design the future in the face of questions, risks, and potential sweeping change from AI. Design teams will imagine possible futures and plan for college-age experiences within them. nWe will formulate and wrestle with questions such as: How might we view consciousness, perception, values and emotion in the future? How might college-age students view their career and life trajectories, if specialized skills are widely available to all? What will people need to master and how will they learn over their expanding life course? Will love, friendship and other human relationships be very different? What could go terribly right or wrong in any or all directions? Students in the class will work in small teams and build to think, prototyping in many mediums, with AI and without. Mid-quarter you'll make short science fiction films set in various futures that are neither utopias nor dystopias, but complicated future worlds people actually live in. We will then explore what might replace current college in some of these scenarios. The quarter ends with a showcase for the Stanford community, and public artifacts built to stand on their own and influence the university's future
Offered in Autumn 2026 at Stanford University.