The d.school is the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford, our bold new design institute. It is the place at Stanford responsible for creating the new culture of radical design collaboration. It uses multidisciplinary teams to work on some of the world's hardest problems, problems like sustainability, education, and the application of technology in the developing world. The d.school is a place for Stanford students and faculty in engineering, medicine, business, the humanities, and education to come together to work on projects that require their different points of view.

That is an important qualification: to take classes at the d.school you have to be enrolled as a student in one of the schools at the University. You cannot be "admitted" to the Institute, nor can you "graduate" from its program. However, once you are admitted to the Engineering School, the School of Education, Humanities and Sciences, or the Business School you are eligible to participate in the d.school. For more information go to their website at http://www.stanford.edu/group/dschool/index.html.

Many students in the Joint Program in Design take one or two classes in the d.school. They find their training in design thinking to be vital to their teams. One of the principles of the d.school is that "...design thinking is the glue that holds the d.school community together". That makes Product Designers important members of that community.