Individual Study Plans [ISP or HOPS] are nowadays compulsory for every student in Finnish higher education institutions. This is typically the case in any university worldwide. This background and the increased use of IT-systems based  has resulted into surface level study planning; i.e. student is guided to only select the courses that he/she need in order to meet the degree regulations, and to build his/her course schedule.

Young adults come to universities with only little background on planning their life ahead. Typically students just go with the flow at least for the first years of their studies. In Aalto University School of Engineering as a part of a FUKS3-project emerged an idea to promote deeper study planning for freshmen students. Growing demand for graduating BSc after three years of studies, which is normative allocated time for the degree, also worked as a background motivator for better study planning. It would also be beneficial if students would use and update their plans regularly.

How could we reinvent ISP in order to promote students to plan their studies in a broader context, i.e. managing their life in general? What kind of ISP model would be such that students would assess and update regularly rather than doing it just once on their freshman year because it's compulsory?

The design process was broke down based on Stanford Design Thinking Process as follows:

Emphatize: I tried to think like student and figure out what kind of planning would motive students who are 19 years of age in general having just finished their high school level studies. Students go to study mainly because they want to work on the field after graduation. Project Planning skills was found to be key skill that wasn’t promoted in the curriculum enough in relation to the felt need from national surveys carried soon after graduation. Could study planning be more like project planning activity?

Define: For this I used fellow researcher and professor to further define the problem and possible solutions. Theoretical background was derived from personal/individual development framework that is used quite broadly in the UK.

Ideate: Bringing together two frameworks: personal development and project planning / management.

Prototype: To build a working prototype I needed to have a pilot group consisting of real freshmen students. I was able to get 7 students to participate in this pilot course in the academic year 2014-2015. Prototype was a huge success based on student’s comments and teachers’ observations during and after the course. Prototype was named Personal Development Project Plan, PDPP.

Test: Redefined prototype was implemented for freshmen curriculum for the next academic year 2015-2016 as an optional extra one credit course as a part of a two credit orientation course which is compulsory for every freshmen. Now 56 students are taking the course. This academic year the course will end in early March, but will continue with a small retrospective task in August 2016.

PDP - Personal Development Planning. University of Bath. http://www.bath.ac.uk/learningandteaching/enhance-learning-experiences/personal-development-planning.html Artto, Martinsuo, Kujala. 2011. Project business. Helsinki, Finland, http://pbgroup.tkk.fi/en/. Stanford Design Thinking Virtual Crash Course. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FzFk3E5nxM