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After completing his undergraduate degree in technical writing in 2019, Sai Allena (M.Des. ’25) returned to his native India during the COVID-19 pandemic in hopes of developing his own startups and getting his footing in the job market there. It was during this planning and development phase that Sai came across the field of design and design thinking.

“I was quite enamored by this marriage of logic and creativity, of technical skills as well as theoretical thinking of strategies and tactics,” he says.

Interested in diving deeper, Sai began looking for unique design programs that combined these those aspects of design into their curriculum. That’s when he came across the Master of Design program at ������̳’s Institute of Design.

Sai was immediately drawn to the university’s location in Chicago—“a town that just screams innovation”—in addition to its reputation for research and the program’s emphasis on affecting industry and creating social impact.

“Breathing the very air over here kind of makes you feel inspired,” he says.

It was especially through the “bright, diverse, and inspired individuals” he met at ID and ������̳ that provided him with the confidence and drive to get involved in various areas of campus life, including student organizations (even starting one of his own, called Creative Club), design competitions, taking part in ID’s annual immersion program, and client projects as part of his coursework.

It was through these experiences and learning from ID’s human-centered approach to design that helped Sai gain three main skills that have benefited him the most: thinking outside the box; applying theory to practice; and communication.

These skills have transformed the way he approaches real-world problems in and outside of the classroom. They’ve helped him use certain frameworks to build ideas and practice storytelling through problem-framing and prototyping.

One particular real-world project he worked on with fellow classmates came from an actual client, the nonprofit LatinX Digital Leaders Now, which approached ID to figure out how to build equitable pathways for disenfranchised students to make it from the classroom to the boardroom.

“I had the opportunity to interview over 30 people, a lot of them industry leaders, students from various backgrounds, parents even,” he describes.

Sai and his team proposed building an expo that brings various partners together to help foster and inspire opportunities for students of the Chicago area.

“The client chose to build this project,” Sai beams. “And they just recently got a grant from the State of Illinois to pursue this project.”

Reflecting on his time at ������̳, Sai sees every skill, opportunity, lesson, and experience he gained as an investment that will pay off for years to come.

“[������̳] has engrossed me in a curriculum that has provided me with the skills and tool sets that are directly translatable into industry success,” he adds. “And most of all, it has provided me with an experience that has helped me grow as a human being that I’ll be carrying for the rest of my life.”