Academic Programs

The recognition of credits and grades depends on the study and examination regulations of your home university. We recommend that you check with your examination office in advance to find out whether recognition is possible.

Students from all over the world join our programs, so you’ll hear many different languages in our hallways. To make sure everyone can fully participate, the entire program is held in English. A good command of English will help you take an active part in workshops and teamwork.

For students of the HPI and the University of Potsdam, participation in all programs is free of charge. 

For external students, a admission fee/participation fee applies: 

• Foundations of Design Thinking: €100
• Global Design Thinking Workshop (GDTW): €100

If you change your mind, a refund of the fees is only possible if you cancel your registration by the deadline on the first day of the program. This applies to all programs with fees (Foundations and Global Design Thinking Workshops).

• Foundations of Design Thinking, approx. 180 hrs total (120 hrs onsite + 60 hrs independent work)
• Global Design Thinking Workshop, approx. 60 hrs total (approx. 45 hours onsite+ 15 hrs independent work)
• Wayfinder, approx. 36 hrs total (24 hrs in class + 12 hrs self-study); with ECTS an additional 52 hrs for the paper (approx. 88 hrs in total)

You can download the descriptions of the scope of the individual courses and the semester overviews with the planned times directly in the respective courses. Most of the courses take place on-site at the HPI d-school. You can find details in the semester overviews. 

At the end, there is a final presentation and a documentation that must be submitted.

Students from all disciplines (Bachelor’s, Master’s, PhD) – regardless of university or nationality – are welcome to apply. You can join either in the winter semester (October–February) or summer semester (April–August). The Global Design Thinking Workshop is offered as a 6-day program in March and September, while Wayfinder takes place as a 4-day program between May–July and November–January.

To apply, simply go to the application page of the respective program, fill in your name, contact details and student information, and answer two short questions: What motivates you to apply, and what skills do you bring? A formal letter of motivation is not required. Just be yourself – we want to get to know you.

• Applications for Foundations and Global Design Thinking Workshops (GDTW) are open to anyone interested. Previous Design Thinking knowledge is unnecessary and will be taught to you in the respective program.
• The Wayfinder program is aimed at HPI students in the master's program.

We offer a maximum of 40 places in the Foundations program on-site each semester. In addition, a Global Design Thinking Workshop (GDTW) takes place at least once a year with a maximum of 40 participants. We offer a maximum of 18 places for our Wayfinder program.

Since our program is based on different perspectives, we seek students and graduates from all disciplines – architecture, education, IT systems engineering, and business administration to future research.

We are looking for enthusiastic people who enjoy working together in teams. You should be committed and empathetic towards both people and the tasks at hand. You should be open to new ideas and perspectives. You should have a passion for your academic field but also be curious about other disciplines and ideas.

We would like to enable you to participate equally and independently, even if you have a handicap or chronic illness. All buildings and rooms are barrier-free, and disabled-accessible sanitary facilities are available. The connection to local public transport is also largely barrier-free. We are open to individual concerns that enable and improve participation in the program.

Thinking outside your own (academic) box is part of Design Thinking training: Since innovative solutions to complex problems require different disciplines, it is an advantage if, as a problem solver, you have skills that go beyond your own area of ​​expertise. This promotes understanding and viewing from different perspectives. We ask you to create the T-profile to gain a better insight into your professional experience, academic knowledge, personal interests, projects, and interdisciplinary skills. 

There is only one rule: the vertical line should be filled with relevant information about your academic career. Competencies and activities that are not directly related to your academic training are entered on the horizontal line. How and in what form you want to design this – as text, image, diagram, or photo – is entirely up to you. What matters is that the most important information about you must fit on one page. So go ahead and show us your personal T-profile!