We’ve living in a new era. The certainties we’ve relied on until now: stable democracies, globalism, multiculturalism, and geopolitical agreement are fragmenting. Trust in our institutions is at a historic low. At a deeper level, many of us are losing trust that society is moving toward a future we'd want to live in.

But when things fall apart, space opens for something new. This is also a time in which exciting ideas can take hold fast. A time to redefine what makes a good society. What does real progress look like, and what values should it be based on? How do fix our media landscape so that we can agree on truth again? What kind of relationship do we need to have with our technology to ensure it supports human flourishing?

None of us know. This course is about asking those questions together and moving forward. We’ll be exploring the emerging edge of the cultural conversation with the help of a brilliant faculty of heterodox thinkers, as well as developing cognitive and conversational skills that help us thrive in uncertainty.

And we won’t stop there. The next step after we’ve made sense is to make an impact. Sensemaking 102 is as much about coming into our agency as it is about making sense of what’s happening in the world. It’s about supporting one another to find ways to make a difference within our own spheres of influence.

The futurist Jordan Hall has described this era as ‘post-strategy’, meaning that any strategies we enact become obsolete so fast that traditional strategizing is effectively obsolete. That's why the skills we’ll be learning aren’t the same ones we use when we know where we’re going. When the landscape changes every day, you need the same kinds of skills you need to cross an ocean. We can aim our ships in a direction and navigate by the stars, but ultimately we’re launching into the unknown. Finding new shores relies on our presence, our creativity and our courage.