I took a design thinking course in college, and it was something the people in charge were pushing really hard.

Tbh, I'm not sure what the big deal was. To me, without any prior "formal" (read: academic) entrepreneurship knowledge, it all felt extremely obvious. It's the basic process that pretty much everyone uses to solve some unknown problem

Find a need -> define the need further -> brainstorm solutions -> pick a favorite, start building and prototyping -> test - iterate -> present final prototype - GOTO start if needed.

I guess it's decent learning for people that are stuck on creating solutions for unknown problems (i.e "solution waiting for a problem to solve")