With the rapidly growing influence of AI and asynchronous learning resources, the role of general education is rapidly evolving. To an unprecedented degree, it now not only matters “what you know” but “what you can do” with what you know. Thus, experiential learning is of growing importance in all of education. It requires making sense of what you know, self-expression, and taking action. Learning only from a book (or other passive resources) is simply not enough. Ideally, a balanced general education today should enable all students to find things out (research), make sense of the world (reflection and integration), and envision what has never been while learning to do what it takes to make it happen (take initiative). Learning in this way may also address the most prominent problem in higher education today (identified by Howard Gardner at Harvard in his recent seven-year study): belonging, mental health and wellbeing. A life-transformative education today should lay the foundation for flourishing throughout a lifetime. This talk will present some lessons learned at Olin College in the last 15+ years of experimentation. At Olin, all students take multiple semesters of Design Thinking, integrated with efforts to build intrinsic motivation, and complete more than 20 collaborative group design-build projects before graduation. They also work for two semesters with a corporate client who pays more than $50,000 for the privilege of setting goals for their design work. Much if not all of this is transferable to any academic discipline, not just Engineering.