Industrial designers are responsible for shaping and improving how people experience and interact with products, environments, and services. Some of the areas you will find Industrial Designers working are product innovation, point-of-purchase design, and branding. With a student-to-professor ratio of 15-to-1, students have the opportunity to experience the benefits of a small class in the setting of a large university. The Industrial Design curriculum is project-based and allows students to explore design concepts and product designs through ideation, collaboration, iterative prototyping, and reviews.
Students accomplish a curriculum-based education through research and design projects that are often supported by industry partners and grants. We aim for our curriculum to parallel the relationship between a product design team and manufacturer found in industry. With the program’s experiential learning approach allowing students to apply their education toward solving real-world problems, this results in a comprehensive portfolio of their designs and creations to present to potential employers.
Industrial design students have access to fabrication shops that include woodworking equipment, industrial-sized CNC routers, metal fabrication areas, vacuum-formers, 3-D printers, laser cutters, and a large-scale paint booth. These technologies are used to bring a student’s designs ‘off the paper’ in the form of prototypes and models.
Students seeking to expand their viewpoints and connect with critical issues of the world have the opportunity to Study Abroad. Past opportunities have included Ireland, Scotland, England, France, Germany, Italy, China, and Taiwan.