For both tracks, the first year of the MID is investigative and orientates you to the program. During this period of time, candidates will be introduced to Discursive/Experimental Design and Audience-Centered (Human-Centered) Design in Graduate Studio I and II respectively. It has minimal curriculum requirements with most credits being made available for elective studies.
The Graduate Studio I typically starts from speculative design projects and culminates with experimentation for the real world. Students in this course focus on areas of the design discipline that treat design not as a vocational tool for developing products that solve problems, but rather as a practice of critical inquiry. Through individual research and making, students are invited to discover the unknown and ask relevant and pointed questions, with attempts to use design to question and reveal the underlying assumptions of the systems in which we operate as designers, but also as citizens, humans, animals.
In Graduate Studio II, students are provided with the occasion to critically reassess their existing design process and their current ideas about industrial design. There will be a strong emphasis on defining and understanding various types of end user groups and stakeholders in both commercial and social contexts for students to drive their designs, critique their assumptions, research conclusions, and design agendas. Through a series of projects, students will be equipped with a critical understanding of the field that can direct a practical means of applying their ideas.
The following final Thesis Year allows candidates to use required and elective credits to construct a self-directed engaging challenge to the discipline.
