One Semester Design Program for Graduating BTechs

In the last couple of years, the interest in Design programs has sky rocketed. People have noticed that most successful companies have designers on board, including the unicorns. Universities are rushing to introduce minors in Design, or at least offer a course on Design Thinking in engineering and other programs. The companies are preferring students who have some exposure to design during placements.

We at JK Lakshmipat University offer final year students a very exciting option to study Design for a semester. As part of our NEP2020 implementation, we have an M.Des. program which is modular in nature.

The first semester of the program consists of a bunch of foundation courses. This is what one needs as an exposure to design and design thinking. If you want to build a career in the area of your undergraduate studies and are looking at design as a way to boost your career, then this one semester exposure is all you need and you can leave the program with a certificate.

Specifically, the courses that you will do in this semester include Design process and methods, Visual representation and techniques, Craft, culture and habitat studies, Color and 2D forms, and finally a Design Project. The learning outcomes of this semester include building an understanding of the elements and principles of Design. The students are exposed to the world of critical and empathetic thinking with respect to identity, branding, packaging and story-telling, etc., culminating in a design project.

If you get attracted to Design and want to shift career goals towards Design, you are welcome to continue and complete the M.Des. program in another three semesters. Even in this, we have options for you. If you change your mind again after 2 semesters, you can leave with a PG Diploma. If you prefer to complete the degree with a good Design school abroad (we have a tie up with Edinburg Napier University, but you can go to any other university as well), you can go there after one year and complete the degree there. We will still give you a PG Diploma for the work done at JKLU.

The second semester has courses which have significant project component. This semester prepares them to embark on initiatives that create a wide range of products and services. Product UI, Usability testing and Wireframing courses assist them in developing solutions that address social needs in a user-centric and integrated manner. This semester will lead to a PG Diploma.

And those who continue for the second year, one can specialize in either Interaction Design or in Product Design.

Coming back to the first semester program, it will be really useful to students who are not taking up a job immediately, whether you are still looking for a job, or want to take a break and want to do something different before going for a job, or you simply have a delayed joining from the company where you got the campus placement. Our semester is expected to start around 1st August, and finish mid-December. To be on the safe side, you should plan to delay your job joining to 1st January. If that is possible, this one semester design exposure could be the best thing to happen to your career.

Here are some important links for more details:

M.Des. Program at JKLU

Admissions to Institute of Design, JKLU

Admissions site of JKLU

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Faculty Recruitment at JKLU: Science & Engineering

At JKLU, we believe that the quality of faculty is key to quality to education. To that end, we are very highly selective about our faculty. Most of our faculty have a degree from IITs or BITS or NITs. And most of our faculty has a PhD degree. We do have several types of faculty recruitment and this blog is an attempt to describe them. First a summary: Recent PhD from a top institution in India or abroad. This is our most common recruitment. MTech from a top institution as Lecturer. This is only for Computer Science. Existing faculty of IITs/NITs to come to JKLU on leave for upto 2 years. Recent Retirees or about to retire faculty of IITs/NITs. Professor of Practice - people in industry who love to teach full time. Senior PhD students as part-time faculty Visiting faculty for teaching a course: From top institutions or industry Lateral recruitment at all levels from other fine institutions. Any other mode that you can think of. Our recruitment process is multi-stage. It is expected tha...
Read more

One credit courses at JKLU

No academic institution can have faculty that can teach all types of courses well. There will be areas of strength and there will be areas of weaknesses. But we want our students to pick up knowledge from diverse fields. How do we manage this. Different universities solve this problem in different ways. The simplest way is to ask a faculty who cannot do justice to the topic to still teach it anyway. It is alright to do this for basic set of courses. Most good faculty members can do a reasonable job if not an excellent job of teaching courses which are not in their area of research but in the same broad discipline.  Since Covid, when we all got used to online teaching and learning, some universities are allowing students to earn credits from Swayam and other online portals.  Another unique way in which this is achieved at JK Lakshmipat University is by encouraging student mobility . Students, particularly in Engineering, spend a semester or two at some IIT or other fine instit...
Read more