Design MDes

About this programme

The Berkeley Master of Design (MDes) is a three-semester, professional graduate degree that prepares students to work in creative and technical roles for designing products, services and environments enabled by emerging technologies. The MDes is jointly offered by the College of Engineering (COE) and the College of Environmental Design (CED); this collaboration is reflected in the interdisciplinarity of the program’s faculty, student body, curriculum, and pedagogical approaches. The program's interdisciplinary curriculum connects technical rigor, design theory, and social practice and prepares students for a broad range of creative and technical roles for designing innovative products, services, and environments. Graduates leave the program as engaged and responsive social practitioners, with a deep understanding of the foundations of design and emerging technology and an informed awareness of people, contextual needs and societal impacts. Housed at the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation, the MDes provides a dynamic, hands-on curriculum that uniquely equips students to develop a critical perspective and navigate a range of technical languages and design methodologies. Studio-based coursework integrates programming, human-centered design process, and communication with hardware and software development. Exploratory project briefs encourage students to use design process to identify new problem spaces and to explore ideas through co-creative processes, iteration, and prototyping. A set of theory courses help shape students' critical lens on design through analysis and discussion of the implications of practice within an evolving environmental and socio-technology landscape.