Undergraduate Degree
• Our students gain a strong foundation in design and engineering skills, depth in creative and visual thinking abilities, and a human-centered orientation to problem-solving.
What does a design degree prepare you for?
Since its inception in the 1960s, our program has always been a uniquely interdisciplinary major with a mission to graduate designers who can synthesize technology, aesthetics, and business factors in service of human need.
Our approach is highly experiential so our students can gain a feel for design work before leaving campus. Become empowered to make and build products, services, and experiences that have the potential to be transformative.
Attain a Making Depth
Get a strong engineering foundation that allows for a fluency in prototyping across a wide range of mediums. Deepen your technical know-how in a chosen Methods depth, plus strong visual thinking and expression abilities.
Develop X-Disciplinary Perspectives
Spark your capacity for curiosity. Immerse yourself in real-world contexts by learning in a chosen Domain focus and learn how to see problems in any discipline through a design lens.
Deepen Your Values
Learn a deeply human-centered orientation to problem-solving. Become a leading steward of the planet, all people, and the data we generate.
Engineering Base
Classes in science, math, and fundamentals from the School of Engineering form the rigorous foundation needed to work effectively as a designer.
Design Core
An integrated sequence that delves into needfinding and user research, expressing ideas visually, rapid prototyping across media, building to think, business factors, storytelling, and more. Ethics and implications work is integrated throughout the design core sequence.
Methods Depth
To help students sharpen their making skills and abilities–and gain professional fluency–we offer three methods depths, each of which enable students to effectively implement their design abilities.
Domains Focus
To help students gain added knowledge in a field of interest to them, we offer four Domain options so students can investigate interesting intersections with design.
Capstone Project
Students culminate their academic journey with this final project.
The School of Engineering
Since their creation in the 1960s, Stanford’s Product Design degrees were based on the radical concept that engineering can be human-centered and creative. While a lot has changed, it’s an idea that we’ve carried over into our current Design degree programs, which are offered within the School of Engineering (SoE) at Stanford.
Questions?
Not seeing the answer to your question? Get in touch with the undergraduate team by email — just click the link!