Program

A curriculum drawn from across UC San Diego

The MDes is a full-time graduate degree for people who want to become design leaders. The program focuses on judgment: learning to decide well when problems have competing stakeholders, budget constraints, and incomplete information.

The program is housed in the Design Lab at UC San Diego, with faculty spanning cognitive science, engineering, medicine, public health, economics, and more.

Who should apply:

The MDes works for people early in their careers (or mid-career pivots) from engineering, social sciences, public health, architecture, and the arts. You don’t need design experience, but you need to be willing to commit to developing it seriously.

Sample Plan of Study

The MDes curriculum moves through three stages: a shared foundation, a deepening core, and a culminating project or thesis. Required courses focus on understanding people and the practice of making. Electives, drawn from across UC San Diego, can be customized to support future career goals within the program’s 72-unit minimum requirement.

Year 1: Foundation.

Year 1 establishes a shared foundation across all students, regardless of background. Core studios and seminars cover human-centered design, prototyping, research methods, and systems thinking.

Fall	Winter	Spring
DSGN 200 Design of Everyday Things	DSGN 201 Human-Centered Design & Complex Sociotechnical Systems	Elective
DSGN 100 Prototyping	DSGN 261 Advanced Design Project	Elective
Elective	DSGN 430 Introduction to Academic Design Research	Elective
	DSGN 219 Design@Large

Year 2: Application.

Year 2 deepens practice through advanced studios and seminars in humanistic research and socio-technical systems. Conclude with a Capstone project partnering with a real organization, or a faculty-mentored Research Thesis exploring your own question.

Fall	Winter	Spring
DSGN 400 Design Studio Methods	DSGN 450A Integrated Design Methods OR DSGN 431 Academic Design Research Thesis	DSGN 450A Integrated Design Methods OR DSGN 431 Academic Design Research Thesis
DSGN 410 Humanistic Design Research	Elective	Elective
DSGN 420 Socio-Technical Systems	Elective	Elective
DSGN 219 Design@Large

Two years of learning. Project-based application to bring it together.

Capstone

The Capstone Track is a chance to put the full program to work on a real problem, for a real organization, under real constraints.

Over two quarters, teams take on a challenge brought to the program by a sponsor organization, moving from problem-finding in the first quarter to solution-finding in the second. Working under faculty guidance, students leave with portfolio-ready work, experience navigating real organizations, and sponsor relationships that can launch a career.

Thesis

The Thesis Track is for students who discover, through the MDes, that their interests run deeper into academic design research than into immediate practice.

Thesis students replace the two-quarter capstone with two quarters of directed research, working closely with faculty members. The Thesis Track is available by petition, and students typically find their way to it through DSGN 430: Introduction to Academic Design Research.

Foundational Sequence:

A project-based course in human-centered design, effective design process, and how high-performing creative teams form and work. Drawing on principles from cognitive science, students learn about affordances, constraints, mappings, and conceptual models, then begin to develop the observational and design skills of a human-centered design thinker.

An exploration of cognitive principles behind thinking through making. Students learn methods and tools for prototyping user experiences, from sketching and bodystorming to cardboard modeling and UI hacking, and take part in weekly critique sessions.

A quarterly seminar series on current topics in design, curated around a central theme each quarter by a different Design Lab faculty member. Open to all at UC San Diego and the wider community, the seminar brings in leading researchers and practitioners, and expects students to engage critically. Required twice across the program.

A self-directed team project with faculty mentorship, providing the learning outcomes of a studio sequence. Builds cohort culture and establishes norms for peer learning through project work.

Core courses:

Foundations of design from an explicitly multi-epistemic and multidisciplinary lens, with emphasis on power, privilege, and ethical responses. Covers the full range of design strategies, from classic professional-led approaches to co-design and community-driven variations.

Master advanced prototyping across materials and techniques: manual, CNC, additive manufacturing, electronics, light, sound, and spatial design. Develop judgment about fidelity levels and what prototypes accomplish at each stage.

Deepen your research toolkit beyond interviews and surveys. Learn ethnography, case study, phenomenology, visual culture studies, and participatory design. Understand how to design ethical research plans and triangulate findings.

Understand how people, technology, and organizations interact within larger systems. Apply tools like root cause analysis, systems modeling, and social network analysis to anticipate unintended consequences and design more effective interventions.

Develops an understanding of the difference between project-based user research (to inform a specific design) and academic design research (to advance the field). Students learn to form testable research questions, review literature, employ appropriate methods, and interpret results. Prepares all graduates to maintain professional currency, and opens a door for those who discover an interest in pursuing a PhD.

First quarter of your capstone project with a real sponsor organization. Focus on problem-finding, research synthesis, and framing a design brief. Integrate design process models, program management, and team leadership as you scope the project.

Second quarter of your capstone. Move into concept generation, prototyping, testing, and implementation. Deliver a final presentation, report, prototypes, and implementation plan. Complete a reflective journal chronicling your growth as a designer and critiquing your team’s process.

Elective courses:

Design is only as powerful as its ability to move people. This course develops narrative as an essential tool for contextualizing research, communicating solutions, persuading stakeholders, and sparking action. Covers personal stories, user journeys, data stories, visual storytelling, body language, and chart design.

Additional electives are drawn from graduate offerings across UC San Diego in cognitive science, engineering, management, public health, urban studies, and more. Browse the full elective catalog here.

Studio Culture & Community

Small cohorts deliberately mixed across disciplines means peer learning rivals any syllabus. You work day to day in the Design and Innovation Building’s studio spaces and makerspace: prototyping, critiquing, and thinking alongside peers and faculty. Mentorship and relationships formed there shape your entire experience.

Beyond the core cohort, you’ll engage with a broader design community. DISCO (Design Lab Impact and Student Culture Organization) connects grad students through mentorship, peer support, and collaborative governance.