Interdisciplinary Design Secondary Major

Program details

All Iowa State students may elect to add a secondary major in Interdisciplinary Design to their plan of study as a complement to their first major.

Design plays a crucial role in innovation, imagination and human creativity. The secondary major in Interdisciplinary Design is an asset on any resume. It offers courses for students interested in pursuing careers and futures related to creative leadership, design for social change, disruptive innovation and user experience (UX), and provides the knowledge and skill sets necessary to address complex challenges and contemporary societal problems using key innovation and entrepreneurial concepts.

Interdisciplinary Design explores the central principle of human-centered experiences, and how people — users, customers, markets, audiences — are at the core of all creative activities and endeavors. Interdisciplinary Design dives deeply into the fundamental concepts that explain creative processes, from collaboration to iteration to implementation.

Upon completion of the interdisciplinary design secondary major program, students
will be able to:

• generate ideas and be creative and innovative makers who use design methods, theory and applications from multiple disciplines;
• think strategically and creatively about society’s increasing economic, social and environmental challenges across scales and levels of complexity;
• integrate and apply principles, values and mindsets of innovation and entrepreneurship;
• synthesize knowledge from many sources and work collaboratively within interdisciplinary teams; and
• work with confidence in contexts where design thinking, skills in making and critical analysis are valued.

Curriculum

This program provides a strong foundation in creative problem solving, design thinking, strategic design, leadership and project management and new product development. Interdisciplinary Design builds an understanding of the innovation journey through design tools and techniques for ideation, insights forecasting and prototyping with users. This is the place to initiate a project, explore how to take an idea to execution and discover how to turn an insight into a reality.

The Interdisciplinary Design curriculum is built around a set of required innovation and design entrepreneurship-focused interdisciplinary studios and other required and elective courses, with many options for students across all university majors.

The secondary major in Interdisciplinary Design requires a minimum of 27 semester credits. Students seeking a secondary major in Interdisciplinary Design must complete:

Anchor courses (15-18 credits total)

• DES 1500X: Introduction to Innovation and Design, 3 cr.
• DES 2300: Design Thinking (meets university social science requirement), 3 cr.
• DES 2400: Design Innovation Studio, 3 cr.
• DES 3400: Interdisciplinary Foundation Studio III, 3 cr.
• DES 4950: Launchpad, 3-6 cr.

Other required courses (9-10 credits total)

For majors outside the College of Design

• 3 credits in a design history course (meets university humanities requirement for non-design students)
• 3 credits in Communications; choose from SPCM 2120, ENGL 3020, ENGL 3090, ENGL 3140
  (already required in many Ivy College of Business and College of Engineering majors)

For College of Design majors

• DSNS 1830: Design in Context, 3 cr.
• DSNS 1020: Design Studio I, 4 cr.
• 3 credits in Communications; choose from SPCM 2120, ENGL 3020, ENGL 3090, ENGL 3140 (meets university humanities requirement for some design majors)

Elective (3 credits total) – Choose one

• DES 2500: Design Intersections, 3 cr. in a design special topic
  (meets university international perspectives requirement for non-design students)
• DES 3330: Time-Based Digital Media, 3 cr.
  OR
• Approved elective(s) from a College of Design department, 3 cr.
  (please consult with academic advisor to choose an approved elective that enhances depth of knowledge in first major)

How to add this major

To add Interdisciplinary Design as a secondary major, contact the academic advisor for your primary major. They will fill out the curriculum change form to add IDES as your second major.