UBCO's Dr. Gao Yujie and Dr. Megan Smith discuss some of the learning strategies that will be used for UBCO's newly-introduced Master of Design program.UBC Okanagan is introducing a one-year master's program that combines hands-on learning, creativity, innovation and global thinking into one professional certificate.
The new graduate program at UBCO aims to inspire learners who are not afraid to employ forward-looking solutions to some of the most pressing problems facing the world today. The new professional Master of Design (MDes) will start at UBCO in May 2025.
"This is an entirely new program in the Okanagan, and we are excited because we see it as a way of empowering people to tackle big challenges," says Dr. Megan Smith, Director of the Master of Design Program and an Associate Professor of Media Studies at UBCO. "Students will come to us with big problems they want to solve in their communities. We will gather faculty around them and equip them to tackle those challenges."
In designing the program, UBCO's Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, School of Engineering and Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences sought examples from around the world of how creativity and design factored into some of the most important work being done by innovative organizations and individuals.
"From the outset, we asked ourselves how can we produce outsized effects, given the challenges we are facing as a society?" says Dr. Kenneth Chau, an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at UBCO, and one of the faculty members who helped bring MDes to fruition. "It's about bringing people together who have a desire to make a difference and think differently."
The interdisciplinary program will bring together community-minded students and faculty from diverse backgrounds including fine arts, media studies, humanities and social sciences, and engineering.
"It's about asking yourself-how can I understand my community better? How can I understand what the needs are, and how to address them? The program is taking a new approach to driving change," Dr. Chau explains.
To help inspire and set students up for success, they will learn in a cutting-edge, custom-built new media lab. The space is designed and outfitted to ensure students can make the biggest possible impression through the program and its pillars-design, innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship.
"One of the reasons why entrepreneurship is built into the program is that we are looking at the way people can change the world through new ways of doing business, new economies and new ways of working together," notes Dr. Smith.
Working together across disciplines, borders and ways of thinking is increasingly important for community and business leaders, notes Dr. Alon Eisenstein, Assistant Professor of Teaching with the School of Engineering.
"This program was designed from the ground up to be interdisciplinary. When we speak about creativity and design, we may use the same words and mean different things. We are going to challenge our misconceptions and our preconceptions," says Dr. Eisenstein, MDes instructor. "We are looking for people who have that internal passion to make a change to the world around them. The future leaders of our communities, across the social, environmental and economic sectors, will require these skills and this collaborative problem-solving mindset."
