Educational Renewal: IDE Bachelor
What is the role of design in our rapidly changing world? What will the designer of tomorrow need to succeed? Just some of the questions posed while re-designing IDE’s bachelor programme due to launch this August.
Educational Renewal: IDE Bachelor
August 2021 will see the introduction of an updated Bachelor’s. Over the last few years the faculty has taken a step back and looked at the role of design in a changing world. Design in a world where we face major systemic challenges, like access to healthcare and climate change, but also a world in which new technologies offer great potential.
Design for our future
The revised bachelor’s programme has been redesigned to better prepare Delft designers for this complex and challenging future and to help them develop the knowledge and design competencies they will need to succeed. The programme will empower students to analyse, shape, and innovate, connecting the potential of new technologies with the needs of people, organisations and society. It will prepare them not only for designing products but also for designing services or even parts of complex systems.
How will we do this? Of course familiar ingredients of the IDE Bachelor’s remain, such as challenging courses, inspiring teachers, enviable facilities and team work. But there are also new and distinct features. For example the fact that students are always designing. After all, the best way to learn how to design is by continuously doing design.
Always designing
Over the course of every semester, students work on projects based on real-world scenarios - four projects over the three year course, culminating in the Bachelor Final Project (BEP). These projects challenge students to integrate the knowledge developed during the courses and put the theory into practice. They build prototypes - making designs tangible, enabling user-testing and communication with stakeholders.
Active learning attitude
Also new is an explicit emphasis on an active learning attitude. Students are challenged to take responsibility for their own learning process and development, with the degree of staff direction decreasing over time. As students expand their kit of design tools and methods, the degree of academic freedom increases and they are able to choose their own path as Delft designers.
In the coming months we will share more details of the exciting new programme. Watch this space!
