Arts, Research, Innovation and Society by Gerald Bast Elias G. Carayannis & David F. J. Campbell

Author:Gerald Bast, Elias G. Carayannis & David F. J. Campbell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham

7.5 From Undergraduate to PhD: A 3D T-shaped Educational Framework

There is a growing body of discussion on T-shaped people, innovation mode and its impact on design education. However, efforts to develop innovation curricula that can truly meet the needs of this era and be effectively applied are still scanty worldwide (see Friedman 2012). We attempt to propose a 3D T-shaped educational framework and to explore possible approaches to cultivate design innovation talents. Our discussion is based on the prevailing Undergraduate-Master-PhD system (or equivalently, the Bologna Process in Europe). This framework is currently applied step by step in the College of Design & Innovation (D&I) of Tongji University. We will use the curriculum plan practiced in this college to explain the core conception of the 3D T framework. It is our hope that this framework may be useful for other design schools to plan their own curricula and disciplines.

A leading design school should shape its undergraduate, master, and PhD programs in light of distinct goals, cultivating different kinds of talents who are suitable for design, research, education, or management.

Undergraduate education focuses on vertical capability. It cultivates the vertical leg of T, whereas reserves sufficient room in the entire undergraduate curriculum for the horizontal stroke of T. Undergraduate curriculum thus aims to educate design professionals who have innovative thinking and broad knowledge. (See Figs. 7.3 and 7.4.) While students, as future “design professionals,” have to grasp and intensively enhance their vertical knowledge and skills, “innovative thinking and broad knowledge” relies in accumulation of horizontal knowledge and formation of design methods, which can be facilitated by bridging design with the real world in particular. In this sense, students will obtain a broad vision of knowledge related to design; in the meanwhile they will learn to master specific domain knowledge and skills from Year 1 on. Corresponding to different vertical capabilities, various programs are established. In D&I these programs are: industrial design, communication design, environmental design, and digital media design, with overlapping as well as distinct characteristics. Furthermore, establishing preliminary research courses, in addition to general education courses, facilitates students to expand their capabilities.

Fig. 7.3Distinct emphases in undergraduate and master programs

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