About the Program

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Master's Degree Requirements

The Master of Design (MDes) program requires nine core courses, two technical electives, and one additional elective in social practice or entrepreneurship to meet a minimum of 38 units.

Required Courses

Elective Courses

The MDes requires two technical electives, and at least one entrepreneurship or social practice elective from the approved lists of courses, shown below. Students may submit petitions for alternate courses to the Executive Director.

Admissions

The Master of Design (MDes) is designed for early to mid-career professionals with an interest in pursuing graduate work at the intersection of design and technology, with applications that might include artistic production, technological innovations, product design, and design interventions in cities. Competitive applicants have some prior technical preparation and an interest in design as a creative, goal-oriented activity that can contribute to the emergence of innovative new technologies and environments.

Application Criteria

The following are required for admission to the Berkeley MDes program. The following includes the University’s general graduate admission requirements:

• Online Application
• Application Fee
• University Transcripts
• Curriculum Vitae (CV) or Resume, showing relevant work and/or research experience
• Two Essays (personal statement and statement of purpose)
• Three Letters of Recommendation
• Project portfolio, showing previous design work
• English Language Proficiency Requirement (if required)
• The GRE Exam is not required.

In addition, students may be invited for an interview, either in-person or remote, and should be prepared to explain their qualifications, motivations to apply to the program, and goals for the program.

Portfolio Requirements

All applicants are required to submit a portfolio that demonstrates their creative and technical proficiency. Depending on your individual practice, this may include examples of visual design work, software systems, interactive electronics, videos, paintings, 3D models, ceramics, performances, musical compositions, social practices, or many other types of creative or technical pursuits.
Your portfolio should be legible to a general audience of designers, and should not only present representations of final outcomes/designs in their intended contexts, but also accounts of your design process, and samples of early design iterations. Portfolios are expected to include both images and supporting text and should convey the context from which the project arose and the lens through which to understand and critique the work. Collaborative work is encouraged, but please credit all authors and highlight your specific contribution. Similarly, academic, professional, and personal work are all welcome, but please differentiate these distinct types of work.

In our experience, strong portfolios often opt to describe a limited selection of projects in depth, rather than account for a large breadth of projects superficially. We suggest highlighting between 3–5 of your most compelling exemplars of creative work. The most important role of a portfolio is to clearly communicate your skills, experience, and perspective. Your portfolio must include your name and contact information and be submitted as a stand-alone PDF formatted document. You may submit your portfolio of up to 20 pages maximum and 20MB total PDF file size. Portfolios that are submitted in excess of this page and size restriction will not be reviewed by the admissions committee. Any URLs or links to outside materials within your portfolio or elsewhere in your application will not be reviewed. You may optionally include up to two minutes of additional time-based media (audio/video). 

Graduate Division Admissions

Minimum Requirements for Admission

The following minimum requirements apply to all graduate programs and will be verified by the Graduate Division:

1. A bachelor’s degree or recognized equivalent from an accredited institution;
2. A grade point average of B or better (3.0);
3. If the applicant comes from a country or political entity (e.g., Quebec) where English is not the official language, adequate proficiency in English to do graduate work, as evidenced by a TOEFL score of at least 90 on the iBT test, 570 on the paper-and-pencil test, or an IELTS Band score of at least 7 on a 9-point scale (note that individual programs may set higher levels for any of these); and
4. Sufficient undergraduate training to do graduate work in the given field.

Applicants Who Already Hold a Graduate Degree

The Graduate Council views academic degrees not as vocational training certificates, but as evidence of broad training in research methods, independent study, and articulation of learning. Therefore, applicants who already have academic graduate degrees should be able to pursue new subject matter at an advanced level without the need to enroll in a related or similar graduate program.

Programs may consider students for an additional academic master’s or professional master’s degree only if the additional degree is in a distinctly different field.

Applicants admitted to a doctoral program that requires a master’s degree to be earned at Berkeley as a prerequisite (even though the applicant already has a master’s degree from another institution in the same or a closely allied field of study) will be permitted to undertake the second master’s degree, despite the overlap in field.

The Graduate Division will admit students for a second doctoral degree only if they meet the following guidelines:

1. Applicants with doctoral degrees may be admitted for an additional doctoral degree only if that degree program is in a general area of knowledge distinctly different from the field in which they earned their original degree. For example, a physics PhD could be admitted to a doctoral degree program in music or history; however, a student with a doctoral degree in mathematics would not be permitted to add a PhD in statistics.
2. Applicants who hold the PhD degree may be admitted to a professional doctorate or professional master’s degree program if there is no duplication of training involved.

Applicants may apply only to one single degree program or one concurrent degree program per admission cycle.

Required Documents for Applications

1. Transcripts: Applicants may upload unofficial transcripts with your application for the departmental initial review. If the applicant is admitted, then official transcripts of all college-level work will be required. Official transcripts must be in sealed envelopes as issued by the school(s) attended. If you have attended Berkeley, upload your unofficial transcript with your application for the departmental initial review. If you are admitted, an official transcript with evidence of degree conferral will not be required.
2. Letters of recommendation: Applicants may request online letters of recommendation through the online application system. Hard copies of recommendation letters must be sent directly to the program, not the Graduate Division.
3. Evidence of English language proficiency: All applicants from countries or political entities in which the official language is not English are required to submit official evidence of English language proficiency. This applies to applicants from Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Latin America, the Middle East, the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, most European countries, and Quebec (Canada). However, applicants who, at the time of application, have already completed at least one year of full-time academic course work with grades of B or better at a US university may submit an official transcript from the US university to fulfill this requirement. The following courses will not fulfill this requirement:
   • courses in English as a Second Language,
   • courses conducted in a language other than English,
   • courses that will be completed after the application is submitted, and
   • courses of a non-academic nature.

If applicants have previously been denied admission to Berkeley on the basis of their English language proficiency, they must submit new test scores that meet the current minimum from one of the standardized tests. Official TOEFL score reports must be sent directly from Educational Test Services (ETS). The institution code for Berkeley is 4833. Official IELTS score reports must be mailed directly to our office from the British Council. TOEFL and IELTS score reports are only valid for two years.

Where to Apply

Visit the Berkeley Graduate Division application page. 

Program Outcomes

The goal of the Master of Design (MDes) program is to educate a cohort of designers to have a deep understanding of the foundations of emerging technologies and a rigorous design approach for analyzing ethical, ecological and societal implications of a continuously evolving environmental and socio-technology landscape. To meet this goal, MDes students are expected to:

• Master methods of problem-conception and problem-solving at a range of social and ecological scales.
• Hone methods of implementation grounded in the creative practice of design.
• Gain core design skills, in terms of process, materials, craft, and representation.
• Deepen and expand their technical skills in 1-2 emerging technology areas.
• Explicitly consider contexts and impacts of design decisions.
• Use design as a tool for collaboration and team-work.
• Communicate design ideas effectively to diverse collaborators.
• Weave all of the above together in multiple practice-focused studios.

Research Resources

Teaching Opportunities

MDes students may apply for GSI positions, when they are available, for undergraduate design courses offered at The Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation. These teaching opportunities are optional and MDes students are expected to be able to balance GSI responsibilities with their own educational commitments with little difficulty.

Professional Development Activities

MDes students are expected to complete Design@Large, a professional development requirement for the program. Design@Large requires students to engage in an experience outside of an MDes course or studio where they apply what they have learned in a broader context. Design@Large experience typically takes place in the summer between the Spring and Fall semesters and is uniquely defined to align with students’ interests and career goals. 

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