Developing design professionals who question the status quo and create empathy
Contemporary society is growing increasingly diverse and complex, while difficult issues like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) abound. Digital and other technologies are constantly advancing, with the ferocious rate of change leaving people lost and confused. At the same time, users don’t appear to be experiencing any particular inconvenience or issues with the many products and services that have now matured. What society needs at times like these are professionals who can not only discover and solve problems but also imagine unknown problems that have yet to materialize and propose new ideas and directions.
In design engineering, we first observe and build empathy with the subject (individual users and society) so as to imagine an unknown problem, then come up with—design, in other words—ideas and solutions for that problem. Next, we implement these ideas using engineering technologies. We then have users actually try our solution and assess whether it resolves the problem for them. Design engineering means striving for incremental improvements through the ongoing repetition of this process.
The College of Design Engineering is committed to training professionals who can not only discover and solve real-world problems but also imagine unknown problems and propose new ideas toward realizing a better society.
Course Introduction
While the College of Design Engineering has three courses, they all follow the same design engineering process, with the main difference lying in the types of technologies used. The subjects which you should take for your course will therefore differ mainly in terms of specialist subjects and the relevant common subjects. We provide course-specific recommended subject schedules which should generally be followed, but students from any course can take any subject they wish, except for some subjects with enrollment limitations.
Campuses
1st and 2nd year: Omiya Campus
3rd and 4th year: Toyosu Campus
Characteristics of the College of Design Engineering
Curriculum
The College of Design Engineering curriculum consists of common subjects, specialist subjects, and project subjects. Common subjects develop the design thinking skills to imagine problems from the perspective of users and society. Liberal arts, English, and industry and society subjects will help you to understand social diversity and develop a well-rounded perspective and ethical awareness. Human-centric design subjects will enable you to understand people as your target audience and make proposals accordingly, while data science subjects will equip you to analyze your target audience and evaluation results, as well as serving as the foundation for specialist subjects. Also included as a common subject is “research methods and practice ,” which teaches methods for advancing the design engineering process and provides hands-on experience with these.
Specialist subjects focus on examining and implementing ideas. Design subjects develop the ability to refine ideas and express them in a design context so as to provide concrete images. Production engineering subjects equip students with the expertise to realize tangible ideas as actual products. Software subjects aim to realize intangible ideas through software, and intelligence and control subjects focus on realizing ideas involving actual operation. The design subject “Basic Design Practice” and the software subject “Introduction to Information Processing” in particular are essential to the design engineering process and are compulsory for all College students. Digital skills in the broad sense are developed through these specialist subjects.
Project subjects provide a practical opportunity to test the skills acquired through common and specialist subjects. Generally called “graduation research,” they are picked up by College of Design Engineering students as of the third year. These and many other practical subjects enable students to develop co-creation skills.
Grade Progression and Laboratory Assignment
Subjects are arranged so that basic subjects are taken in the lower years while 老挝磨丁赌场_老挝赌场-中国竞彩网官网推荐 specialist and advanced subjects are taken in the upper years. The first semester of the first year includes many basic subjects, resulting in many common subjects across all three courses. From the second semester of the first year, the number of specialist subjects gradually increase. The second year includes 老挝磨丁赌场_老挝赌场-中国竞彩网官网推荐 subjects that form the foundation of specialist fields, and students are expected to identify and begin to master the specialist area suited to them through these studies.
In the third year, the first project subjects begin, and students are assigned to laboratories. Students take subjects suited to their specialist field under the guidance of their laboratory advisor. To help students consider their specialist area and prepare for laboratory assignment, students take “Lab Exploration” in the second semester of the first year and “Lab Visit” in the second semester of the second year. This syllabus design enables students to learn about the various research fields.
The fourth-year “Comprehensive Project” is a culminative subject where students put into practice the knowledge acquired over the last three years to truly make it their own, acquiring the abilities to satisfy the College’s Diploma Policy.
Education and Research Objectives and Three Policies
The College of Design Engineering aims to train design engineers who can not only discover and solve real-world problems but also imagine unknown problems and propose new ideas toward realizing a better society. Our educational program therefore develops three key capabilities: design thinking, digital skills, and co-creation.
The College of Design Engineering aims to develop professionals who can not only discover and solve real-world problems but also imagine unknown problems and propose new ideas toward realizing a better society. The College confers a Bachelor’s degree on those who have fulfilled the academic requirements for graduation and who have acquired the following abilities:
- The basic academic skills and knowledge necessary for mastering specialist education
- The design thinking ability to question conventional wisdom and imagine problems from a user perspectives
- The design engineering expertise and digital technology skills to propose and implement ideas with a view to their application out in society
- The co-creation ability to actively marshal diverse views and collaborate with others to solve problems while maintaining high ethical standards
The College of Design Engineering implements education based on the following curriculum structure, educational content and methods, and evaluation of learning outcomes in order for students to acquire the abilities noted in the Diploma Policy.
Curriculum Structure
The curriculum is divided into common subjects, specialist subjects, and project subjects, arranged as follows to enable students to systematically master design engineering.
Common subjects comprise the subcategories of the liberal arts, English, human-centric design, industry and society, data science, and research methods and practice. Specialist subjects comprise the subcategories of design, production engineering, software, and intelligence and control.
Educational Content and Method of Implementation
Overall
- The curriculum has a practical focus, with all courses centering on hands-on work or research so as to develop digital skills and co-creation capabilities.
- A curriculum tree is provided to help students understand which subjects they should select based on their learning and education goals.
Common Subjects
- These subjects develop the design thinking capability to question conventional wisdom and imagine problems from a user perspective.
- Liberal arts, English, industry and society: Develop the necessary cultural literacy and ethical awareness to be able to understand diversity and consider matters from multiple perspectives based on social conditions and trends
- Human-centered design: Develops the ability to consider matters from a user perspective.
- Data science: Develops the basic academic skills necessary for acquiring specialist knowledge in engineering and information processing with a focus on digital skills.
- Research methods and practice: Develops the ability to consider matters logically and from multiple perspectives and to imagine unknown problems.
Specialist Subjects
- These subjects encourage systematic learning of specialist knowledge and acquisition of the skills to consider and realize ideas.
- Students are provided with the opportunity to learn specialist knowledge from other fields so as to encourage understanding of others’ backgrounds and co-creation.
Project Subjects
- These subjects focus on research-based practical education as an opportunity for students to demonstrate the abilities they have acquired through their common and specialist subjects.
Learning Outcome Evaluation
- Learning outcomes such as the degree of understanding and mastery of knowledge and skills and the degree to which capabilities have been acquired are evaluated through exam and task results, rubrics, and combinations of the above.
- The College uses a credit system that awards credits when learning outcomes reach certain levels relative to learning and education goals and the learning objectives of each subject.
The College of Design Engineering aims to develop professionals who can not only discover and solve real-world problems but also imagine unknown problems and propose new ideas toward realizing a better society, so we seek students who understand the Shibaura Institute of Technology’s founding philosophy and the College’s education and research policies and content and who have the character traits below.
Characteristics of students sought by the College of Design Engineering]
- Those who have a strong desire to pursue studies and research in the College of Design Engineering and who have acquired basic academic skills in relevant educational fields
- Those who are motivated to contribute to society and who have a great thirst for knowledge
- Those who are interested in using digital skills to realize new ideas and who do not hesitate to embrace learning in new fields
- Those who have a history of collaborating with people with different views from themselves and of challenging themselves without fear of failure
The College of Design Engineering aims to develop professionals who can not only discover and solve real-world problems but also imagine unknown problems and propose new ideas toward realizing a better society, so we seek students who understand the Shibaura Institute of Technology’s founding philosophy and the College’s education and research policies and content and who have the character traits below.
- Has acquired broad-ranging knowledge, understands diversity, and can think multi-dimensionally by drawing on a global perspective
- Can understand the impact and effects of technology on society and nature, as well as the social contributions and responsibilities of an engineer, and can act based on high ethical standards toward realizing a sustainable society
- Can understand and apply the fundamentals of mathematics, natural sciences, and digital skills
- Can identify problems from a user perspective and develop proposals to address these:
- Can understand the values and demands of people and society and set goals for the next society
- Can collect and analyze goal-relevant information and formulate plans accordingly, executing those plans while making adjustments as needed
- Social Informatics Design Course : Can utilize specialist knowledge in information system design and knowledge and skills from other specialist fields to concretize concepts and work toward their implementation
User Experience Design (UX) Course: Can utilize specialist knowledge in user experience design and knowledge and skills from other specialist fields to concretize concepts and work toward their implementation
Product Design Course: Can utilize specialist knowledge in product design and knowledge and skills from other specialist fields to concretize concepts and work toward their implementation - Can create the necessary materials and use them to facilitate communication with the relevant stakeholders