Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina

UFSC Design Program was created in 1999 and is considered today one of the best Design degrees in the country. The program has achieved grade 4 at the ENADE (the national examination of students’ performance) and was also ranked 4 stars by the Editora Abril, a Brazilian publishing house, in 2017.

The program follows an open organizational structure that allows flexibility among the different areas of design specialization. In this structure, students choose their own study paths according to their skills and abilities – which are often revealed during the course of their studies. The Design Project modules are responsible for guiding their academic pathway.

Each Design Project course must be taken together with three other courses which, combined together, will meet its parallel prerequisites (see figure 1). The prerequisite courses give support to the development of the project and their instructors are responsible for the conduction, organization and evaluation of the student’s project, which should be based upon the content of all courses for the knowledge to be fully achieved.

[Figure 1: sample of a Design Project course module]

For degree completion, the student must take: all first-year introductory courses; all general required courses offered along with the project modules, which are also compulsory; the credit hours of elective courses (180 class hours); the compulsory internship component; and the inclusive courses, including those of the final project (PCC), as illustrated in figure 2. The student can seek advice from his/her supervisor or from the program coordinator on the best path to complete the program.

[Figure 2: graphic representation of the curriculum structure]

Program characteristics

Course type: on-campus
Title: Bachelor of Design
Total class hours: 3510
Full-time program

Infrastructure

Workshops
Computer Labs (PC and Mac)
Design/Project Rooms
Classrooms

Research Centers

NGD
DESIGNLAB
NAS Design
LOGO
HIPERLAB
G2E
SIGMO