<p>a current sophomore considering a minor in design.
i went on the cmu design school website but couldn't find much helpful info, except what you need for the application.</p>
<p>they say you need 2 fundamental design courses + 36 units of design electives. what exactly are these electives, can someone give me an example of the course number/title?</p>
<p>and how difficult/demanding is a design minor - are there lots of studio work, etc. like design majors? are the classes long?</p>
<p>i will need to overload in order to add this minor, so i want to make sure i can handle it.</p>
<p>thanks in advance</p>
<p>I think this is a list of courses for just generally, the school of design. (link: [Courses</a> > School of Design > Carnegie Mellon University](<a href=“http://www.design.cmu.edu/show_program.php?s=1&t=9]Courses”>http://www.design.cmu.edu/show_program.php?s=1&t=9))</p>
<p>I know of someone who majored in ID at CMU. Just like any top art program, expect to pull all-nighters to complete your assignments. I don’t think the classes are that long. It’s just the assignments take a long time to perfect, and sometimes, you may have to start over.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what you are thinking about majoring in, but I would suggest you to look at the BXA programs. Basically, you can combine a school in CFA (architecture, art, design, drama, or music) with Humanities, Science, or Computer Science. (link: [BXA</a> Intercollege Degree Programs - The Programs](<a href=“http://www.cmu.edu/interdisciplinary/programs/index.html]BXA”>Programs - BXA Intercollege Degree Programs - Carnegie Mellon University))</p>
<p>I looked into minoring in comm. design a lot as a freshman. To my knowledge it’s fairly competitive for spots, since the studios need to stay really small, but it’s not too crazy as long as you have some kind of substantive portfolio to show. </p>
<p>Electives usually include most non-core (studio) courses, to my knowledge. Things like Basic Interaction Design, Decoding Place, or Calligraphy would count as electives rather than studios, for example. </p>
<p>In terms of workload - I’ve lived with design majors and am in a capstone project with 2 right now. From everything I’ve seen, if you pay attention to your time management and don’t slack off, you shouldn’t have trouble getting things done in a timely manner. Especially considering you likely won’t be in the studios (which are the most hardcore part of the design program) you are sidestepping the bulk of the notorious “design workload”. So you should be just fine. :)</p>