Posted this on the College Majors forum but there’s not much traffic over there. DS20 is a (mostly) untrained but very good artist (drawing). He took art last year in high school and came up with some stunning work. This year he is taking an animation class, which is in his school’s career and technical education department. His older brother is working in a field that is hiring UX designers left and right. What kind of major would be good to get into UX design? I haven’t quite figured out if it’s a computer science thing or an art/graphic design thing. Or maybe something else?
There are a lot of different ways in - you can start with a primary emphasis in art/design, computing, or psychology/human factors; but getting a knowledge base in at least two out of those three is helpful.
The CS+Design combined major at Northeastern is great for this, especially with the added enhancements of co-op and the student-led design studio. https://web.northeastern.edu/scout/ (The Interaction Design major by itself works too, but combining with CS can open a lot of doors for co-ops and beyond. The Cognitive Psychology minor or combined major is also a good option.)
Depending on the school, Cognitive Science can also be a great major for going into UX. UCSD, for example, has a great deal of UX and design work going on in its CogSci department. https://designlab.ucsd.edu/ RPI’s CogSci department is worth a look. Vassar is another school with strong CogSci (oldest CogSci department in the US) as well as strong visual arts.
RIT has a whole range of UX/design-related majors, including Human-Centered Computing as well as art/design-centric majors: http://www.rit.edu/emcs/admissions/academics/majors
Also Drexel: http://drexel.edu/westphal/academics/undergraduate/IDM/
and UW-Seattle: https://art.washington.edu/design/interaction-design-bdes (also the Human-Centered Design & Engineering major in the engineering school… or Informatics… depending on the emphasis desired).
and U of Utah: http://design.cap.utah.edu/programs/
If you can narrow down which “flavor” of program from that list is most appealing, then you can look for additional options that hit the same sweet-spot.
If you are talking about doing this from an engineering perspective, the most obvious route is through industrial engineering. Many (most?) industrial engineering programs have human factors as one of the focus areas in the department, which is all about UI design and ergonomics, etc.
No, @boneh3ad definitely not looking at the engineering perspective. It would be more from the art/graphic design perspective. @Chevda I see you moved this from College Search forum to the engineering forum, but I’m definitely not asking about an engineering major.
Thanks @aquapt for that additional info.
Well, if an engineering perspective isn’t the goal, then how did this end up in the engineering forum? I can move it elsewhere but I am not really sure where to move it at this time.
May as well leave the thread here, a few engineering posters, like @turbo93 are involved with UX (mostly with IE backgrounds) and may have some feedback.