A study of design education strategy for promoting multidisciplinary product designer at higher education in South Korea

The trend in society, economy, and culture throughout the current industry toward cross-functional integrated system, and in parallel there is an increasing understanding by business of the role that design can contribute to improving competitiveness and innovation. Hence, designers are inevitably called to deal with a wider variety of today, and develop their insight, knowledge, and information processing with this stream. As it is becoming more critical that designers are trained to think strategies and collaborate, and required to solve problems with a holistic perspective, multidisciplinary approach to design education has taken on greater importance than ever. With the changing context of design, design education is in the midst of change to multidisciplinary education embracing different disciplines, especially integrating design, engineering and business. With this trend, over the years various attempts have been made to promote and improve design education through an integrated curriculum domestically, however a shortage of professional technicians with well-rounded background to the character and difference of curriculums has caused design education of South Korea to a standstill. Therefore, this study aims to explore benchmark cases with multidisciplinary design education in a powerful country of design industry and a better guideline of educational curriculum for Domestic circumstances in South Korea. As a result, leading universities shift their focus to design education that enhance practical knowledge for business as well as insight in problem solving in order to fuse other disciplines. Based on the results, this paper proposes the following key strategies as the direction for efficient application of the upgraded design education. First, development of curriculums to enhancing creative and practical problem-solving skills. Secondly, improvement of business customized programs reflecting demands of the industry.