Admission

Evaluation process: Areas of Expertise

To evaluate your application, the committee focuses on competences in five areas of expertise, commonly developed in other academic disciplines:

1. Competences in Creativity and Aesthetics such as imagination, creativity, visual and aesthetical presentation, and argumentation, commonly developed in the Arts and Humanities.
2. Competences in Technology and Realization such as mechatronic, computer-aided design, or material engineering, commonly developed in Engineering Disciplines such as electrical or mechanical engineering.
3. Competences in User and Society such as qualitative and quantitative study design and interpretation, working with theoretical frameworks, and answering societal questions, commonly developed in the Social Sciences.
4. Competences in Business and Entrepreneurship such as planning business development, devising marketing strategies, or showing operational skills, commonly developed in Economics and Management studies. 
5. Competences in Math, Data, and Computing, such as programming, data science, or knowledge about natural laws, commonly developed in Formal Sciences such as Physics and Computer Science.

The committee is looking for a balanced development in all five, but at least three expertise areas.

1. Portfolio*

We ask for a portfolio demonstrating your competences in the five expertise areas—the portfolio is also required for applicants without a design background. The portfolio is used for gauging your qualities, skills, and thought processes, as a designer. We value the conceptual and aesthetical quality of your portfolio and are looking for work on physical and digital contributions, e.g., sketching and prototyping, but also scripting, programming, and work with microelectronics.

For technical projects without a visual component such as scientific investigations, software development, or essay-based projects, please provide a brief (max. 200 words) description of the project.

For each project indicate if the work was performed individually or as part of a team. For team projects, please indicate your unique contribution to the project.

Formal requirements:

• We expect the portfolio to be delivered as a PDF or PowerPoint presentation. The size of the portfolio should not succeed 5Mb. 
• Please aim for one, a maximum of two pages, per project and stay within a 15-page limit for your portfolio. Only in exceptional cases, we are willing to investigate portfolios that substantially succeed our page limit.
• Our primary interest is in the quality of your projects. However, we expect attention to the presentation of the portfolio either by showing graphic design skills or by paying close attention to a clean and visually accessible presentation.

*International Master students (Non-Dutch prior education: Please include your CV and motivation letter in your portfolio.)

2. Transcript of records

Please provide an official and verified transcript of records from your school. Assure that the transcript of records is translated to English. The transcription needs to be verified by the school or a verified translator.

3. Graduation project

Please describe your graduation project on a maximum of two pages. Please highlight which competences you applied during your final project.

4. Overview of your competences

To assure that the submission is accessible to us, and to provide you with the opportunity to accurately show your skills, we ask you to provide an overview of evidence for your competence development in at least three of the five different expertise areas. For example, you could demonstrate your competences in User and Society by listing courses on experimental design, on theories of sociology, and by referring to a user study where you evaluated a design artefact, or present findings from a literature review.

For the self-assessment, please create a table like the one displayed below, and list where you see evidence for the different expertise areas. Should a course or project speak to more than one expertise area, feel free to assign the same course or project to two different columns. We are not only looking for knowledge learned in any particular courses, but the application of your knowledge in design practice. If you assign a project to an expertise area, please make sure the competence is evident in the portfolio, e.g., if you claim marketing expertise, the project in your portfolio should demonstrate marketing competences. 

5. Description of courses

Please provide us with a description of your courses. Please provide a brief course description, in a separate document, in case the name of the course is not self-explanatory, e.g., “Design Exploration”.