Industrial Design

The undergraduate program in Industrial Design at Yangtze University was established in 2004. It is part of the Comprehensive Major Reform Program jointly launched by the Ministry of Education and Autodesk. Building on the firstlevel discipline in Mechanical Engineering and Design, the program continuously deepens reforms in practical teaching. It has built 10 offcampus internship and training bases at institutions including the Jianghan Petroleum Administration Bureau, Sinopec Petroleum Engineering Company, and Dongfeng Motor Company’s Mold Factory, as well as 3 oncampus internship and training bases. The program has also set up 13 experimental platforms for advanced manufacturing technologies and 3 practicalteaching laboratories, namely the 3D Printing Laboratory, Virtual Reality Laboratory and ModelMaking Laboratory. Over its 22year development, the program has steadily raised its educational standards.

Ⅰ.Faculty

The Department of Industrial Design has 13 fulltime faculty members, including 2 professors, 5 associate professors, and 6 doctoral degree holders. Together, they form a dynamic teaching and research team featuring multigeneration composition, wellbalanced structure, innovation awareness and pioneering spirit. The program strengthens the development and support for grassroots teaching teams, forming two teaching teams with wellbalanced structures, complementary strengths and strong cohesion for collaboration. Over the past five years, faculty members have won one thirdprize award of the Hubei Provincial Teaching Achievement Awards, secured one grant from a national key laboratory fund and eight research projects at the provincial and ministerial level or above, attracting over RMB 4 million in research funding. They have published 8 SCIindexed papers and 2 CSSCIindexed papers, and been granted 10 invention patents. They have supervised students to win more than 100 awards in competitions at the national and provincial levels. It has secured approval for 5 nationallevel and 18 provinciallevel projects for students under the College Students’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program. The program has built one provincial highquality resourcesharing course and one provincial firstclass course, and published three textbooks and monographs. In recent years, faculty members have participated in visiting scholar programs or further studies at the University of Tulsa (USA), Mississippi State University, and the Graduate Institute of Industrial Design at National Yunlin University of Science and Technology.

Ⅱ.Talent Development

The program fulfills the fundamental task of fostering virtue through education. It aims to cultivate highlevel applicationoriented industrial design talents capable of working in industrial design, especially in product manufacturing, the internet industry, professional design agencies and research institutes. Graduates are competent to engage in the R&D, operation & management, planning and marketing of industrial equipment and smarthome products.

Through years of development, the program has enhanced its interdisciplinary features, kept up with cuttingedge advances in the discipline, and prioritized the cultivation of innovative talents. It adopts a fourphase progressive interdisciplinary curriculum system: “Art Foundations Course Cluster → Design Foundations Course Cluster → Engineering and Technology Course Cluster → Professional Design Course Cluster.”

The program adheres to its educational philosophy of pursuing innovation and serving local economic development. It has built a collaborative innovation training mechanism of “competitionsteachingprojectsevaluation”, which boosts learning and research via discipline competitions. Drawing on contests including the National Undergraduate Mechanical Innovation Design Competition, the “Chuang Youth” National Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Competition, the National College Students’ EnergySaving and EmissionReduction Competition, the National Undergraduate Advanced Drawing Technology and Innovation Competition, and the National College Computer Design Competition, the program encourages undergraduates to take part in research teams, consolidate professional competence through practice, and build a positive cycle of teaching, research and assessment. Over the past five years, students have won nearly 150 awards in various discipline competitions. Faculty advisors have guided students to secure two national first prizes, two national second prizes and one national third prize in the National Undergraduate Mechanical Innovation Design Competition, with more than ten invention patents granted to student teams.

III. Employment Prospects and Career Destinations

Over the past five years, the average graduate employment rate has exceeded 98%, and the postgraduate admission rate stands above 18%. Graduates enjoy diverse career options. Major recruiters include Tencent Technology Co., Ltd., iQIYI Technology Co., Ltd., Haier Group, Midea Group and SAIC Motor Corporation Limited. Alumni work across multiple industries covering industrial product design, UI design, brand planning, marketing, interaction design and visual communication design. They are employed nationwide and widely recognized by employers. Graduates are eligible to pursue postgraduate studies in industrial design, mold design, interface design, interaction design, brand planning, digital media design and other related areas.