Harvard has a new graduate degree program. The Graduate School of Design(GSD) and John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) are collaborating to offer a master’s in design engineering (MDE).
The two-year program, announced today, was developed and will be jointly taught by faculty from both Schools. It is designed to give students the skills and knowledge to take a collaborative, innovative approach to problems that are large, technically deep, complex, multiscale, and open-ended. The curriculum will bridge quantitative, computational, visual, and aesthetic thinking, and will encompass engineering and design as well as economics, business, government regulation and policy, and sociology.
Applications are being accepted now for the initial cohort of students to start next fall.
In a joint interview with the Gazette, Mohsen Mostafavi, dean and Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design at GSD, and Francis J. Doyle III, the John A. Paulson Dean and John A. and Elizabeth S. Armstrong Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at SEAS, discussed the origins and goals of the new program.
哈 佛下学年启动“设计工程”研究生专业，为两年制专业。该专业由设计研究院与工程与应用科学研究院开办，学生将由两个学院教职员工共同培养。此专业的开办宗 旨是教给学生创新思维、合作能力，以新方式解决高精尖技术难题。两学院希望通过合作，融信息技术、视觉效果、美学思维、数学思维为一体，打破技术、设计、 经济、商务、政府管理与政策、社会学等学科之间存在的学科隔阂，培养复合型人才。此门课如今已对外开放申请，第一批学生将于明年秋季入学。
Gazette邀请到了上述两个学院院长，设计研究院Mostafavi教授，和工程与应用科学研究院Doyle教授，与我们谈谈他们对于新专业的看法与期望。
GAZETTE: How did the program come about?
Gazette：当时是怎么想到要开办这样一个项目呢?
MOSTAFAVI: This program actually originated six or seven years ago as a lunchtime series called “Now?” that convened people from across Harvard who were doing interesting work. The idea behind “Now?” was to host spirited conversations that were not about dwelling on the past or predicting the future, but rather about sharing knowledge about the compelling current work that is propelling society forward. We had great people involved, including the mathematician L. Mahadevan, who went on to win a MacArthur Prize. It was fascinating to hear experts talk about subjects such as the use of mathematics to organize space and time in the context of a design school that encourages broad thinking to address spatial and environmental issues. As a result of this series, more faculty members from the GSD and SEAS got involved. We started doing some classes, joint activities, and discussing the connections between design, engineering, and entrepreneurship. We had conversations about potential graduate programs and undergraduate programs and finally we felt that focusing on a graduate program that brought our two Schools together would be very exciting.
Mostafavi： 这个想法源于我们六七年前午餐时一系列的讨论。我们当时讨论的主题是“当下”。大家热烈讨论的焦点不是过去，不是未来，而是现在。通过相互分享当下进行的 研究，努力推进当下的发展。这个讨论吸引了很多杰出人士的参与，包括获得麦克阿瑟奖的著名数学家L. Mahadevan。作为一位数学家，他用数学研究时空，以设计的角度、以广博的思维解决空间与环境难题。我们当时就萌生了开设一个复合专业的念头，最后 我们决定利用设计学院和工程应用科学学院优势，就有了现在这个专业。
GAZETTE: What makes this the right moment, and why is Harvard the right place to launch this program?
Gazette：经过六七年的酝酿，是什么促使你们决定开设此专业呢?为什么要在哈佛开设这个专业?
MOSTAFAVI: We have a great and innovative engineering program. We have one of the leading design programs in the world. Our engineering school is interested in design, and our design school is interested in the questions that affect the environment broadly, and dealing with real-world problems. So why not put these two together and think about the way in which design engineering can combine the best of imagination, creativity, and alternative approaches to making things, to come up with novel ways to respond to problems? There’s a lot of discussion around design thinking. How is design applicable to other disciplines, not just the built environment — architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning — but everything from the organization of companies to the management of large systems?
It seems like a very good moment to capitalize on this greater understanding and enthusiasm for these topics. We notice them through the success of companies like Google and Apple and other new-media tools, utilizing the space between design and technology or design and engineering. It hasn’t quite been named; there are little manifestations, nuggets of it here and there. But for us, it’s very exciting that we are naming it.
Mostafavi： 哈佛设计专业、工程专业都是全球领先。同时，工程专业往往对设计很感兴趣，而设计专业学生也遇到一些现实社会存在的问题，也对环境很感兴趣。因此我们就想 为什么不把两个专业结合一下，这样设计工程学院的学生既富于创新、有创造力又能解决实际问题。设计专业的思维很重要。因为设计其实不局限在设计房屋建筑、 规划城市建设，设计的理念应用到公司组织、系统管理也是有益的。
现在时机很对。因为我们发现，像谷歌、苹果公司，他们的成功都离不开设计与其他理念的结合，比如说设计和科技，设计和工程。慢慢开始有人注意到这种结合的妙处，但是，是我们，是哈佛把这个明确指出来，来开办这个项目。我们做到这一点也很开心
GAZETTE: What is the profile of students whom you’re looking to attract into the program?
Gazette：这个项目想要招什么样的学生?
DOYLE: The composition and diversity of each cohort is critical. If you go back to the engineering approach or design approach from decades ago, the disciplines existed in silos. If you’re in an engineering firm, you might bring in mechanical engineers for one piece of a project, chemical engineers for another piece, computer scientists for a different piece. They really were islands, and they had to put the pieces together, and that was often a very ad hoc process. Here, we’re breaking down boundaries. That’s not to say we’re creating jacks-of-all-trades, completely cross-trained individuals, but we are preparing individuals to take a multidisciplinary mindset into a project environment and work across fields. It’s not that we’re just adding four or five disciplines and getting whatever aggregate product would come from that. We are building teams that can be more innovative in how they cross boundaries and collaborate.
This is the future of how things will be done in the real world. Students are not getting plugged into traditional silos of very narrow expertise. They’re being forced to work on teams that require multiple skills. Diversity of thinking approaches, of backgrounds, of work experiences: All of these things will lend to the ultimate success of the program.
MOSTAFAVI: Initially, we want people with backgrounds in design, architecture, and engineering. But one could imagine that people could come from a broader range of backgrounds — from urban planning, the various fields of engineering, industrial design, manufacturing, even the arts. It would be great to attract diverse and international applicants. The ideal candidate would also have some professional experience — someone who’s been out of school for at least two or three years.
Designers have the tools for visualization, computation, fabrication. Engineers have a different level of technical knowledge and capabilities. How do you bring these two cohorts to a level where they can talk to each other, where they can collaborate? That’s the exciting part of this new program, because the point is not, over a relatively short period of time, to turn designers into fully fledged engineers, or to turn engineers into fully fledged designers.
Doyle ：学生的多元化很重要。十几年前，设计和工程学科各自为营，看起来互不相干。但是要是真的进了一家工程公司，你会发现，这个工程师可能是擅长机械工程，那 个学的是化学工程，另一个可能是计算机专家。你从每个人身上都能学到一些东西。而现在我们想做的是，打破这些学科界限，培养能够多学科思维人才。这种人才 不是杂而不精，也不可能各学科全精通，我们想培养的是复合型的，可以跨领域工作的人才。这不是说把四五个领域随便放在一起，而是看看人才跨领域合作、创新 会有什么效果。
我认为未来发展的方向就是这样的。学生不会只呆在一个领域，他们必须学会团队合作，永远多项技能。这个专业想要的是来自不同学术背景、有着不同思维方式、工作经历的人们。我觉得这些都能帮助该项目学生获得成功。
Mostafavi：我们原来只想要设计、建筑、工程背景的学生。但是后来发现，如果大家能来自各种不同背景，比如城市规划、工程、工业设计、制造、甚至是艺术系都很好。要是可以吸引全球各地、各种背景的人就更好。学生要有专业背景、实战经验——毕业后工作两三年的最好。
GAZETTE: What are some of the ways that this new Harvard program is distinctive?
Gazette：这个项目独特之处在哪儿?
DOYLE: “Collaborative” is the key word here. Some of this is in our DNA. On the SEAS side, we don’t have departments; we’re already a seamless, interdisciplinary organization. It’s in our nature to want to bring to a problem a toolkit that reaches across the spectrum of bioengineering and mechanical engineering and computer science and materials. At Harvard, this approach to collaboration is very natural.
DOYLE： 这个项目是，切切实实，完完全全合作型的。是，哈佛有些项目，能让学机械工程的学生也简单了解一下设计。但是我们这个项目是完全跨学科的，是由两个院直接 合作，它的性质和其他项目不同。第二点就是，我们是想培养某一学科的领袖人才，但我们也想要深化我们两院合作。所以在这个项目上，我们都会下功夫，积极合作。
