Careers
Study Design. Do Anything.
What can I do with a Design major?
Our recent graduates have gotten great jobs in technology, consulting, and government, while many also pursue graduate school in the humanities or sciences. A significant percentage also pursue full-time service work for a year or more, seeking to make a difference in the world by helping others.
Skills you'll learn
- Excellent organizational skills
- Ability to draw on multiple means (visual, oral, written, media–related) to communicate novel ideas to others
- Ability to take complex and often abstract problems or ideas and make them visual, physical, tangible; often translating the verbal into the non-verbal
- Keen observation and the ability to see new and unexpected patterns
- Integrate and use core creative abilities more often and more consistently than do students in almost all other fields of study
- Capacity to bring people, power, and resources together to implement novel ideas
- Ability to heed critical feedback to revise and improve an idea
- Ability to risk failure by taking initiative in the face of ambiguity and uncertainty
- Awareness of visual and tactile aesthetics, human behavior, human proportion, material, process, and the responsible appropriation of resources, during and after use
Ashley Ceniceros ’08
Internal medicine physician
“Working in the design program with a lot of other really creative people allows you to learn to collaborate and bounce ideas off one another. Critiques and brainstorming are just a part of the process, and it made me work that into my everyday life. I learned how to look at every little thing critically and think about how to make it better,” says Ashley Ceniceros, who majored in design. “At my hospital and clinic, I use my design experience every day. At the core of design is learning how to find and define a problem, then develop a solution to that problem. Medicine is exactly the same thing”
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Ashley Ceniceros ’08
Internal medicine physician
“Working in the design program with a lot of other really creative people allows you to learn to collaborate and bounce ideas off one another. Critiques and brainstorming are just a part of the process, and it made me work that into my everyday life. I learned how to look at every little thing critically and think about how to make it better,” says Ashley Ceniceros, who majored in design. “At my hospital and clinic, I use my design experience every day. At the core of design is learning how to find and define a problem, then develop a solution to that problem. Medicine is exactly the same thing”
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Brandon Keelean ’13
Director of Product and Design, Refound
“Design is a way to solve problems. It’s a way of thinking where you iterate and explore lots of different solutions—and that’s really intriguing and exciting. “Every day is a new challenge, so instead of learning one specific knowledge base, I get to learn about a lot of them. Each new project is a chance to learn more about social issues or communication problems or corporations and what their goals and aspirations are.”
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Mansour Ourasanah ’07
Design Manager, Kitchenaid
Mansour Ourasanah, who studied industrial design at Notre Dame, worked as a senior designer for Whirlpool’s Advanced Studio in Chicago before joining Kitchenaid. His work focuses on the importance of storytelling in the design of products that address complex emotional and environmental challenges.
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Justin Schneider ’11
Founder, Wolf & Shepherd
Justin Schneider is the founder and CEO of Wolf & Shepherd, a company that creates high-end footwear with high-performance comfort. In 2017, he was recognized as a Forbes 30 under 30 honoree in the retail and eCommerce industry. Prior to starting the company, he was a decathlete competing for Notre Dame and majoring in industrial design. After retiring from competition, he drew on his major and his sports experience to design performance shoes and technology for footwear companies such as Adidas, Reebok, and New Balance.
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Eileen Murphy ’14
Principal Designer, Slack
Eileen Murphy, who received her BFA in visual communication design, has worked at some of the most exciting companies in the U.S. Before joining Slack, she worked as a product designer at The New York Times specializing in video and virtual reality products and as senior product designer and product design manager at Spotify.
93% of Notre Dame Design majors found full-time employment, enrolled in graduate school, entered service programs, or launched independent projects within six months of graduation.
Note: Outcomes data comes from First Destination reports, a survey of recent graduates conducted by the Notre Dame Center for Career Development and Office of Strategic Planning and Institutional Research. Status is known for more than 90% of each graduating class.
Independent projects include activities such as writing a novel, making a film or fine arts project, traveling the world and other gap-year activities, internships, etc.
Further Reading
Beyond the Dome: Arts & Letters career resources
What can I do with this major?: graphic design
Occupational Outlook: Industrial Designers, Bureau of Labor Statistics, US Department of Labor
Occupational Outlook: Graphic Designers, Bureau of Labor Statistics, US Department of Labor
The Professional Association for Design
Industrial Designers Society of America