MDes vs MHCI @CMU
Part 2: A comparison highlighting the differences and similarities
With admission offers going around and decision-making in the process, this might be a good time to continue Part 1 of the comparison between MDes and MHCI. While Part 1 covered the two programs on a more quantitative and broad level, here are other qualitative and subjective aspects that you might be curious about —
1. Cohort and Students
All students in the MDes program are required to have at least one year of professional experience in a design-related field. This means that the entire batch is comprised of designers and architects in some sense, who might be coming in from different tracks of design such as visual communication, industrial design, branding, advertising, architecture, and animation design amongst others. But while this is largely true, some students who transition from the MA course** to the MDes course come in with completely different backgrounds such as software engineering, psychology, and many others.
On the other hand, the MHCI cohort is comprised of students coming in from fairly diverse backgrounds, including design, coding, product management, physics, and other fields.
*Side Note: For those who aren’t aware of the MA/MPS/MDes programs within the school of design here’s a quick high-level difference. MA is a one-year program for students transitioning into the field of design. Thus, students joining this program come from diverse backgrounds and spend a year getting introduced to design fundamentals. While MA is an independent degree, MA students who might be interested in further expanding their knowledge in design can (internally) apply to MPS or MDes which are 1 year and 2 years respectively.
MPS degree is now available only for MA students (as per the new curriculum) who seek to do another year of design education. MPS degree is a one-year degree that is directly equivalent to the first year of MDes where both MPS and MDesI students attend the same courses together.
Additionally, MA students can also get into the MDes program based on their interests. MDes students additionally go through an entire second year working primarily on the thesis project. More information about the three programs is there on the CMU Design website.
2. Size of the batch
While together MDes and MPS comprise of only 10–20 students, MHCI batch is often divided up into sections with a total of around 60–70 students. In my perspective, this means the MDes students are often very close-knit and end up knowing everyone else closely. This further translates to all the design professors knowing every student and their interests personally.
On the other hand, MHCI students often know a small subset of students more closely because the total batch size is huge. But on the flip side, this means that one can work with a new set of people from completely different backgrounds for different projects!
3. Location on campus
MDes grad studio is centrally housed in the school of design in the Margaret Morrison building. The location makes it close to many buildings such as the student activity center, CUC, and the main Hunt Library, and on-campus food places. The studio is a big common space that provides each student with their own desk space. The studio itself has a separate classroom space where most of the mandatory classes for the MDes students happen. Check out more pictures of the design grad studio here.
On the other hand, the MHCI studio is located at 300S Craig Street towards the northwest corner of the CMU Pittsburgh campus. The location makes it close to various off-campus food outlets and restaurants on Craig street such as Starbucks, Subway, and others. MHCI students often have their classes spread out across different buildings on campus as compared to MDes folks having classes primarily at one location.
4. Courses and Curriculum
The MDes program has four semesters spread across 2 academic years whereas the MHCI program has three semesters spread across ~ 1 calendar year. The academic year is ~August to May whereas the Calendar year is ~August to August. A sample course structure of both programs would look something like the below:
In general, the Spring, and major part of the Summer semester (HCI Project I and II) is focused on the capstone project for the MHCI program. Find more detailed, accurate, and up-to-date information about the MHCI program on their website here. Overall the curriculum gives the flexibility of 4–5 electives.
For MDes, most first-year courses engage you in group work. The Studios mean project-based work on different problems around Interaction design (example: https://www.anupriyagupta.com/hugo) and communication design (example: https://www.anupriyagupta.com/memory), Seminars are theoretical classes where you read various authors and literature in the field. Interaction Lab is software-based learning to get a grasp on different tools in design. The second year is focused on a thesis which is largely individual work, but it gives you a lot of opportunities to explore electives within and outside the school of design. Overall the curriculum gives the flexibility of 4 electives with additional optional electives. Find more detailed, accurate, and up-to-date information about the MDes program on their website here.
As a general norm at CMU, all courses tend to get hectic and busy, but based on what I have heard and realized, MHCI can be even more rigorous than MDes. Another observation is that MHCI courses and projects tend to be super focused and narrow in scope, where a problem statement would be to design a digital web-based on app-based solution VS MDes projects tend to be more open-ended and abstract to start off with, such as design for improving life on earth.
5. Capstone Project V/S Internship + Thesis
MHCI course gives students the opportunity to do a capstone project with real companies and industry-oriented problem statements. On the other hand, MDes creates an opportunity to do an internship between the two years (CPT for international students). Both capstone and internship can be great opportunities to land full-time offers with the companies that you end-up working with. In addition, the MDes program means that students can explore their own interests with a year-long thesis project without constraints in an academic setting.
6. Degree
Both degrees, MHCI and MDes, are recognized as STEM, where MDes only recently received this recognition. STEM means that as an international student, one gets to extend their OPT or work duration to up to three years.
Additionally, the MDes degree is considered a terminal degree, which is the highest level of educational requirement in the given field and thus also enables a graduate to teach post-graduation.
7. RA/ TA Opportunities
As an international student, one can take up to 20hrs of work per week on campus. But as an MHCI student, you would mostly NOT have the opportunity to do an assistantship on campus due to time constraints.
As an MDes student, the school of design offers a Teaching or Research Assistantship (TA/RA) of 6hrs, which is optional. This pays around $2000/ semester. Additionally, you can find other RA/TA/student work around campus — this can be within the design department, in a different department, or can be general work like working in campus cafes. These need separate applications and the pay varies from $10 -$25 per hour.
Lastly, if both of these courses don’t align with you, another program that might be worth checking at CMU is the MIIPS which lies at the crossroads of design, engineering, and management; and is also a STEM degree. Find more details about the program here.
Thank you for reading through! I hope this was helpful. Drop your thoughts or questions in the comments. One thing I haven’t touched on in this blog is career opportunities and fee structure, which I might cover separately or update later in this blog.
Disclaimer: All the above-mentioned details are based on information as of March 2023 and my own experience and opinions. It doesn’t reflect the opinions of the school itself.