Diversity and Synthesis in Product Design Curriculum: Using Product Design Curriculum in Japanese National and Public Universities as an Example

The aim of this research was to identify how product design curriculum in Japanese universities had allowed the synthesis of knowledge learned from different specialized field of study. A comparative study was done based on publications collected from 9 sample universities. It was observed that product design curriculums had offered the opportunities for diverse learning of product design through professional education electives. Integrative subjects were offered in to allow the synthesize of knowledge, but amount differs in each school. As compare to European and American product design programs, the percentage of credits for integrative subjects was generally lower in most sampled universities.