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Utah State University starts Outdoor Product Design Degree Program

If you’re studying, say, fashion design, it makes sense to go to New York, Paris or London, where there are plenty of places to apply for internships. Of course, you’ll find you’re a dime a dozen, as thousands of other students have the same idea.

But imagine studying design in a place surrounded by a thousand companies that can’t find enough people like you, and are part of a $646 billion industry. If that sounds appealing and you like the great outdoors, you may want to head to Utah.

That’s because Utah State University has launched the first-ever degree program in Outdoor Product Design and Development. 

The four-year, Board-of-Regents-approved Bachelor’s program was spearheaded by professor Lindsey Shirley, who noticed a dearth of properly trained designers in the industry. As reported in USA Today’s College section,

According to Shirley, there are over 1,000 outdoor product companies that are based in Utah. One of these companies is Blackpine Sports and after talking to an executive at the company, Shirley was inspired to fill a void in the industry through education.

“At that time, one of their executives invited me down for a tour just to have a conversation and he kept saying that it was really hard for him to find a trained workforce. They had to do a lot of on-the-job training,” Shirley says. “So I said, ‘Well, that’s what I specialize in—preparing a workforce. We can create a degree program at Utah State because we have a lot of the infrastructure already in place.’”

USU bills the 120-credit course as “the first step to a high skill, high wage, high demand career opportunity” and stresses “an active and hands-on education approach to product research, development and testing.”

Going over the curriculum, at first it can seem more FD than ID: Courses cover sewing, clothing production, textile science and tailoring. But there are also required courses in design thinking, general chemistry, biodiversity and sustainability, as well as “Digital Design Technologies for Outdoor Products.” For those of you who are more ID than FD, bear in mind that there’s an opportunity to design gear; the first-year History of the Outdoor Product Industry course had students studying everything from snowshoes to primitive boats, according to Gear Junkie, and the first sewing course had students cranking out backpacks, messenger bags and duffel bags. And unlike traditional fashion design, the design of outdoor apparel demands more rigorous functionality, which ought appeal to the ID-minded among you.

Another cool thing about the degree is that you’re not cooped up in the studio all the time, but will be out in the field testing gear or visiting the local outdoor goods companies. If breathing subway smells and bus exhaust isn’t for you, this might be the move.

Thus far demand has been strong, with 100 students enrolled in the first class, which just launched this semester. And if you’ve already got an ID degree, or part of one, you may not need to pay for all four years: “We have many students who are pursuing a second bachelor’s degree,” Lindsey said in the GJ Q&A, “and have already completed some of the coursework that falls into the general education requirements at USU. There is a possibility that we will have students complete the program in as little as 2.5 years.”

Check it out here.