I’ve started my fair share of design courses at Berkeley (2 semesters of HCI Prototyping Design Clinics, 5 semesters (and counting!) of {design.} DeCal, etc.) As I near graduation, I hope the tradition of grassroots, student-led design initiatives continue – here’s how to start your own design class at Berkeley!

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you’d like to help with a course that is similar to an existing course on-campus, talk to the faculty member behind that course first. You may find that you don’t need to start from scratch, and can instead contribute to a more established course that will live on beyond your years.

Figure out a good time. You’re looking for a large enough chunk of time for people to get their hands dirty (at least 2 hours). It also needs to not conflict with other design courses that are being offered, otherwise no one will attend your class. To do this, pencil in a schedule with ALL classes that would be relevant to the people you’d like to take your class. Avoid ME290P, CS260, ME110, TUI, iSchool core courses, etc. Also be sure you don’t conflict with ongoing lecture series on campus (e.g., iSchool Distinguished Lectures). Talk to potential students, find out what they’re interested in taking, and add those to the list of times to avoid. Then, see what’s left.

Write up a syllabus by planning out a list of topics along a common theme. You can use other courses (either at Berkeley or from elsewhere) as models. The Graduate Student Instructor Center periodically has workshops on syllabus design, and generally has a lot of resources on how to create a class from scratch.

Carefully consider the class format, and make it a consistent template: will you start every day with 20 minutes of lecture, followed by 1 hour of hands-on work, followed by 20 minutes of critique? Will you cover a new topic every week or spend two weeks on each topic?

Find Space. While the Berkeley Institute of Design has its seminar space, it actually only works well with certain formats and group sizes. You can also try holding courses in the Cal Design Lab. Otherwise, you run into dealing directly with departments and the campuswie scheduling system.

Look for partners. Look for other existing entities that may be able to help coordinate, plan, or advertise your course. This includes student design groups, research labs, etc.

Get the Course Listed. Ideally, you can work with a faculty sponsor in order to have a course listed as a department seminar. However, this does reflect a fair amount of commitment for that faculty member, and what they’re required to do throughout the semester (e.g., take attendance, assign grades, etc.) If you can’t find a faculty member to sponsor a full seminar in their department, then consider running a DECal.

Think about Sustainability and Longevity. If there is ongoing demand for your course, how might you help it live on in the future? Identify faculty members who may be willing to help sponsor your course in the long run, or even adopt your course into their curriculum or rotation of courses that they teach throughout the year. Archive all of your materials on how one teaches that course, so that someone else in a future year can revise your syllabus and re-teach the course. Also, think about having a student group adopt the course – for example, {design.} has become Berkeley Innovation’s form of design education outreach.