BS in Industrial Design

As some computers, including Mac systems, can no longer run Windows under Bootcamp, at Jefferson we require Industrial Design students to have capable Windows-based laptops in order to run Solidworks, the primary CAD program taught in our major.

We do not require students to buy computers from the Jefferson School Store, though all of our suggested laptops are available at the Jefferson Ram Tech Computer Store. (Download the full list of requirements PDF for more.)

Note: If accepted students elect to purchase a computer elsewhere, we suggest a “graphics/CAD workstation” grade laptop and not one optimized for gaming.

The industrial design major also requires students to have professional-grade drawing hardware with a stylus that supports tilt/pressure input. These can be a Wacom Cintiq drawing tablet, an Apple iPad Pro with Apple Pencil or Microsoft Surface Pro laptop. If you opt for a Microsoft Surface, make sure the performance of the laptop is adequate to run Solidworks well (see above).

Required Software

• Adobe Creative Cloud, including Indesign, Photoshop and Illustrator (Free download for students)
• Office365 (Free download for students)   

The following programs may be used in industrial design visualization and studio courses, although not all programs are used in all courses. It is the student's responsibility to communicate with course instructors and to be ready to run software needed for class:

• Solidworks (Free download for students- contact your instructor) 
• Keyshot (Free download for students- contact your instructor) 
• Rhino
• Autodesk Fusion 360
• Autodesk Sketchbook Pro