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Sustainable Product Design

Entry requirements


A level

C,C,D-B,C,C

Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)

MMP-DMM

UCAS Tariff

88-112

A typical offer will be a UCAS Tariff score of 88 - 112. A minimum of two full A-levels (or equivalent) is required. Every application is considered on an individual basis.

You may also need to…

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About this course


Course option

3years

Full-time | 2024

Subject

Production and manufacturing engineering

Do you want to a socially responsible creative making innovative designs? On this course you’ll discover how to craft products from scratch, taking them from scale drawings to the final prototype. You’ll lean towards an environmentally aware and technologically innovative approach, supported by a sound understanding of cultural and critical insight and user behaviour.

**Why study BSc (Hons) Sustainable Product Design at BNU?**
**A sustainable future**
A sustainable product design course is essential to all walks of life, whatever industry you work in having the skillset to problem-solve and ensure the user-experience is as efficient as possible. The products and designs you create can change the future by answering ethical, environmental and social issues with tangible objects and well-considered concepts as we respond to global sustainability challenges.

**State-of-the-art facilities**
We’ve invested in workshops that replicate those you’ll find in industry. We keep on top of the best equipment, using professional facilities and software for your designing needs.

You’ll get hands-on with our industry standard 3D CAD systems, and benefit from our workshop facilities to produce 3D models, fully working prototypes, and computer models to demonstrate your design solutions. In these workshops you’ll be able to experiment with a range of different materials including wood, metal, ceramics and mixed media, developing traditional hand skills and working with new technologies such as our MetraSCAN 3D and utilising the latest CNC machining and techniques.

You’ll explore different solutions for several areas, engaging with live industry briefs as you use your expertise to create products with a purpose. We also have specialist technicians and demonstrators on site to support and share their knowledge with you.

**Taught by industry-experts**
With a history of delivering expert craft, art, and design education for more than 130 years, Buckinghamshire New University is the perfect place to start your creative career. This rich history mixed with contemporary teaching techniques and hands-on learning, makes this course unique.

Led by a dedicated teaching team with a wealth of experience within the product design, model-making, and design visualisation industry, many of your tutors on this course are still involved with design practice and research. Not only will you benefit from a rich and varied programme, you will also have direct access to guest lectures, live project briefs, master classes, and plenty of networking opportunities with industry professionals.

**Location**
Our Product Design degree is situated at our High Wycombe campus, a town with a rich history within furniture making and manufacturing. Our university Chancellor is also the renowned Furniture Designer and Restorer, Jay Blades MBE, makes this course strictly unique.

With London only a short journey away, and access to a range of business and organisations relevant to product design, there are ample opportunities for visits to sites of historical and contemporary interest.

**What will I study?**
This product design degree course offers you the opportunity to successfully design innovative and functional products that include a successful interface between products and users. You’ll become a multi-disciplinary designer who have a focus on sustainability within Product Design. You’ll adapt and work on a range of different products for different industries, whilst gaining hands-on knowledge on how to work with materials, processes, components, and products to meet user requirements.

By working through a sequence of challenging projects, you will acquire a wide range of creative and technical skills, which enable you to complete sustainable design projects from the stages of consultation and research through to final product presentation. You’ll learn how to communicate an idea from concept, to functioning product.

Modules

**Year one**
**Core Modules**
Craft Skills
Materials and Processes
Design Communication
Sustainable Practice
Critical and Historical Thinking
Design Project

**Year two**
**Core Modules**
Design Visualisation
Sustainable Design
Design Research and Theory
Professional Studies in Product Design
Applied Production and Manufacture
Industry Brief

**Year three**
**Core Modules**
Final Major Project
Professional Practice
Dissertation
Design for Manufacture

Assessment methods

As a BSc (Hons) Sustainable Product Design student you’ll have to complete a series of modules and projects across your time spent studying with us. Projects are designed to present new challenges to you as you progress through the course. They involve working with varied briefs, clients and requirements. By the end of your time with BNU, you’ll benefit from a full portfolio of work to go to employers with.

You’ll also benefit from lectures, 1:1 or small group tutorials, seminars that enable open discussions, guided research and reading, group critiques and self-directed study.

We also aim to provide industry brief opportunities for you to apply your knowledge, skills and understanding into real-world contexts. The theoretical underpinning of practice encourages the development of critical perspectives in relation to the history and language of design.

Our graduate network continues to spread through many companies in the industry. You’ll be a part of this network, gaining valuable contacts with a variety of work opportunities.

Tuition fees

Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:

Channel Islands
£9,250
per year
England
£9,250
per year
EU
£15,000
per year
International
£15,000
per year
Northern Ireland
£9,250
per year
Republic of Ireland
£9,250
per year
Scotland
£9,250
per year
Wales
£9,250
per year

Extra funding

Buckinghamshire New University offers a range of bursaries and scholarships. For more information, please visit https://www.bucks.ac.uk/study/fees-and-funding/financial-support-bursaries-and-scholarships

The Uni


Course location:

Buckinghamshire New University

Department:

School of Art, Design, and Performance

Read full university profile

What students say


We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.

94%
Production and manufacturing engineering

How do students rate their degree experience?

The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.

Production and manufacturing engineering

Teaching and learning

100%
Staff make the subject interesting
100%
Staff are good at explaining things
61%
Ideas and concepts are explored in-depth
83%
Opportunities to apply what I've learned

Assessment and feedback

Feedback on work has been timely
Feedback on work has been helpful
Staff are contactable when needed
Good advice available when making study choices

Resources and organisation

94%
Library resources
94%
IT resources
94%
Course specific equipment and facilities
77%
Course is well organised and has run smoothly

Student voice

Staff value students' opinions
Feel part of a community on my course

Who studies this subject and how do they get on?

90%
UK students
10%
International students
40%
Male students
60%
Female students
89%
2:1 or above
5%
First year drop out rate

Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)

D
B
B

After graduation


The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.

Production and manufacturing engineering

What are graduates doing after six months?

This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.

£18,500
low
Average annual salary
97%
med
Employed or in further education

Top job areas of graduates

38%
Design occupations
12%
Sales assistants and retail cashiers
8%
Sales, marketing and related associate professionals

Graduates are in significant demand, so unemployment rates are well below the national graduate average and starting salaries are well above average. Much the most common industries for these graduates are now vehicle manufacture - there are not enough people with these degrees to go round and so the big employers tend to take the lion's share at the moment. But pretty much anywhere there is manufacturing, there are production engineers. Bear in mind that a lot of courses are four years long, and lead to an MEng qualification — this is necessary if you want to become a Chartered Engineer.

What about your long term prospects?

Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.

Production and manufacturing engineering

The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.

£37k

£37k

£26k

£26k

£36k

£36k

Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.

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This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.

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Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF):

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This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).

This is the percentage of final-year students at this university who were "definitely" or "mostly" satisfied with their course. We've analysed this figure against other universities so you can see whether this is high, medium or low.

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This information is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), for undergraduate students only.

You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.

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Post-six month graduation stats:

This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.

It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.

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Graduate field commentary:

The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show

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The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?

Have a question about this info? Learn more here