设计研究硕士（MDes）计划挑战学生理解和影响塑造当代生活的基本过程。如果快速变化的气候，媒体系统，能源流，物质经济和移民人口是我们时代的新挑战，那么设计学科就如何应对这些复杂的开放性条件提供了独特的见识。设计教育学与科学或人文科学研究不同，它通过高度互动的思维和学习方式，通过动手，跨学科的多媒体实践直接参与技术，物质，空间，生态，政治，经济，热力学和行星技术文化生活的维度。为了增强下一代设计师和城市主义者的能力，该计划在协作的沉浸式环境中采用了新颖的方法和替代方法。最终，GSD的医学博士在一系列实验室，
The Master in Design Studies (MDes) post professional program at Harvard's Graduate School of Design is aimed at those who want to pair their design knowledge with tools to enable careers in public service, academia, NGOs, innovative ventures, as well as developing specific expertise for design practice.<br><br>The MDes program consists of four semesters of coursework with no studios. Applicants select one of four domains of studyEcologies, Narratives, Publics, and Mediumsand undertake a core set of courses, including research methods and related topical courses. Following that domain foundation, each student then forges an individualized trajectory, leveraging course offerings across the GSD, as well as other schools and departments at Harvard. During their fourth semester, MDes students from all four domains come together to focus on collaborative advanced research in the form of open projects, in which their expertise finds application on a current issue.<br><br>Distinct from research in the sciences or humanities, design pedagogy involves highly interactive ways of thinking and learning that directly engage the technical, material, spatial, ecological, political, economic, and planetary dimensions of cultural life. Ultimately, MDes at the GSD challenges conventional ways of learning, and achieves a scope and diversity that are unmatched by any other design school in the world.