Design a creative career

Vikas Dahiya

Creativity is the first requirement that comes to my mind when I think of “Design” as a career. But only creativity is not enough to be successful in this field. You need to be good at working in a team and communication skills. You must also have a keen eye for detail, the ability to know what looks good and to come up with new ideas.

IIT Bombay conducts UCEED and CEED exams every year to offer admissions to BDes (Bachelor of Design) and MDes (Master of Design) programmes. The examination is hosted by the Industrial Design Centre, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay on behalf of Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India.

UCEED [for BDes]

UCEED is the exam for getting admission in BDes from IITs and few other institutes. UCEED 2020 has a major change in pattern. You must ensure to read the changes thoroughly if you have applied for the exam this year. UCEED 2020 examination will have two parts: Part A and Part B. Both the parts are compulsory.

Part A will contain three sections — NAT, MSQ and MCQ.

Part B will have a drawing question. The overall time duration of the examination is 3 hours.

Syllabus for UCEED

UCEED 2020 will have two parts.

Part-A will have questions from the following topics:

VISUALISATION AND SPATIAL ABILITY

Understanding of transformation and manipulation of 2D shapes and 3D objects and their spatial relationships, knowledge of practical and everyday mechanical and scientific concepts.

OBSERVATION AND DESIGN SENSITIVITY

Ability to find hidden properties in ordinary things, people, situations, and events, and thinking critically about them. Applying attention to certain details, analysing, reasoning, classifying, inferring and predicting. Ability to discern subtle differences in visual properties and aesthetic outcomes.

ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL AWARENESS

Awareness of environmental factors such as climate, population, water, vegetation, pollution, weather, natural resources etc., and their implications on the design of products, images, infrastructure and environment. Awareness of social and cultural connection with design, history of the designed artefact, and socially responsible and environmentally sustainable design responses. History of art, sculpture and literature.

ANALYTICAL AND LOGICAL REASONING

Ability to look at details, be it qualitative or quantitative in nature, and discern patterns within the information. Ability to compare opinions, arguments or solutions against appropriate criteria. Ability to check for hidden bias, hidden assumptions and whether evidence and argument support conclusions. Ability to use logic and structured thinking to deduce from a short passage, which of a number of statements is the most accurate response to a posed question. Data Interpretation, brainteasers, and patterns.

LANGUAGE AND CREATIVITY

This tests the candidate’s ability to understand and use standard English language, reading comprehension and English grammar. The ability to think creatively in terms of alternatives, ability to distinguish innovative options and think out of the box.

DESIGN THINKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING

Visual analogies, metaphors, signs and symbols. Ability to understand complexity, identify problem, generate alternatives, evaluate options and select solutions.

Part-B will have question from the following topic:

DRAWING

Ability to draw products, people or scenes in proportion with good line quality, composition, proportion, perspective, and shading.

— The writer is MBA, M.Tech(IT) and a career counselor and mentor at GradeUp

Exam pattern

The question paper will consist of two parts: Part A and Part B.

PART-A

Total marks: 240 marks; Maximum time: 2 hours 30 mins

Part-A of the question paper will be administered through a computer-based test.

It will consist of 3 sections.

SECTION 1

NAT (Numerical Answer Type): 18 questions (4 marks each; no negative marks). In this section, the answer is a number that needs to be entered through a virtual keyboard on the computer screen. No choices will be shown for these questions. There will be no negative marking for this section.

SECTION 2

MSQ (Multiple Select Questions): 18 questions (4 marks each; 0.19 negative marks). Each MSQ has one or more correct answer(s) out of the four given options.

SECTION 3

MCQ (Multiple Choice Questions): 32 questions (3 marks each; 0.71 negative marks). Each MCQ has four options out of which only one is correct.

PART-B

Total marks: 60 marks; Maximum time: 30 mins marks

Part-B consists of one question that is aimed at testing drawing skills which will require subjective evaluation. The question will be displayed on the computer screen and the answer has to be written/drawn in the answer book provided.

Both part-A and Part-B must be finished within overall time duration of 3 hours.

Eligibility Criteria for BDes

The applicant is required to fulfil the following 3 criteria

CRITERION 1 – AGE LIMIT: Born on or after October 1, 1995 for OPEN/EWS/OBC-NCL category and,

Born on or after October 1, 1990 for SC, ST or PwD category.

CRITERION 2 – UCEED QUALIFICATION: The candidate should have qualified, i.e., obtained a rank in UCEED 2020.

CRITERION 3 – QUALIFYING EXAMINATION: Passed the qualifying examination (Class XII or equivalent) in 2019 or 2020. Those who have appeared for the first time in their qualifying examination in 2018 or earlier are NOT eligible.

Candidates from any stream (Science with/without maths or physics or chemistry, commerce, and arts & humanities) are eligible to apply to IIT Bombay, IIT Hyderabad and IIITDM Jabalpur.

Candidates from the science stream with physics, chemistry and maths as subjects are also eligible to apply to IIT Guwahati.

Result sharing Institutes (As per UCEED 2019)

1. Anant National University, Ahmedabad

2. ARCH College of Design and Business, Jaipur

3. Chitkara University, Punjab

4. Central Institute of Technology, Kokrajhar

5. Delhi Technological University, Delhi

(formerly Delhi College of Engineering)

6. Khyati School of Design, Ahmedabad

7. Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab

8. MIT World Peace University, Pune

9. Nirma University, Ahmedabad

10. Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bengaluru

11. University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun

12. U.P. Institute of Design, Noida

13. Vivekananda Global University, Jaipur

14. VIT University, Vellore

15. World University of Design, Delhi NCR

CEED [for MDes]

CEED is the exam for getting admission in MDes from IITs, IISc and few other institutes.

The CEED examination will be conducted in two parts. The candidate must answer both the parts.

Part A is a computer-based screening test. It will be a test of visualisation and spatial ability, environmental and social awareness, analytical and logical reasoning, language and creativity, observation and design sensitivity. This part contains objective type questions — numerical answer type questions (NAT); multiple select questions (MSQ) and multiple-choice questions (MCQ).

Candidates who are shortlisted in Part A will qualify for the evaluation of Part B.

Part B will be a test of drawing, creativity, communication skills, and problem identification skills.

The final CEED score will be calculated by giving 25 per cent weightage to scores obtained in Part A and 75 per cent weightage to scores obtained in Part B.

A summary of the question paper structure is given below.

CEED 2020 Participating Institutes:

IISc Bangalore: Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing

IIT Bombay: IDC School of Design (Industrial Design Centre)

IIT Delhi: Department of Design

IIT Guwahati: Department of Design

IIT Hyderabad: Department of Design

IIT Kanpur: Design Programme

IIITDM Jabalpur: Design Discipline

Result Sharing Institutes:

• Srishti Institute of Art Design and Technology, Bengaluru
• Lovely Professional University, Phagwara, Punjab
• Jain (Deemed-to-be-University), Bangalore
• Shiv Nadar University, Greater Noida (Delhi-NCR)
• World University of Design (WUD), Sonepat, Haryana
• Central Institute of Technology, Kokrajhar
• UPES School of Design, Dehradun
• ISDI School of Design & Innovation, Mumbai