Austin Center for Design seeks students who have an existing interest and proven track record in art, design, business, social work, or technology. The rigorous Interaction Design and Social Entrepreneurship program bring together these students in a creative environment to produce working, multi-platform design systems.

Students DO NOT need to have an existing undergraduate or graduate degree in art, design, business, social work, or technology in order to apply. Previous professional working experience is not required but is highly recommended.

Each course runs for 10 weeks and follows one of the following formats:

• Evening Courses: Mondays & Wednesdays or Tuesdays & Thursdays, 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM (CT)

• Studio: Saturdays, 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM (CT)

Students can take up to three courses at a time, allowing for flexibility in how they structure their learning.

Yes, our courses are designed to be flexible, but the time commitment varies. Each class meets for 4–5 hours per week, but additional coursework, projects, and independent study will require extra time.

If you’re taking multiple courses at once—especially studio courses, which are highly project-based—expect a heavier workload. Many students successfully balance coursework with a full-time job, but we recommend planning your schedule accordingly.

No. Austin Center for Design is not a degree program.

Each course helps you build practical skills in design research, strategy, prototyping, and business innovation. You’ll leave with hands-on experience and real-world projects to add to your portfolio.

If you complete all 12 required courses within three years, you’ll earn the Interaction Design & Social Entrepreneurship Certificate, recognized by the Texas Workforce Commission. This certification validates your expertise and prepares you to create impactful products and services.

At Austin Center for Design, we believe in the power of design to tackle the world’s toughest, most “wicked” problems. The products and services we use every day impact our lives and our communities in big ways. While learning about design, you will be considering the systems that these things operate in, so that we might design things that make the world a better place. We focus on problems that matter, and students learn to re-contextualize design in the space of large-scale wicked problems.

Our students have roles in a wide variety of industries, with titles from Design Lead to Service Designer to UX Designer to Design Strategist. Check out our Alumni Success page to learn more about what our former students are doing now.

There is no set class size, but courses generally range from 10 to 15 students.

Design has come a long way from its humble beginnings, when it focused primarily on products and print materials. As technology has made our world increasingly complex, designers have stepped into a larger role. UX designers help structure the websites that you use each day. Service designers ensure that the experiences you encounter, whether it be visiting a doctor’s office or going to Disney World, are pleasurable and engaging. At the end of the day, design is about figuring out what people need and developing ways to make our lives better.

User research! We’ll teach you how to conduct proper design research, so that your design ideas are informed by real, observed attitudes and behaviors. This is invaluable in making sure you’re not designing unusable products or services that nobody wants.

Design teaches you to share your ideas so that you can iterate upon them with others. This means that you’ll learn how to convey information simply and effectively. You’ll do this with Post-It Notes, drawings, diagrams, journey maps, and other methods. We’ll teach you how to conduct effective user research to inform your design ideas. You’ll learn exercises and practices that will help you to work collaboratively and push your thinking toward new ideas. And you’ll use these skills in real-world scenarios, talking to real people about the problems they face, and designing real and imagined solutions.

Nope! Although some designers have a background in the arts, many do not. We’ll teach you some drawing basics, so that you can sketch out your environment and convey ideas with images. But you don’t need any special drawing skill beforehand.

Although some basic familiarity with design or illustration software is helpful, it is not required. You will need to use some form of software for your coursework, such as Figma, Illustrator, Mural, and Dovetail. Our program doesn’t focus heavily on teaching the use of design software, as industry tools are always changing and there are many videos and educational resources available to provide this instruction.

Many AC4D students and alumni go on to careers in UX, product design, and service design, but our courses go beyond traditional UX training. Rather than focusing solely on digital interfaces, we teach human-centered research, systems thinking, and business design, giving you the skills to tackle complex challenges across industries.

Each course helps you build practical design skills, and your career path will depend on how you apply them alongside your existing experience and goals. Whether you’re transitioning into UX or expanding your design toolkit, our curriculum equips you with the tools to create impactful products, services, and systems.

Here are some answers to common questions we get from international applicants.

• Does AC4D provide student visas? No

• Does AC4D accept international applicants? Yes (assuming they do not need AC4D to provide a visa)

• Does AC4D have resources to help prospective students get visas? Unfortunately, not.

• Does AC4D give scholarships? Yes. The amount of funding we have to go to scholarships is variable each year, and dependent on the number of scholarship applicants, and the amount of scholarship funding we anticipate.

• If a student needs to travel back to their home country to renew their visa, can AC4D be flexible with missing classes? Within reason, yes.

• Do students need to be fluent in English? Yes