In twenty years of working as a guidance counsellor, I have sat across from thousands of students at the point where they are trying to figure out what to do next. And over the last several years, I have noticed a particular kind of student appearing more frequently in my office — one who is creative and analytical in roughly equal measure, who is drawn to making things, who finds themselves noticing the design of objects they use every day and thinking about how they could be better, and who has arrived at the words “product design” after some amount of searching.
These students are often uncertain in a specific way. They know what they are drawn to. What they don’t know is whether what they are drawn to constitutes a real career, whether a formal degree is the right path into it, and whether the institutions available to them in India can actually prepare them for the industry at a serious level.
These are exactly the right questions to be asking. And over the years, I have developed fairly clear answers to all of them.
First: What Product Design Actually Is
I find it necessary to establish this clearly at the start of every conversation, because the term is used loosely enough that students often arrive with quite different understandings of what they’re considering.
Product design is the discipline of conceiving, developing, and refining physical and digital products — objects, tools, devices, interfaces, and systems — with the goal of making them work better for the people who use them. It sits at the intersection of aesthetics, engineering, psychology, and business. A product designer needs to understand how things are made, how people behave, what a market will accept, and how to give form to something that solves a problem in a way that is both functional and meaningful.
This is not, as some students initially believe, primarily about making things look attractive. Appearance is one dimension of design, and not always the most important one. The more fundamental question that product designers are trained to ask is: does this work? Does it work physically, does it work for the user, does it work in the context it will be used, and does it work as a commercial proposition?
When I explain this to students, the ones who are genuinely suited to the discipline tend to lean forward. Their eyes change slightly. That response — that recognition — is usually a reliable signal.
The Skill Set the Industry Is Actually Looking For
One of the most useful things I can do for a student considering a B.Des in Product Design is to give them an honest picture of what the profession requires, because it is broader than most people expect.
The technical foundations are non-negotiable. A product designer needs to be fluent in design software — CAD tools, prototyping platforms, and visualisation software. They need to understand materials and manufacturing processes well enough to make design decisions that can actually be realised. They need to be able to sketch and model ideas quickly, and to move iteratively between concept and prototype.
But the technical skills, while necessary, are not what separate good product designers from great ones. What separates them is the capacity for user-centred thinking — the ability to set aside one’s own assumptions about how something should work and genuinely investigate how the people who will use it actually behave. This requires a research orientation: the ability to observe, interview, synthesise, and translate human insights into design decisions.
Beyond that, product designers need business literacy. A design that cannot be manufactured at a cost that makes commercial sense, or that solves a problem nobody has, or that arrives at a market that doesn’t exist — these are failures of design, even if the object itself is beautifully conceived. The best product designers understand that they are not making art. They are solving problems within real constraints, for real users, in real markets.
Finally, and this is something I emphasise to every student: product designers need to be able to communicate their thinking. The ability to present a design rationale clearly, to explain why a decision was made, to take feedback and respond to it constructively — these are professional skills that get developed through training and that matter enormously in practice.
Why a Formal Degree Matters in This Field
Students sometimes ask me whether they could develop product design skills through self-teaching — online courses, tutorials, personal projects. My answer is consistent: self-teaching can build some skills, but it cannot replicate what a well-structured degree programme provides, and the gap matters in ways that become apparent early in a professional career.
The first thing a degree provides is structured progression. Product design is a discipline with genuine depth, and the sequence in which you develop skills matters. Jumping ahead to advanced software before understanding the principles of form, function, and user research produces designers who can operate tools but don’t know what to do with them. A well-designed curriculum builds the foundation first and develops complexity on top of it.
The second thing a degree provides is critique. Learning to receive and give design critique — to engage seriously with the question of whether something works and why, to defend a design decision under questioning, and to revise your thinking in response to genuine feedback — is one of the most important developmental experiences a design student can have. This does not happen in self-directed learning, because there is nobody to push back.
The third thing is exposure. A degree programme connects students to faculty who have professional experience, to visiting practitioners from the industry, to peers who will challenge and inspire them, and to internship and industry engagement opportunities that are genuinely difficult to access without institutional connection. In a field where professional networks matter, this exposure is not incidental to the degree — it is part of its value.
What I Tell Students About ADYPU’s School of Design
When students in Pune and the surrounding region are researching product design college in Pune options, ADYPU School of Design comes up consistently, and with good reason.
The B.Des in Product Design at Ajeenkya DY Patil University is built around an understanding of the discipline that I find credible and well-aligned with where the industry is. The curriculum covers the full spectrum of what a professional product designer needs: design thinking and research methodology, materials and manufacturing processes, CAD and digital prototyping, ergonomics and user experience, and the business and sustainability dimensions of product development.
What I particularly respect about the programme is its emphasis on the design process as a rigorous discipline rather than a creative free-for-all. Students are trained to think methodically — to define problems carefully, to research and ideate systematically, to prototype and test rather than arrive at solutions by intuition alone. This process orientation is what employers in serious design organisations look for, and it is not something all design programmes deliver with equal conviction.
The ADYPU School of Design is also led by faculty who bring both academic depth and industry experience to their teaching. Ar. Aparna Mhetras, as Dean, has shaped a school that takes design seriously as a professional discipline — one that prepares students for the industry rather than simply offering them four years of creative exploration.
The campus in Pune is itself a significant advantage. Pune’s manufacturing ecosystem, its proximity to Mumbai’s design and media industries, and its own rapidly growing technology and product sector mean that students are not studying design in isolation from the professional world. They are studying it in a city where the industry is active and accessible.
The Career Landscape for Product Design Graduates
This is the question parents ask most often when they sit in on these conversations, and I welcome it.
The career in product design pathways available to a B.Des graduate are genuinely broad, and they are expanding rather than contracting. The most direct paths are into product design roles in manufacturing companies, consumer electronics firms, furniture and home goods companies, automotive design departments, and the medical devices sector — all of which have significant and growing presences in India.
Beyond these, product design graduates move into user experience and interaction design — a field that has grown enormously with the expansion of digital products and continues to offer strong opportunities. They go into design consultancies that serve clients across sectors. They work in design management and strategy roles as they advance in their careers. A number go into entrepreneurship, applying their product development skills to build their own ventures.
What I tell students about the Indian market specifically is this: we are at an early and genuinely exciting stage in the development of a serious domestic design industry. Indian companies — in manufacturing, in technology, in consumer goods — are increasingly investing in design capability rather than importing it. The demand for trained, professional product designers who understand both the discipline and the Indian market is growing, and the number of graduates with genuine, credible training is not keeping pace with it. That gap represents a real professional opportunity for students entering the field now.
Globally, the picture is similarly encouraging. Indian design graduates with strong portfolios and credible institutional training are finding their way into studios and firms in Europe, North America, and the Gulf — markets that are actively interested in diverse design perspectives and in graduates who bring a different set of cultural and contextual references to their work.
The Portfolio Question
One thing I always address before a student finalises their decision is the role of the portfolio in a product design career.
Unlike some professional fields where the degree itself is the primary credential, product design is a portfolio profession. What gets you hired — at the entry level and throughout your career — is the quality of the work you can show. The degree matters as a signal of structured training and a credible foundation, but the portfolio is the proof.
This means that how you spend your time during a degree programme matters enormously. The students who leave with strong portfolios are those who have treated every project as an opportunity to develop and document their thinking, who have sought out internships and live briefs and competitions, and who have been intentional about building a body of work that demonstrates capability across a range of design challenges.
A good degree programme should facilitate this — through project-based learning, industry collaborations, and the kind of critique culture that pushes students to produce work they are genuinely proud of. This is something I always ask institutions about directly when I am advising students on where to apply.
What I Say at the End of the Conversation
By the time a student has sat with me through the kind of conversation I’ve described above, they usually have a clearer sense of whether product design is genuinely right for them — and if it is, why the decision to pursue it formally and seriously is the right one.
What I say at the end is something like this: product design is one of the most complete disciplines available to a student who is both creative and analytical, who wants to make things that work, and who is interested in the relationship between objects and the people who use them. It is intellectually demanding, professionally versatile, and increasingly valued in an economy that is finally starting to understand what good design actually contributes.
If that description fits you — if you are the student who notices how things are designed, who wonders why products work the way they do and whether they could work better, who finds equal satisfaction in the rigour of a well-reasoned process and the pleasure of a well-made object — then this degree is worth pursuing seriously, at an institution that takes it seriously.
There are not many better places to do that in Pune than ADYPU School of Design at DY Patil University. That is what I tell my students. And after twenty years of watching where they go and what they build, I say it with confidence.