These skills include developing engineering and architectural drawings and models, technical illustrations, interactive multimedia and animations for industry as well as several areas of business publication. There is a high demand for design and graphics people, said Larry Leavitt, adviser to the program. Local companies have had a very favorable response. A study conducted in preparation of the major surveyed approximately 250 companies, said Leavitt. WSU already has a two year certificate program in Computer Design and Graphics that has been successful in placing students within the field.
Additional requests come into career services weekly.
Interest for the new degree is also high from students currently enrolled in the Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering Technology Department. Leavitt has had almost 100 students express interest in majoring in the program and estimates that 100 more who have graduated with the two-year degree would come back to WSU to gain the additional training that the degree offers. Leavitt said that he does not foresee the Board of Regents blocking the degree because the program doesn t duplicate any other in northern Utah. Also other schools who have been contacted have not brought up objections to the plan. According to Leavitt, the new degree is just another example of what WSU has done best in the past 17 years that Leavitt has taught here.