Packaging has various functions in today's society. It provides protection for the product it contains, for example in absorbing impacts and vibrations in distribution, and protection to humans, through features that indicate if products have been tampered with. It provides communication through symbols that are only read by machines, such as the bar codes, and intensive communication in the human environment through colors, and many printed messages that help sell the product and inform users and consumers of product attributes. The demand for packaging professionals is very high, mainly because there are only a few schools that offer packaging as a discipline. San Jose State University is located in the heart of Silicon Valley and is the only university that offers a packaging major west of the Mississippi River.
Packaging is the nation's third largest industry, and it is growing.
Packaging graduates are in such a demand that each graduate has in average three job offers on graduation. Since SJSU is one of only ten packaging programs in the US, our graduates are among the most sought after and highly paid of college graduates. The curriculum is tailored to provide a comprehensive foundation of packaging principles and practices in design, materials handling and distribution, production, testing and evaluation, regulatory practices, and environmental concerns. Scholarships are available for packaging students to assist with tuition. Please check under Seminars and Short Courses for more details.