Our world is changing rapidly. Entrenched patterns of perception, modes of interpretation and ways of acting often come up short when we try to address challenges such as climate change, globalisation and digitalisation. To create a liveable future, we must radically transform our ways of thinking and acting. What is more, we need specialists who can design and manage this transformation and who are passionate about advancing it in business and society.
The BA in Transformation and Sustainability is a transdisciplinary programme dedicated to building the required transformation skills and knowledge. In the course, students gain the transformative literacy to understand the framework conditions, functional relationships and perspectives of sustainable transformation in context, and to develop a reflective approach to identifying needs for change and courses of action. Concurrently, they develop their own transformative agency to design and manage change processes collaboratively and sustainably, and to turn their ideas into effective action.
Sustainable transformation requires creative expertise and horizon-expanding imagination. Challenging the mindsets and procedures inherent to the disciplines of art and design offers great potential. That is why the School of Design, Film and Art is the programme’s designated homebase.
However, it is closely connected with the other Schools of the HSLU. Depending on their chosen thematic focus, students can attend courses in engineering and architecture, business, social work, health, computer science and information technology or music to gain hands-on insight into the practices of these fields and start to build their own networks.
Our graduates are the change-makers of tomorrow. They help to shape the lived reality of today and the future—in companies, NGOs, public administration, education, or in the culture sector. They act as concept workers, makers, bridge-builders and networkers. They use ideas to mobilise people and have the skills to mediate creatively between different mindsets and practical contexts. They have a strong compass that points towards a sustainable, inclusive and liveable future and they can motivate people to join them in creating this future.
The study programme is organised around projects. On the one hand, this allows students to bring their own transformation ideas to the table, to sharpen them and translate them into informed and well-reflected concepts. On the other, it provides a framework to realise and test these concepts with practice partners from business, civil society, public administration and culture in a real-life setting. In addition to being supervised by a transdisciplinary team of mentors, students also support each other in the framework of dedicated collaboration formats.
Interlinking these four skills is at the heart of the curriculum:
- Systems skills
- Creative skills
- Orientation skills
- Implementation skills
They are taught holistically and placed in context with student projects.
Students explore thematic areas such as ecology, business, politics and society, gain insight into the cultural science discourse around the Anthropocene and the planetary boundaries, and they hone their ability to actively participate in the ongoing transformation discourse. This includes the purposeful development of communication and mediation skills. Through work with design methods and by engaging with artistic practices, students can discover and develop their own creative persona while working on their projects. In addition, they attend course-related events where they gain and test practical project know-how.
The interdisciplinary +++ Modules (+Colabor, +Reflect, +Fokus) encompass additional theory and special modules that discuss the current challenges of society, technology and business. In addition, open specialist modules offer the chance to attend modules delivered by other specialisations. In a project-focused practical semester with regular mentorship sessions, students try out their newly acquired skills and apply practical experience to their project work. In their bachelor's thesis, students fully focus on a degree project of their own choosing.
Graduates of the transdisciplinary BA in Transformation and Sustainability programme have roles in corporate development teams, in the industry sector, in NGOs, in public institutions, in consultancy firms, in education and research, or work as self-employed experts in the field. They have excellent networking skills, and they initiate and boost transformation processes. Graduates will find ample career opportunities outside established professional categories: their expertise is needed in any context where specialist knowledge from different fields must be synthesised, applied in transdisciplinary ways amid complex crises and where the skills are needed to design challenging processes and collaborations.
Students with a BA in Transformation and Sustainability are qualified for a consecutive Master of Arts in Design with specialisations in Design, Eco-Social Design or Service Design.
