Make an impact with a degree from CU Boulder's College of Engineering and Applied Science.
The professional MS in Creative Technology and Design (CTD) is a 33-credit hour program empowering you to become an interdisciplinary problem-solver. The Social Impact track prepares you to leverage technology to create equity in access and support underserved communities in the US and around the world.
This 2-year program is adaptable to your area of focus, whether you are passionate about accessibility, entrepreneurship, policy, or any other way you aim to make an impact.
The University of Colorado Boulder has one of the top 12 public engineering graduate programs in the U.S., according to U.S. News and World Report’s Best Graduate Schools rankings for 2024-25.
Program Benefits
Unique Student Experience
Small classes offer hands-on project-based learning with direct mentoring and student collaboration. Core classes provide a foundation in domestic and global development, technology and professional skills. Then, choose your own path by selecting from technical and critical perspective electives focused on topics such as accessibility, education, climate change, global health, and policy.
Industry Collaboration
Learn from industry leaders in various ways. Many courses are taught by working professionals from small studios to large companies like Google and Amazon. We create opportunities to engage with working professionals, including classes, workshops, guest lectures, networking, portfolio reviews, and project mentoring.
Learn & Work
Most students work at least part-time while in the program, including opportunities for roles at ATLAS, across campus, along the Front Range and in remote positions. CU Boulder offers many resources to assist you in finding roles, while the course schedule offers flexibility to match your needs.
Creative Community
A diverse student cohort is one of the program’s greatest strengths. A broad mix of talent leads to more thoughtful and thorough impact projects and solutions.
Real World-Experience
Our curriculum leverages project-based learning with an emphasis on real-world experience. Our curriculum gives you opportunities to work on real projects for outside organizations through group lab projects and a practicum.
Future Forward Careers
Our students are uniquely positioned for the evolving job markets of the future. No single technology will fully equip students for the field—instead we help you build a technical toolset and an approach to life-long learning and creative problem solving as your career evolves.
Course Sequence
The MS track in Social Impact equips students with skills in three areas:
Social Impact Foundations and Practice — You learn development history and theory while reviewing social impact projects at the intersection of technology and development (or human-need) across applications and technologies. You gain expertise in bottom-up, community-centered, sustainable design.
Professional Development — You are introduced to a wide range of people and projects across the social impact and development landscape. This process connects you to a range of industry leaders and employment options for networking and post-graduate career development. The final practicum project uniquely equips you with semester-long field experience in your focus area.
Technical Fluency — You develop a foundation in contemporary digital skills including coding and development, building a unique technical toolset to address social issues.
Descriptions
Case Studies
3 credit hours
This course explores the challenges and opportunities in the evolving field of technology for social impact by evaluating case studies across a range of technologies and applications. Class sessions are interspersed with student presentations and lively discussions around best practices, implementation strategies, and technology's role(s) in development.
Students Gain: knowledge of past and present Social Impact projects, characteristic of project success and failure, hands-on understanding of several technology platforms, the ability to match available technologies with human and environmental needs and resources.
Global Development
3 credit hours
This course is designed to introduce students to the complex and inter-related nature of global development, including understanding the major historical outcomes, theories, institutions, policies, alternatives/critiques and themes in international and community development. The class will explore specialized themes including, Indigenous knowledge, Liberation theology and Conflict, alongside debating hot topics such as public/private partnerships, microfinance, and social entrepreneurship. The course will provide an opportunity to students to discuss and debate the ethics of global practice and to locate its politics.
Students Gain: Students will leave the course with a sensitivity to understanding the needs of underserved and under-represented individuals and communities.
Introduction to Programming *or* Creative Code
3 credit hours
For students with little to no programming experience, the Intro to Programming class gives students the coding experience needed for more advanced programming classes and many technical focus classes. For students with prior programming experience, Creative Code explores creative uses of software development, while focusing on developing the “digital plumbing” that supports our creative work.
Fieldwork Methods
3 credit hours
This course introduces the methods and models that can be employed in the design, development, and deployment of social impact projects. This class will examine the applications of participatory research, ethnography, ethics in developing-world context, community assessment, behavior change communication, monitoring and evaluation, study design, and quantitative and qualitative data collection and (preliminary) analysis.
Students Gain: experience with multi-method approaches to “doing development”, a “toolbox” of useful and practical on-the-ground skills.
Creative Technologies
3 credit hours
This course gives students of all backgrounds hands-on exposure to a wide range of technologies (including: 3D printing, laser-cutting, microcontrollers, sensors and IoT, programming, etc.) Through making, students build their technical fluency and confidence, while identifying technology skills they wish to further develop throughout the program.
Students Gain: foundational knowledge, technical confidence, exposure and awareness, strategies and experience for learning new technologies
Elective: Critical Perspectives or Technical Focus
3 credit hours
Critical Perspectives: Based on interest (Public Health, Education, Energy, Gender, etc) students can select from a range of domain-specific courses offered within ATLAS and across campus.
Technical focus: Based on interest (e.g. mobile, product, etc), students can select from a range of technical courses offered within ATLAS and across campus. Students customize their skill set based on professional goals.
Students Gain: Deeper theoretical understanding and sectoral expertise in the domain of their choice
Social Impact Lab
3 credit hours
In this studio course students learn to create technologies for underserved communities. Students work in multidisciplinary teams on projects in collaboration with community partners, field practitioners, and experts in relevant fields. Students learn the workflow for designing and evaluating user-centered designs, from need-finding to prototyping to evaluation. The Social Impact lab course is designed to bring everything that students have learned thus far about technology, development and methods together in one cohesive project. “Lab” is intended to be a dress rehearsal for the Social Impact practicum.
Students Gain: Hands-on project experience, project management experience, collaborative team learning, direct client experience, prototype development.
Elective: Technical Focus
3 credit hours
see description above
Elective: Critical Perspectives
3 credit hours
Based on interest (Public Health, Education, Energy, Gender, etc) students can select from a range of domain-specific courses offered within ATLAS and across campus.
Students Gain: Deeper theoretical understanding and sectoral expertise in the domain of their choice
Practicum
6 credit hours
A hallmark of the Social Impact program is the practicum experience. Students spend a full semester working with a organization in a social impact specific role. Student develop a scope of work and list of deliverables and present on these at the end of the practicum. This semester- long experience positions students for graduation, as they have a project and on the ground experience to highlight on their resume.
As part of the completion of the practicum experience, students develop a video. This prepares them to talk about their work and contributions to audiences both aware and potentially unfamiliar with the field of social impact. This video collateral can be used on their websites/portfolios.
Students gain: Hands-on social impact experience in the field, scope of work outline development and negotiation, communication and presentation digital media skills.
Focus Areas
The Creative Technology & Design program is flexible to your goals, whether you want to pursue social impact through design, policy, business or artistic expression. Here are a few of the most common areas students focus on:
Workshops
To extend your skill development, we offer free workshops throughout the year. The workshop series allows students to explore new areas of interest, gain additional skills, network with industry leaders, collaborate with non-Creative Industries students and further develop their skills. Recent topics included:
- Figma
- Adobe Creative Suite
- Motion Graphics
- UI/UX
- Bio Meets Computation
- 3D Printing
- Programming in Python and R
- Data Science
- Project Management
Practicum
A hallmark of the program is the final fieldwork or research practicum. You spend a full semester with non-governmental organizations, development agencies, foundations and technology companies applying thoughtful, real-world interventions that have a social impact. This experience positions you for careers in the field, sometimes with the same organization.
Alumni Profiles
Our alumni go on to inspiring careers in leading industries. Here are a few of those doing outstanding work in their field.