Discover your own place within the various design disciplines of our programme and become an experimental and meaningful designer who works inquisitively and creatively on current design questions.  

Based on your talent and ambition, you develop into an experimental designer with an open attitude. You learn how to work creatively, inquisitively and skilfully on inspiring designs that answer current design questions. You do so in different contexts, so that you later will be able to find your way in interdisciplinary and (inter)national environments.  

By following your curiosity, you will discover in assignments - both given and self-created - the ideas, media and materials that bring your designs to life. You learn to create interesting visual work in 2D, 3D and 4D.  

With us, you get the freedom to choose your own path and put together a learning route that really suits you. This starts in our Propaedeutic Year and continues into your exam, in which you show who you are as a designer. 

Community of learners

In our curriculum and in the workshops of our academy, enthusiastic and professional teachers and workshop specialists help you to find your own place as a designer. You do this in constant exchange with your fellow students. 

Minerva has a close-knit community, where you meet others to grow as a young professional but also to do fun things. Whether you're from the neighbourhood or from the other side of the world, you'll find an extended family with us – who supports you through thick and thin. In the small-scale and secure setting of Groningen, a vibrant, young, welcoming and culturally rich community thrives. 

Majors

Our programme has six majors: Graphic/Interactive, Illustration/Animation, Product, Spatial, Time Based and OffRoad, each of which has its own approach to design. What is unique about our programme is that you do not have to choose which major you want to do right away. In our Propaedeutic year, you get to know all our majors and discover what suits you. 

In addition, we offer you the opportunity to work interdisciplinary at many times during our Main phase, for example in our project weeks and electives.  

About this programme

Within our bachelor, you learn to come up with your designs in different ways. These designs are meaningful in terms of content and visually strong, in a way that suits you as designer. Within the lessons there is a lot of room to find out where your passion lies. In doing so, you learn to combine your creativity with design research, to reflect on your choices and to tell the story about your design. You are constantly moving back and forth between who you are as a designer and the context in which you work. 

In our curriculum, you will come across different types of classes: 

• During Studio classes, you develop concepts by doing design research. In that way, you discover how to make the right choices to create inspiring designs.  
• In Lab classes, you develop designs by experimenting. Finding your own style as a designer is important here.  
• The theory classes help you see the design dilemmas you are working on in a broader context and to determine your own position in it. You will do the same in our activities and lectures on Professional Practice. 

Our academy has many extras: workshops where you can get to work practically, electives in which you work with students from different disciplines, an exam in which you get a year to really explore your own project. 

All this is to prepare you for a place in the world of design, whether you are looking for it in an independent studio or at an agency. Throughout your studies, your Study Coach will help you take the right steps in this direction, or to think about solutions when studying is a bit more difficult. 

Propaedeutic year 

Maybe you already have an idea about which designer you want to become, or you are still in doubt. During our broad Propaedeutic year, you will be introduced to all our majors, the design disciplines in which you can graduate with us. Minerva is unique in this.  

In this way, you develop a broad view of modern design, the design culture but also on your own place in it. By experimenting and researching, you learn to come up with a design, and you discover what really matters to you: in which discipline(s) you want to develop further. At the end of your first year, you will choose one of our majors. 

Main phase semester 3-4-5 

In the second year and the first half of the third year, our programme systematically offers you the professional skills & knowledge you need as a designer. Each major has specific themes that are worked on during a semester, which gives you the chance to really dive into these in-depths. You work on all kinds of (technical) skills that are important within a certain discipline, experiment with them and discover what works well for you. You are working in a constant movement between concept & story, and the translation of those into meaningful designs. Understanding the context of your designs is important because you will change it with your design. 

In this period, you learn to make better and better choices, to come to your own position as a designer.  

Switchboard semester 6

The position you found during the first part of our curriculum will be tested in practice in the second half of the third year. During the Switchboard semester, you can choose an internship, an international exchange, a minor, doing another major or an elective offer within the academy (such as with our Project Office/Studio Minerva).  

This semester gives you the opportunity to deepen your choice and learn the extra things you think you need in the practice you have in mind. 

Exams semester 7-8 

In your exams, you bring together everything you want to stand for as a designer. After three years at Minerva you have found the beginning of your own working process, your favourite materials and techniques and your medium. This can be your foundation to work with, or perhaps whatever you add new skills to. 

During your graduation, you work independently on a complex design dilemma that you formulate yourself. This dilemma can be about a theme that you really want to dive into or a way of working that is important to you. It is often a combination of the two.  

In your graduation project, you will conduct design and theoretical research. You create, involve others in what you do and work with sources that help you reflect. 

In the end, you present your work, first during your exam but – if you pass – also during our Graduation Show. Here you show your work to the outside world. 

Alumni

Our alumni end up in all kinds of places, in line with who they are as designers. This can be in autonomous projects, in studios where they work for their own clients or at larger agencies where they will work as part of a team. In addition, some of them choose to do a master's degree or participate in research projects. 

Teachers

Admission requirements

To enrol for the bachelor Design, you will need a national (home country) secondary school diploma or international secondary school qualification, such as an International Baccalaureate Diploma. It must have a level equivalent to the Dutch HAVO school diploma (General Secondary Education), or MBO-4 diploma, with NLQF/EQF level 4 or higher.  Please check international students documents for more information. After you have applied you will be asked to upload the following documents in Hanze Apply:

• Verification of previous education: certified copies your diploma(s) and/or certificates
• a copy of your valid passport/ID
• Proof of a sufficient level of English is required Note: the scores must not be more than two years old.
• an IELTS score of at least 6.0 (maximum 2 subscores of 5.5. No subscores lower than 5.5);
• in some cases a TOEFL (iBT) score of 80;
• Cambridge ESOL level C (CAE-C)
• LanguageCert Academic minimum score of 65
• Pearson PTE Academic minimum score of 61

If you want to know more about the value of your own diploma, you can also check the diploma comparison site of our national agency NUFFIC.

Insufficient preliminary education:

With insufficient prior education, you may be admitted to the Design programme on the basis of ‘exceptional talent’ in the entrance examination and a good performance in a Higher Education Multicultural Capacity Test (NOA). The test indicates whether you have HBO working and thinking level. You will receive an invoice to make the test (€30-40,-). The Admission Test has the following requirements: A minimum grade of 8 on the Admission Examination and sufficient understanding of the Dutch/English language requirement. The Multicultural Ability Test (NOA) is conducted by the Admission Officer. Students automatically receive an invitation after admission.

Application procedure

Important:

• Block week 35. If you pass both entrance exam rounds and are admitted as a student you need to reserve week 35 (25-29 August 2025) for the Design introduction week!
• Add [email protected] to your mail contact list. This way our messages won’t end up in the spam and you won’t miss any deadlines.

Deadlines

Non-EU*: ultimate deadline application Studielink + uploading portfolio: 10 March 2025 23.59hrs CET

EU/EEA: ultimate deadline application Studielink + uploading portfolio: 1 May 2025 23.59hrs CET

After the previous mentioned deadlines, it is not possible to apply anymore for study year 2025-2026. *Non-European/EEA nationality students need to have completed the entrance exam before June 1st, 2025. This is due to the immigration deadline.

Round 1 – Portfolio + Motivation

After application you will get access to Hanze Application Minerva and receive the requirements for the first round. You will be asked to upload 1 merged PDF max. 50mb containing:

• Motivation Letter
• CV 
• Portfolio

Click here for the mandatory guidelines

Round 2 - Home assignment + Interview

On the basis of your portfolio and motivation letter you will receive an invitation, you will be invited for the first available date, for the second round of the Entrance Examination or you will receive a rejection letter by email.

If you have been admitted to the second round of the entrance examination, the Admissions Committee will assess whether you are a suitable candidate for the study programme. Important is your Creative capacity, Capacity for critical reflection, Capacity for growth and innovation and Environmental focus. You will complete the home assignment (Sketchbook + Research&Design) and have an interview.

The following will be taken into account in the advice of the admissions committee of the 2nd round: the home assignment and the interview, but also the portfolio and motivation letter from the first round will be reviewed by the 2nd committee. The question is whether you have an open attitude and want to learn new things. The decisive factor is whether you show the potential to grow into a designer.