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

For our bachelor you do an admission.
To enrol, 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. 

NB 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. 

Sometimes you can be admitted if you have insufficient prior education. You will then show ‘exceptional talent’ during the admission. After admission on the basis of exceptional talent, you will receive an invitation to take a Higher Education Multicultural Capacity Test (NOA). In that test, you show whether you can work and think at HBO level. The costs of this test are at your own expense.

After you have applied you will be asked to upload the following documents:

• 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
  NB The scores must not be more than two years old.
  • an IELTS score of at least 6.0 (maximum 2 sub scores of 5.5. and no sub scores lower than 5.5)​​​​​​​

NB  For more information about English language requirements, alternatives for IELTS  and reasons for being exempted from submitting English language test scores, here 

Apply

You can apply for our bachelor Design through Studielink (let op link hier). We start in September; there are no possibilities to start in February. You must register before 1 March 2026. After applying in Studielink, you have access to Hanze Apply while your admission procedure will be started by us.

NB As Non-European/non-EEA nationality candidates you can find information, f.e. on financial guarantees and residence permits or visa, here

Admission Exam & Criteria

The bachelor Design has an admission exam in two rounds. Each round is assessed by an admissions committee consisting of two tutors from our programme. Round 1 is considered by a different admissions committee than Round 2.

Both committees assess whether you are a suitable candidate for our programme, and advise the dean of Minerva Art Academy whether or not you can be admitted. The committees look at your creative and visual talents, of course, but also at your curiosity, broad interests, open attitude to the unknown and your way of communicating orally and in writing. They also take our competencies of artistic ability, research & reflection and connection with the environment into account in their assessment.

Round 1 / Portfolio

We ask you to submit a portfolio, containing:

• Motivation
• Overview of your work
• Resume

Admissions Committee 1 assesses your portfolio on your imagination, your way of interacting, your courage to experiment with new media and styles, your process of working and trying out, your open mind on an assignment and your curiosity about the world.

You will receive an email with the outcome of the assessment within 15 working days. In case of a positive result, you will move on to Round 2.

NB If you have completed our JAM (Junior Academy Minerva) positive, you are automatically admitted to Round 2

If you are a Non-European/non-EEA nationality candidate, the deadline for uploading your Round 1 portfolio in Hanze Apply is 1 April 2026.

Portfolio Admission Exam Design in detail

Round 2 / Home assignment and admission interview

If we assess Round 1 positively, you will receive the home assignment and the invitation for the admission interview from us via email.

In Round 2 you will work on a home assignment and you will talk to Admissions Committee 2. Both tutors will include your portfolio from Round 1 and your elaboration of the home assignment in the interview.

During the admission interview, Admissions Committee 2 will talk to you about your motivation to come and study at Minerva Art Academy: what do you want to learn with us? Both tutors will talk to you about the work from your portfolio, the way you approached the home assignment and what things you find important in life, design and art.

They assess* whether you would be able to study well within our programme. And they look at whether you have an open attitude and whether you can develop. You need that to grow into a good designer.

*They do this based on the criteria that you can find here: Admission Exam & Criteria 

Our admission interviews are between February and May 2026. The conversation lasts 10 minutes and is online.

NB Make sure you have your portfolio and home assignment at hand during the admission interview, so you can show the committee specific things.

You will receive an email within 15 working days with the outcome of the Round 2 assessment. If you have a positive result, you will be admitted to our programme.

Important
If you pass both admission rounds and are admitted as a student, reserve the week of 24-28 August 2026 for Camping Minerva, our introduction week!

Add [email protected]  to your email contact list. This way, our messages don't end up in spam and you don't miss deadlines. You can also reach us at this email address if you have any questions.