Packaging Systems and Design Major
Explore the Packaging Systems and Design Degree
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Packaging Systems and Design (PSD)
Join a field with high employment rates and competitive starting salaries!
Are you ready to launch a world-changing career with excellent earning potential?
The Department of Sustainable Biomaterials offers one of the few Packaging Systems and Design degrees in the United States. Our Packaging Systems and Design major offers a unique path to success with a strong track record of high employment rates and competitive starting salaries. Packaging is a vital part of every industry — whether it’s food, pharmaceuticals, technology, or consumer goods. By earning a degree in Packaging Systems and Design, you’ll be equipped with the skills that make you an indispensable employee, in demand across the global marketplace.
Every item that is manufactured needs to be moved, and packaging systems provide solutions worldwide for the transport of items. Packaging is a field of boundless impact and steady market growth. Plus, with our program's focus on sustainable packaging, you’ll also play a direct role in helping companies reduce waste and environmental impact. A degree in packaging doesn’t just open doors — it gives you the tools to make a difference.
Packaging is an industry where you can change the world. With endless career opportunities and the flexibility to work in a variety of sectors, packaging experts are always needed, making this degree a smart investment for your future.
Challenge yourself
Why choose Packaging Systems and Design?

The world of packaging is diverse and multifaceted. Packaging comes in many types and uses many materials. Some packaging companies make these materials, some convert materials into packaging, some fill packaging with products, and some provide consulting or logistics services. Students in the Packaging Systems and Design degree acquire the multi- and inter-disciplinary knowledge needed to be successful in these exciting careers. There are even more reasons to choose PSD as your major:
- 🎓 Top-Ranked Program: VT offers one of the leading packaging programs in the U.S., known for strong academics and industry relevance.
- 🏫 Interdisciplinary Curriculum: Combines engineering, materials science, design, and sustainability—giving you a holistic view of packaging.
- 💼 Strong Industry Connections: Partnerships with major companies provide internships, co-ops, and job opportunities.
- 🧪 Hands-On Learning: Access to state-of-the-art labs and packaging testing equipment for real-world application of classroom knowledge.
- 🌍 Sustainability Focus: Emphasis on sustainable packaging solutions and circular economy principles to meet global environmental goals.
- 📈 High Job Placement Rate: Graduates are in demand across industries like food, pharmaceuticals, e-commerce, and consumer goods.
- 👥 Small Program, Big Impact: Smaller class sizes foster close relationships with professors and peers, plus personalized academic support.
- 🏞️ Great Campus and Community: VT's beautiful campus in Blacksburg offers a vibrant college town atmosphere with strong school spirit.
Career opportunities
Graduates of the Packaging Systems and Design major enter high-growth fields, such as:
Packaging Engineer
Develops and tests packaging solutions to ensure product protection, compliance, and cost-effectiveness. Collaborates with manufacturing, logistics, and suppliers to optimize materials, design, and performance across the supply chain for efficiency and sustainability.
Packaging Designer
Creates visually appealing and functional packaging that aligns with branding and consumer needs. Uses graphic and structural design to balance aesthetics, usability, and protection while meeting marketing, regulatory, and production requirements.
Packaging Researcher (R&D)
Conducts research to develop innovative packaging materials, technologies, and systems. Focuses on performance, sustainability, and cost-effectiveness. Collaborates with cross-functional teams to test, analyze, and implement solutions that meet evolving industry and consumer demands.
Other job titles may include:
Packaging Manager
Production Supervisor
Supply chain engineer
Sales Manager
Structural Designer
Industrial Engineer
What you'll learn
Packaging Systems and Design goes beyond theory — students develop critical skills
The Packaging Systems and Design major blends creativity, science, and engineering — and prepares you for careers in industries ranging from tech and healthcare to food and logistics. We equip students with the skills to find real-world solutions and explore exciting topics.
- Practice designing and creating packaging using cutting-edge tools like CAD and 3D modeling.
- Gain experience testing packaging performance in labs that simulate real-world conditions (drop, vibration, compression, etc.).
- Learn how to choose the right materials for packaging - whether it’s paper, plastic, glass, metal, or sustainable alternatives.
- Develop sustainable packaging solutions that reduce waste and improve environmental impact.
Our Program
Dr. Laszlo Horvath teaching class.

Learning
Small Class Sizes = Personal Connection
Our small class sizes provide an opportunity to our students to build more personal connections with our faculty. In addition, our unique mentoring program assigns a faculty member to every packaging student to provide industry connections and career guidance throughout their time at Virginia Tech.
Student talking to employer

Career Ready
Industrial Connections
Our close collaboration with industry allows our students to find internships, Co-ops, and employment after graduation. Our extensive network includes major packaging companies such as PCA, International Paper, Smurfit Kappa, Newell, and CHEP as well as packaging users such as Amazon, L'Oreal, Coca-Cola, and Tesla among many others.
Students getting hands on experience

Experiential Learning
Hands-On Experience
The best way to translate the knowledge obtained in class to real life is to use it to solve real-life packaging problems. All of our packaging students have a chance to be involved in hands-on packaging projects even during their freshman year, including working in our packaging research center, undergraduate research in one of our labs, internal summer internships, and industry sponsored senior design projects.
... the packaging industry covers a wide range of fields ...
Our students choose classes that matches their specific packaging interests!

One of the main roles of a packaging engineer is to ensure that the product in a package survives the physical distribution process to arrive undamaged when it reaches the consumer.
Packaging solutions can be divided into three major areas: e-commerce, retail, industrial. The packaging engineer must understand the requirements of these sectors and develop a packaging solution that can provide the required protection, can be shipped cost effectively, and has a low environmental impact.
To be prepared for their jobs, our packaging students learn about supply chain management and logistics, transportation and warehousing systems used worldwide, protective packaging design, and industrial packaging systems.
Students who have an interest in distribution packaging commonly work for companies such as Tesla, HP, IBM, Exxon, BMW, Amazon, ABF freight, Newell brands, or any other company who manufactures and ships products.
Package design is classified into two main categories: structural and graphical design. Both areas are pillars in the knowledge of packaging designers.
Courses lead the students to understand the system that includes the creation of products, package structure design for security and protection in transit, and package graphic design elements for communication with consumers. In the PSD major, students can learn a series of design software programs, such as Computer-Aided Design in Packaging (ArtiosCAD), Adobe Illustrator, and Photoshop.
The packaging program at Virginia Tech offers a series of courses covering fundamental design principles all the way to an advanced experiential design studio course. To meet with the societal demands for sustainability, each course focuses on the connections of individual packaging components with each other. Course projects are hands-on experiences focused on solving industrial packaging problems and are often sponsored by major packaging companies.
Virginia Tech packaging graduates have been successful within a broad base of business sectors as packaging or graphic designers. Employers include companies providing consumer packaged goods, packaging converters, and packaging suppliers.

Packaging science and materials in a concentration that provides a deep dive into packaging materials, the manufacturing processes, and interaction between packaging materials and products.
Packaging materials include: traditional plastics, sustainable bioplastics, corrugated, paper and paperboard, metals, glass. The packaging program at Virginia Tech offers courses that thoroughly examine materials, machinery, manufacturing processes, and how they interact with goods in transit.
Successful completion of courses in the science and materials area of packaging enables students to enter such business sectors as:
- Packaging material companies (such as plastic, chemical, paper, metal, and glass based companies) as material scientists
- Consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies as packaging engineers
- Packaging converting companies as production or packaging engineers