Why did you choose your school?

I choose my school due to its reputation.It is the best CBSE school in india.

My school was chosen by my parents.

This is a nice wee topic to get my pen started again…

I applied to Coventry University in 2001 as, at the time, it had one of the best transport design programs in the world, and I was obsessed with cars. I was unsuccessful in my application so I enrolled in the foundation course at Coventry. This was a great move, as it took my thoughts away from ‘run of the mill’ secondary school Art teachings and delved into the core of the subject spanning life drawing (naked people - :open_mouth: ), Georgia Keefe and her petals, craft, etc. and of course ID. I would highly recommend this to any willing designer as it’s only one year and by hell does it broaden your mind!
It was a one-on-one critique with my lecturer when I dropped the bomb that I was thinking of moving away from transport and hitting ID for my degree. His eyes lit up, and told me with my Maths/Physics/Art A-Level background I’d be a fool not to, otherwise I’d be designing the next wing mirrors on a ford focus, if I was lucky… I’ve never looked back.

I chose CSULB.

I went there for 3 main reasons:

  1. Convenience (was enrolled in a completely different major when I switched over)

  2. Price (was the cheapest BS degree I could find)

  3. Reputation (was suppose to be very respectable back in the day the original program founders still taught)

I would say that that it met and 1 and 2 very well, and was a disappointment in 3. All in all, I would say its an “ok” school. I’ve certainly heard stories of worse programs, and there are some exceptional faculty there. But there are also career professors who don’t have much field experience, and many professors have cycled out in my 5 years there. Some of them were quite good, but there weren’t enough classes to go around when full timers get priority. I’ve also never understood how they match professors with classes, as there were many instances where an otherwise capable teacher was required to teach a subject they were woefully unqualified for. The tools have improved during my stay, but the state of the shop was pretty embarrassing when I started, and it took a student petition to get things changed. However the program has doubled in size (20->40), and I think it will soon outgrow the facilities. I’ve always joked that the design program is the redheaded ginger of the college of the arts, as the fine arts get way better facilities and free foam.

It’s got a few things going for it though. It’s geographically close to a number of community colleges, art schools, and public programs that are very affordable, allowing you to expand your skillset in almost any direction. It’s part of a larger liberal arts campus, so you can get involved with other things besides design 24/7. It’s got a handful of great professors. The Duncan Anderson lectures do sometimes bring in very cool speakers. And its cheap.

There are a few cases where I would say LB is the place for you:

  1. You are poor. Did I mention its cheap? Its very cheap for a BS (~$3000 tuition per semester x 10 semesters)

  2. You came from HS and have never drawn in your life. If you’re starting from scratch and don’t want to spend years training up to apply for ACCD, then LB is the place to go. Many of the students are new to design, and the program will usually keep pace with your learning if you are starting from zero.

  3. You want a degree and a “life”. The program is honestly not that strenuous nor selective if you just want to graduate with a degree. There are some miserable semesters, but if you can put together a slide deck and a presentation, it’s pretty hard to fail. So we get a number of older students who are parents and they need a degree to advance their career and a workload that isn’t as brutal as ACCD.

There are a few cases where I would absolutely not recommend LB.

  1. You have a lot of talent and skills coming in. Chances are, you will draw better, model better, and CAD better than most of your teachers and peers. It is not hard to outgrow the program and plateau. I’ve seen quite a few very talented classmates either drop out from boredom, or barely improve until they got the right teacher.

  2. You want to be among the best and have the drive to do it. Most of your classmates are coming straight from HS and will go through a phase of dicking around (I sure did). Most will not be as serious as you and will not help you get better.

  3. You absolutely need a good environment to learn. This is mostly up to chance, but once you pass portfolio and enter studio, the faculty expects your class to police yourselves. I’ve argued against this to no avail, but if you have classmates that trash the workspace and leave food out, you better get used to the smell.

So would I do it all over again? Let’s just say I wouldn’t want to. I didn’t come from money and I wasn’t exposed to design until late in college, so it’s unlikely I could have gone to any other school and graduated at the same time. But there were many semesters where I felt like I was learning more on youtube than in class, so I think it’s important to manage your expectations. You definitely get more than what you pay for, but I’m a believer that anyone with a good work ethic and a modicum of talent will make more money for the rest of their lives, but nothing will get back lost time. So take that for what you will.

Because it was a renownd school in the city.Nice campus,nice building,close to home,also good result.Considering everything it was perfect school for study.

because reputation

Because of location.

Because my parent had not enough money to get me to normal school…

nyc post :wink:

We don’t really get to choose schools here, its the desire of our parents.

  1. I chose my school based on how the I.D. program complemented my existing skill set. I’d gone to art school so I didn’t need the visual/aesthetic training. The school I chose for I.D. was the only school (at the time) in Canada that taught Solidworks… so I went for the technical training.
  2. There was a 3rd year co-op.
  3. I wasn’t willing to move cities so that limited my choice to 2 schools.

In the same situation, I would make the same choice. Every school has it’s way of teaching and placing emphasis on different aspects of design. If you are trying to decide, go to the open house and look at student projects. In Toronto, there is something called the Rocket show. It’s a competition that brings together the thesis projects from graduating students from 3 or 4 schools. I’d highly recommend checking it out if you are trying to decide which school to go to. There may be something like it in other cities.

At the end of the day, school is a small step to becoming an industrial designer. Once you start working, there is a lot to learn on the job.

Hello anyone!! :smiley:

I always wanted to get in to ID but, I took other routes and now I want to go back to school and do what I really want. DESIGN. I live in Houston TX and I have been looking for a Good school to start my education. I know We have UH, but I have nothing to compare and if I go with what WWW have to say, It sounds like if you are not in the East coast or abroad you have no chance get a good career. I also read about Denver U. and some of the Art institutes.

If possible I would like to have a fresh opinion on this schools the bad the Good and the … no just the bad and the Good.

Thanks

I heard a lot of questions about why did I choose my school? Because it was the nearest school to my house.

sajuroma,
Have you made a decision yet?

I lived in Austin for a year and it is booming with design.
The drive would allow you to still spend your weekends in Houston.
If you are confident enough consider just starting a design business and learn independently, within the community over there.
I know Jon Kolko teaches in Austin but his program is very expensive.

I grew up in a relatively small town and considered myself a relatively big fish in a small pond. I chose Pratt because of its location NYC and Frank Sinatra. “If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.” I wanted a challenge, and a bigger pond. I got it and a good but non-traditional education. I would not trade the experience, but yes, I promptly left NYC after school. When I decided to go to graduate school, I had a different set of criteria. :slight_smile:

I actually got forced into mine. I had NO interest in learning programming. I kind of do now but not back then. I am glad though one of our instructors told me something that still haunts me to this day. "Today when you go home, I want you to look in the mirror . . . that’s the person that’s stopping your from success’. I didn’t get it what it meant then but I do now.

I chose ASU because of location and scholarships. It’s a great school, but I think I would have prefered a place like Cincinnati that has more co-ops.

I had my 20th college reunion last October. It is interesting to think of my school choice 25 years after I made it. Initially I chose RISD for a number of reasons:

1 - Reputation. Not the best reason, but they do a great job of convincing high school art teachers and guidance counselors that they are awesome. With several authority figures recommending it to me, it had an influence.

2 - Feel. I visited RIT, Pratt, Syracuse, Art Center, and talked to people at CCS. RISD just kind of felt right to me. The city setting, in a small, manageable city, the feel of the campus, the art school vibe. It just clicked.

3 - Location. I was a small town boy from New York State. I wanted to be in a city, but NYC was a little intimidating, and maybe too close to home at just a 90 minute train ride. Art Center felt too far. At 4.5 hours away by car, RISD had that right feel of being on my own, but not too far. I could still get home in 2 trains and a switch from Penn Station to Grand Central.

As some of you might know, I had a love/hate with the school for a long time based on my experiences there, but as time has gone on the good has seemed to out weight the bad. What the school lacked in core skill building and industry connections it made up for in critical thinking, rigor/work ethic, and the connections to fellow alumni. Going back and seeing folks I hadn’t seen in 20 years in some cases there was an irreplaceable bond.

I had been at the University of Maryland in Business Administration from 87-91 and then MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) in 91 building a portfolio with the intention of applying to CCS and Art Center.

I was accepted at both but the trimesters and cost of Art Center were just too much (since it was the third school I’d been at, my parents said “enough, we’re not paying anymore”) so I was paying for it myself (or so I thought).

CCS offered me scholarships and grants and I was going to be lobbying to transfer a good number of credits from UofM and MICA so I chose CCS. The program was outstanding from the start - John Steiner and Tom Molyneaux still stand out as amazing instructors in my mind. The opportunities were great and the jobs coming out were plentiful - it helped that I was a little older than the other students, I tended to take everything more seriously and graduated at the top of my class.

The icing on the cake was this; At my graduation, my Mom handed me a check for my entire student debt - she said, “We were always going to pay for this but we wanted you to be motivated”. That was very cool.

It was one of the only schools in those years to offer 3D anything outside the hardcore engineering realm.