Industrial Design Schools: Opinions and Questions

I know im 7 years too late, but I’ve been reading through this thread, and just to point out, Ive studied Industrial Design at Northumbria University which was Newcastle Poly back then in the UK

Any good Industrial Design School in Germany? What do you think about “Pforzheim Hochschule” Industrial Design?

Anybody from University of Cincinnati, I am going to apply for the master’s degree. One of its admission basis is “at least 2 years of professional experience in design practice or teaching” does this mean if I graduated this year and only have months working experience unable to aply?

Susan, try contacting Mike Zender:
http://daap.uc.edu/academics/design/m_of_design/faculty.html

Anybody knows the Art and Design Program in University of Michigan, I find it appealing but is it more art centered rather than industrial design?

Hello everyone! I am looking for an I.D. School, as you may have guessed since I’m posting here, and could use a bit of guidance. I am interested in trans design, which I have found a few schools for but I am also looking into something like consumer electronics design. For that…I am a bit lost in finding a school. My current primary choice is Wentworth Institute of Technology. But I am not sure if there would be better schools to consider.

The only problem I may have looking at a selection of schools is a lack of a portfolio. I have done some minor 3d modeling and I have built a chair out of card board for a school project, but they are beyond the use in most portfolio time frames. Also, they’re not that impressive.

So I guess my question is, is WIT a good school for I.D.? What about for consumer electronics? What other schools would be good to consider? Thanks for any help.

dear, its up to you which field do you like the most and then check out the respective fields in the different schools. I would suggest you to go for the engineering side especially chemical engineering as it is highly paid and with alot of job opportunities especilly in the gulf side.

good links …nice post of you.

Hi everyone,

I am looking forward to study Industrial Design in Canada as international student and EmillyCarr seems to be the most popular place and most inexpensive to study the subject at.

ID is also offered at Humber School of Applied Technology also offers ID program and has a better overall college rating. Can you please guide me which school should I prefer when considering the
Industrial Design degree?

Have a look at Carleton university in Ottawa. I’m biased as a grad from there but I believe they have the strongest program by far and is the only one that is more technical than art based and also the only one that is a b.id degree not art degree.

Take a look on coroflot for portfolios from grads of all.

R

Hi again everybody

i would really appreciate if anyone can tell me if i had to choose between

Humber School of Applied technology and
Emily Carr

for a more art based Industrial Design degree which one should i choose?

im confused because Humber has an overall better ranking than Emily Carr.

i’d be applying as an international student and i need to choose asap if i can be guided i’d really really appreciate it

Thanks

Sandy

Not sure if Purdue has gotten any love in this thread since it is so long, but I am a sophomore in ID there and I really like it.

Price is relativity cheap and Purdue is always ranked in one for the best value educations.

Campus life isn’t the greatest, but it is in Indiana so what would you expect.

I haven’t been to any other schools so I can’t really compare the facilities, but we have 2 computer studios, one for juniors, and one for seniors, where everyone has their own computer. Next door to those is our model shop which has wood working tools, laser cutter, 3d printer, hand tools powered and not powered, air tools.

Instructors are very knowledge and helpful and have lots of diverse work experience. I’m not sure if other schools require and internship, but Purdue does which is nice so you are guaranteed to have some work experience before graduating.

Graduates seem to have a high employment rate at a very diverse list of companies. Many of the students in the program were engineers at once time and have taken calculus, physics, chemistry, ect. and it seems to give us a lot of credibility with the engineers in those push/pull situations that always seem to arise in the work-field.

we don’t get a lot of Purdue students on here, thank you for the update. We’d love to see some work from you and your classmates!

Welcome to the boards Pete!

Campus life isn’t the greatest, …

Doesn’t sound like much has changed in W. Lafalot since 1969. Wait till the cold really hits…

… but it is in Indiana so what would you expect.

which just goes ta show ya, where ever you go, there you are.

If it’s “cheap” you must be in-state.

Purdue ID, '73

I have my b.s. in ID, but wanted to do a masters program to focus on sports equipment and was curious if anyone had advice on schools to look at for that field. Most of them seem pretty general, but then again, I don’t exactly know how the process works. Thanks.

I am graduating from the University of Florida with a bachelor’s in business and wanted to know if there are any fast-Track bachelor programs for ID. UF has an architecture program called Core where you get a bachelor’s in two years if you have another bachelor’s already. Are there any similar programs out there for Id?

I’ve got some time to kill at work waiting on some stuff, so here’s an unsolicited writeup on Virginia Tech’s current ID program:

VTs ID program is growing and getting stronger, even from when I was a freshman to when I graduated five years later (only cool kids go to college for five years). All the faculty members are passionate and truly care about the advancement and education of the students, and for the price you can’t really beat it (in-state, anyway).


Faculty: All of them have practical real-world experience from a variety of backgrounds, several are active IDSA members. I had classes with each and every one of them, and while all of them are different I didn’t meet one that I truly disliked. Some I liked better than others, but overall all of them were excellent educators and all would set aside time (and even be in the studio late into the night if needed) for meeting with students.

Coursework: Now that I’ve been out in the “real world” as a designer, I’ve only run into one issue where I was wishing I’d learned more in school: 3D modeling programs. Virginia Tech teaches SolidWorks with an optional 6 week class in Rhino, and that’s it. If I had not had internships that used Rhino and taught it to myself, I probably would not have gotten my job. We also use 3DS Max at my company, and I have no earthly clue how to use it and the other designers learned it in school. When they asked what I was taught in school as far as 3D modeling goes, they were appalled that all they teach is SolidWorks. Yeah you can learn the others on your own time, but honestly who has that kind of time/money to buy a license and learn while not working on actual school projects?

Space: You can’t really beat Burchard Hall for an awesome studio atmosphere. Everyone has their own desk that they do not have to share with anyone, and it’s a fully open collaborative space. A recent addition is the Kiva, a round whiteboard room used for pinups, discussions, group work, etc. The only downside of the Kiva is the acoustics since it’s round so it’s hard to hear people presenting sometimes, and noise from outside is amplified. The studio space is open 24/7, although it requires swiping your student ID to get in after certain hours and on weekends as a security measure so if you forget to bring your student ID on a 3 AM trip to studio you’re kinda SOL.

Campus: Virginia Tech is set in the mountains of SW Virginia in a little mountain town. Blacksburg is one of the best college towns out there, and VT is a huge school so there’s always something going on and stuff to do. At Tech you can have a good design education but also have the typical college experience of football games and school spirit that you might not get at an art school. You also meet and interact with people who are not designers, which I believe is beneficial. My roommates in college were not designers, which was nice because I could come home and escape the design school bubble and talk about stuff entirely not design related.



Here’s the big flaw I wish VT’s ID program would work harder to address:

Internships/co-ops.

As of now, students are 100% on their own to find their own internships and co-op opportunities. Being in the middle of nowhere in Appalachia means that making design connections is very difficult, and therefore getting internships is not an easy feat. And let’s face it, if you don’t have at least one internship under your belt by graduation you are sunk when it comes to getting that “entry level” job that requires 2-3 years of experience. I was lucky, I got two internships just through knowing someone who knew someone, but not everyone is that fortunate. I was also lucky in that I had a full-time industrial design job offer in hand at graduation. Guess how many other people could say the same? 1. There were 30 in my graduating class. Several more have gotten ID jobs since then and even more have settled for internships, but the majority still are not working in the industrial design field.

The faculty is trying hard to establish connections out in the real world to help more students find internships, I’ve already had one or two reach out to me to keep in touch to send internships/job postings their way. They’re making progress but it’s a slow journey.


So in conclusion, VT’s ID school is a very strong and growing program that produces a lot of talent, but it falls short in helping their students get their portfolios out there and getting their talent out into the world. The internships and jobs are there, you just have to work harder for them than if you’d gone to a school with established partnerships with companies that just plop co-ops (and the experience that goes with them) into your lap.

For what it’s worth I had spammed out a new grad job opportunity to the VT grads this year and I think I got 1 portfolio back. I won’t hold it against anyone, but it may also be a matter of perception (since I felt the same way when I graduated, but still managed to land a job right after school due to connections through the professors).

Working harder to try and land and internship, which the VT students are very good at isn’t a bad thing. The real world is competitive, and keeping that competition part of the process and not just a hand out may be more intentional than you think.

Which job was it? It might’ve been my portfolio, I lost count of job apps around 80 and spammed my resume/portfolio at anything I was remotely qualified for.

You do have a point about making the students work for their experience because that’s how the real world is, but on the other hand when they’re starting from scratch with zero experience and only a couple design projects in their portfolio it’s kinda like tossing them into the deep end of the pool to learn how to swim. At least give them a pair of floaties or something the first time around, even if it’s just an introductory email to someone at the company.

I keep reading about these other schools with established/mandatory co-op programs and keep thinking “man I wish we had that”.

Leezard,

i’ll agree with you on your review of VT ID’s prgram. i am currently a 3rd year student there and its pretty much all up to you in terms of finding an internship. if you’re close with a professor you get some connections from them but thats about it unless you know some friends/alumni.

its hard to get seen/get experience when you’re going to school in the middle of nowhere. I hope they set something up like UC does in the future. it would make more sense since were arent near a large metropolitan area like NYC, Boston, SF, etc.