I’m not a designer per se - a design anthropologist - but I’ve taught at the RCA and Eindhoven, and visited a lot of the programmes mentioned over the years.
It has a lot to do with character - when it comes to postgrad level, you need space to develop your own approach and the right kind of discussions going on around you. In spite of what some say, I’m not convinced that many programmes “deliver” skills, it’s finding the right space for you to deliver. I love the openness of the Scandinavian and Dutch programmes, those which have a strong element of conceptualisation (eg. Eindhoven, Umea, RCA London, Stockholm, Southern Denmark). A social or contextual orientation is also good (eg. Glasgow School or Art, Finland). When I work with graduates of any of those places, I know they can take ‘ethnographic observations’ of the kinds I do, and re-conceptualise them in a very empathic way. Elisava and Domus are quite happening places, and have a really interesting aesthetic sensibility which the more Northerly schools rarely capture.
Adam
MA Culture.Materials.Design (not design but mainly anthropology)
www.ucl.ac.uk/culture-materials-design