Industrial Design Schools: Opinions and Questions

by Career Prospects, I mean

What is % of UC DAAP ID graduates are employed within 3 months of graduation and what is the average salary
What kind of demand the graduates have in employment market
% Growth in next 5 or 10 years
Average Salary of graduates who has 5 to 10 years experience and > 10 years Experience
Drop out rate within DAAP ID and Post graduation (Change of career)

Contact UC DAAP ID for their specific numbers. Talk to their department teachers/counselors to get a more first hand experience answer.
There are more graduates than demand I would say. Very competitive market. You also have people applying from different states, countries and industries.
Some general salary numbers. Industrial Designer Salary | PayScale - Salary will depend greatly on size of company and location. Consultancy vs Coorporate, etc.
It’s a very competitive field. I’m afraid you won’t like the percentages of people that actually work in ID after graduation.

You can look at the core77 salary survey as well: Creative Employment Snapshot

The numbers might be a bit daunting but I think that getting freaked out by these percentages before entering ID is the wrong way to go about tit.

Industrial Design, or Design in general, never struck me as a cushy money play anyway. If you want to play it safe, design isn’t it. It’s not a painting-by-numbers kind of job.
I liked what I recently read from Yo. That designers are more like pro athletes.
You go into this profession believing that the percentages of who makes it don’t matter because there is no way you won’t make it.
Who cares about the ones falling by the wayside? It won’t be you!

I believe that there is a good amount of, maybe sometimes delusional and often (so far) unfounded confidence needed to make it.
That you have something special to contribute that no one else could have done in that specific way.

This might sound very romantic but it does get you through school and if you can sell the believe in your abilities at your first interviews, it will get you your first gig too.

Well blackbelt is interested in numbers so just wanted to give him a head’s up. I think when I went to school the percentages were very low and decreased as time went by. I want to say less than 30% or so (don’t quote me) would work in ID after graduation.
Having said that, if you have what it takes and give it a 100% while in school you can have a great, fulfilling & fun career.

Agreed :wink:

Thank you very much to all of you for your input and advice

Hi all!

I’m a student from India and would really appreciate some advice.

I did my undergraduation from a design college here about a year ago. Since then I’ve been working on low cost medical products in rural india. I’ve applied to a few schools in the US for a masters and really need some help picking.

I’ve gotten into

  1. University of Cincinnati
  2. Arizona State university
  3. UIUC
  4. Pratt Institute
  5. California College of Design

I’m also on the waitlist at RISD.

I’ve been considering going to a university and not an art school because I love multidisciplinary work. This narrows my options down to UIUC, UIC and ASU.

UIUC has offered me a TA which give me a full tuition fee waiver and a stipend which is a really sweet deal. (To attend anywhere else, I will be in a ton of debt; something I would rather avoid. )

So here’s my dilemma. Everything I can find on the forum about UIUC is a bit dated. The latest comments were from acm who did his undergrad in 2012.

My questions to anybody who have heard about the program to anybody who recently/seen portfolios/interacted with recent students:

  1. are the portfolios competitive?
  2. and consistent pattern in terms of skills the students seem to be lacking; straight out of college?
  3. any reasons for not attending UIUC and joining one of the other colleges?

I’m a bit hesitant about UIUC largely because I haven’t been able to find a lot of portfolios on behance or on the www.
I want to attend college largely for exposure to an international audience, and to polish my skill set; something there is dire need of.

Visiting the universities is not really feasible at this point so I have to make do with what I can find online.

Thanks in advance and apologies for such a long post.

Hi all!

I’m a student from India and would really appreciate some advice.

I did my undergraduation from a design college here about a year ago. Since then I’ve been working on low cost medical products in rural india. I’ve applied to a few schools in the US for a masters and really need some help picking.

I’ve gotten into

  1. University of Cincinnati
  2. Arizona State university
  3. UIUC
  4. Pratt Institute
  5. California College of Design

I’m also on the waitlist at RISD.

I’ve been considering going to a university and not an art school because I love multidisciplinary work. This narrows my options down to UIUC, UIC and ASU.

UIUC has offered me a TA which give me a full tuition fee waiver and a stipend which is a really sweet deal. (To attend anywhere else, I will be in a ton of debt; something I would rather avoid. )

So here’s my dilemma. Everything I can find on the forum about UIUC is a bit dated. The latest comments were from acm who did his undergrad in 2012.

My questions to anybody who have heard about the program to anybody who recently/seen portfolios/interacted with recent students:

  1. are the portfolios competitive?
  2. and consistent pattern in terms of skills the students seem to be lacking; straight out of college?
  3. any reasons for not attending UIUC and joining one of the other colleges?

I’m a bit hesitant about UIUC largely because I haven’t been able to find a lot of portfolios on behance or on the www.
I want to attend college largely for exposure to an international audience, and to polish my skill set; something there is dire need of.

Visiting the universities is not really feasible at this point so I have to make do with what I can find online.

Thanks in advance and apologies for such a long post.

Hi all!

I’m a student from India and would really appreciate some advice.

I did my undergraduation from a design college here about a year ago. Since then I’ve been working on low cost medical products in rural india. I’ve applied to a few schools in the US for a masters and really need some help picking.

I’ve gotten into

  1. University of Cincinnati
  2. Arizona State university
  3. UIUC
  4. Pratt Institute
  5. California College of Design

I’m also on the waitlist at RISD.

I’ve been considering going to a university and not an art school because I love multidisciplinary work. This narrows my options down to UIUC, UIC and ASU.

UIUC has offered me a TA which give me a full tuition fee waiver and a stipend which is a really sweet deal. (To attend anywhere else, I will be in a ton of debt; something I would rather avoid. )

So here’s my dilemma. Everything I can find on the forum about UIUC is a bit dated. The latest comments were from acm who did his undergrad in 2012.

My questions to anybody who have heard about the program to anybody who recently/seen portfolios/interacted with recent students:

  1. are the portfolios competitive?
  2. and consistent pattern in terms of skills the students seem to be lacking; straight out of college?
  3. any reasons for not attending UIUC and joining one of the other colleges?

I’m a bit hesitant about UIUC largely because I haven’t been able to find a lot of portfolios on behance or on the www.
I want to attend college largely for exposure to an international audience, and to polish my skill set; something there is dire need of.

Visiting the universities is not really feasible at this point so I have to make do with what I can find online.

Thanks in advance and apologies for such a long post.

To me, it seems like it’s a 1/4 way between a technical school and a design school. There is a huge focus on 3D, judging from their poorly designed web page.

I just see it being name-dropped all over the place, but I’m not finding anyone who’s attended or who can comment.

Thanks

Greetings everyone!

I’m a Mechanical Engineering undergrad from India looking to do my graduate studies in Industrial Design. I have received 2 admits for intake this Fall and wanted to know what opinion you guys have about the following Masters programs:

  1. Georgia Tech MID
  2. North Carolina State University (NCSU) MID

I will be coming with 6 months of experience from a design consultancy, so would be looking forward to a programs which would set a strong base of skills for me. I would be keen on a program which helps me be a broad, well-rounded designer strong at designing functional, user-centric products.

I have heard good things about both programs, but seemingly the course at NCSU is stronger.
Also, I see most graduates coming out of Georgia Tech on LinkedIn working in UI/UX. (Something I don’t want to restrict myself to)
Please let me know what you think about the above points.

Thank you for your help
Regards
Raunak Mahtani
raunakmahtani@gmail.com

I need some help if anyone knows something about these art schools and these masters programmes:

Köln International School of Design (KISD) (M.Sc. Integrated design)
Politecnico di Milano (M.Sc. Product-Service-System Design OR Design and Engineering)
Sapienza University of Rome (M.Sc. Product design)

Thanks

All I know is that at my university (Eindhoven the Netherlands) there occassionally were exchange master students from Politecnico di Milano and they were all very good. From what I have seen their program is focused mostly towards the traditional design industry (user research, sketching, 3D modeling, focus on sustainability etc).

But do you know exactly what their programme was? As their Industrial design Master is only taught in Italian, and I don’t speak Italian. So I found two other programs there that might be related which are the “Product service system design” and " design and engineering". Do you know anything about these programmes or anyone who had taken them?

It is an enormous advantage if you can speak Italian, especially in Northern Italy.
I don’t know the specifics of the program, you can post questions through their website or Facebook page: Politecnico di Milano
They just had an open day for the Master’s so there are probably people to answer your question there.

Given the language barrier I would go for KISD out of those three. It is quite German in approach non-surprisingly so you will have to be aware to develop your own designer profile. Cologne is a great city and with public transport you can visit a lot of places. Job prospects will be good with Germany being one of the biggest economies.

Have you considered the program of Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands?
Their approach to design is very innovative and the program is fully in English with a very international teacher staff.
https://www.tue.nl/en/university/departments/industrial-design/education/industrial-design-graduate-programs/industrial-design/

does anyone have recommendations for a master programme in industrial design in europe?

what do you think about TU Delft for example? Integrated Product design and strategic product design

or is the programme there similar to the master programmes of Schwäbisch Gmünd or Cologne in Germany?

Delft is good and you have a nice studying environment near the large cities. It is very innovation- and business-oriented and generates lots of startups.

Eindhoven is more down-south and is more aimed at far-future high-tech innovations developed for specific target groups.
It gets less media exposure than Delft but has been internationally recognized as one of the best programs.
Especially if you want a lot of space to develop your own projects and be inspired this is a great program.

Hello, im a senior going to graduate in 2017.
Currently im having a little trouble deciding on a university to study Industrial design in.
Some of my options are Griffith university(Australia) and Brunel (uk . Are their programs any good?

Brunel, in my opinion, is a weird one. If you want to study in the UK then I would say Loughborough is the best option, after that… I dunno. A lot of unis here are very pretentious with the names of the degrees they give out, the module titles and even the wording of the module specifications.
NCAD in Ireland (Dublin) looks really good too and is a proper city, not like Loughborough.