I’ll throw my hat in the ring.
I graduate from Kendall College of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, MI in two months, and I think this school deserves a lot more credit than it’s given. It was founded by a furniture designer in the 1920’s and still has one of the top furniture design programs in the US. For those unfamiliar with Grand Rapids, it used to be the furniture capital of the world and still is headquarters to companies such as Steelcase, Haworth, Herman Miller, and several others. In fact, most of the ID faculty worked together at Herman Miller back when they had an in-house team.
Grand Rapids is consistently listed as an up and coming city and the design, medical, and interestingly, entrepreneurial scenes are buzzing right now. It’s an exciting time to be in GR!
As for my time at Kendall, I’ve had a diverse education in all of the usual industrial design skills of ergonomics, human-centered design, 3D modeling, rapid visualization, rendering, cmf, etc. Our program also focuses on start-ups and entrepreneurial design which is something most schools don’t offer. In addition, KCAD as we call it, has a great relationship with the companies all around West MI and I believe our job placement rate is something like 90% or more of the graduates each year have an ID job sixth months or less after they graduate.
If you’ve ever worked in or around West MI you know at least a few KCAD graduates or interns at companies such as Steelcase, Newell Brands, Wolverine Worldwide, Bissell, Stryker, and Whirlpool. Furthermore, there’s a handful of contract design studios around the area that regularly take KCAD interns during the summer and school year.
Some of the bigger name studios outside West Mi that KCAD alumni work for are Frog, Teague, and Ideo.
The tuition is only about $20K a year because we are technically part of a state school which is nice and KCAD offers a really great education at half the price of some of the schools that have been mentioned already.
If you’re interested in footwear, furniture, consumer products, medical equipment, packaging, consumer electronics, power tools or hand tools KCAD is the place for you. If you’re looking for a career in toys, transportation or automobiles there are probably schools with better connections and curriculums for you to explore. Hope that helps!