Hi Louis!
Thank you for sharing the ADIQ vernissage list! I had missed a few of the general school open house events earlier in the year and hadn’t thought about the their end of year presentations. Which of course now seems like pretty blatantly obvious step. Thank you very much as well for the insight on how to effectively read between the lines when looking at graduates portfolios to evaluate the place and program!
To answer your question about my studies, roughly 15 years ago I started in Mechanical Engineering at Concordia. 2 years later I switched to Building engineering, mostly for academic reasons and mistakenly in hindsight. Six years later I finally left Concordia without any degree. For the last 6 years I’ve been working in a civil engineering firm. It’s been an interesting slow dance to find myself here today.
I honestly enjoyed most of my time at Concordia, but have no desire to find myself there again. When I was researching industrial design schools I was surprised to see their mechanical engineering program on the list, yet no other university mech eng. programs. Perhaps it’s related to CIADI?
In any case, I’m seriously committed to putting a few years in going back to school. I want a new environment to work in. You underlined the main hesitation I had with going to a french schools and their possible over emphasis on the Quebec market, especially in the college vocational level. However, that may create a potential for a more competitive pool of students which would be beneficial to me. At the end of the program, no matter where I go, it will the be the skills I develop, the quality of work I do, and my ability to adapt, communicate, and schmooze that will take me further.
My obvious personal preference is still the UdeM Industrial design program. Dawson/Vieux Montreal were somewhat of a plan B, being shorter and, because starting out as a busy work CAD jockey is still the most obvious and viable way to pay the bills. If I can’t do that, I won’t be getting very far at all. I am still quite agog that I’ve been, so far, accepted in the majority of the places I applied to.
Dawson was initially my third choice. Despite never having had to make a portfolio before, taking a week to collect and go over decades worth of seemingly simple random things I’ve done, condensing them, presenting them, and then being selected out of their entire pool of applicants, was definitely a boost towards going there, a big boost to myself, and a very big boost towards reassuring myself that I’m taking the right initiative forward.
Thank you for your input Louis!