If I Knew Then What I Know (Advice to students)

I wonder why not to wear a suit?

I think I had better wear it at designer’s events like job or school acceptance interview, as these are very important for me. I almost never wear a suit, but I’m keen on wearing it when concerning important design events in my life. I think the interviewers may understand watching on my clothes that I know it’s important for me.

What do you guys think about it?

it deepends on the place of business and how “uptight” you looked in the suit. If you are able to put some design flair into it, ie a pinstripe suit with a cool graphic tee and a pair of leather dunks or something.

I am applying for MS in ID at North Carolina State University, Arizona State University and San Francisco State University. Please tell me more about the ID program, Alumini work, Financial Aid and social life

:wink:

my advice is quick and easy.

If you get out of school and get that big ID job and start making money, save 10%.

If you get out of school and don’t make alot of money, save 5 - 10 %

this career has been so unpredictable for me, I really needed to have a solid finacial strategy in place. the income over my career, in full time positions intermixed with layoffs, has been roughly 45k->58k->20k->57k->25k->67k->40k

kind of makes buying a house or having a family tough

i think if i knew something i will wise students.First,as a student must do your best in study;the second,do some housework in home with parents;third,i think this one is my best matter,don’t quarrel with your parents.
That’s all i think i can tell the student.

IMHO,
Learn how to be enterprising if you plan to go big.
i.e.:Attend a University ID program and take as many business classes as possible. There isn’t an ID program on the planet that prepares you for entrepreneurship. We’ve all been trained to run the rat race and fear “The Man”.

If you want to make it big some day, you’ve got to know how to take calculated risks, negotiate, cut a deal and protect yourself! Chances are your design profs have no idea about that stuff or they wouldn’t be teaching design.

Realize that this is the time to focus on what you want to do. Listen to others, but in the end pursue what you believe is the best thing to do.

WOW - This should be required reading for all students…

Based on my experiences let’s break it down for ya:

1) Don’t go to a school that has a young program (e.g. - under 10 yrs).

2) Don’t think that just because you can draw better or that you are a better designer than everyone that you will get a job over them (GPA’s do count!)

3) Don’t blindly believe all the granduer that your faculty and design prophets promote about designers shaping the future of society…start out with the basics of design.

4) Learn to sketch like DaVinci (seriously!)

5) Learn to model quick prototypes (under 10-30 min.)

6) Learn to speak only when necessary and make sure you thought about it first - do this in a foreign language too!
7) Be the best listener you can be - ALWAYS!

8) Begin the job hunt from day one - build up that resume, post on discussion boards, read about industry news, and network with faculty, professionals, etc… - refer back to step 7.

9) Maintain a professional appearance and a clean paper trail (e.g. - no disciplinary actions sanctioned by the school, courts, employer, etc…)

10) Only about 10-20% of those who earn industrial design degrees will make it in the industry as industrial designers - but that does not mean that getting a degree in ID is useless or only good for ID (although it’s a tough road either way!)

Learn from the errs of others - this stuff is gold!

Hi,

I have just finished my foundation degree and will be studying BA product design this September. I really want advice on how I can make this summer as fruitful as possible. I am a complete newbie in product design and I am so enthralled to see those cool presentations that people put in design competitions such as those displayed in designboom.com. But the thing is I just dunno how they do it. Also, I know nothing about computer programs in design. Any advice on this? THANK YOU VERY MUCH! YOUR ADVICE IS GREATLY APPRECIATED :smiley:

I would recommend focusing on product sketching, quick ideation sketching (showing your thinking and ideas on paper)

all of those polished renderings you see for those competitions is the last thing those designers did. First they came up with a good idea… the rendering is like gravy and the design is like a goose or something, without the goose, the gravy is pretty useless…

there will be plenty of time to learn how to do those renderings in the coming years, get a jump start on the hand skills… just my opinion on it…

THANK U FOR THE GREAT ADVICE :slight_smile: but i m wondering…how can i get directions on what to sketch and stuff? and the thing i discover about product design is that it is sooo hard to come up with ideas…sigh…do u think it is worthwhile to take computer classes such as illustrator, autocad and photoshop on my own before school start? will it be useful? i m asking so much sowwie… :wink: but thank youuuu! :smiley:

Intern early and as often as possible, you will learn 100 times more in real life situations and it will help you to filter out all of the unimportant crap that students dwell on because they think it is what they should be focusing on. also you can begin to build your network of contacts that will be essential to getting jobs in the future. keep in touch with those contacts. call them up and ask for feedback from time to time.

Don’t always listen to your instructors, they are not always right.

Hi,

thanks for the great advice! I will definitely do internships but the thing is how can i find one? i mean, where to find one? also, it seems not easy to get an internship because i may not have the skills that they are looking for. can you give me advice on this? thanks!

We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.

-Frank Tibolt

Nice, I like that.

I think if we are ready to design something. everything which we see can be inspiration to us.

  1. Quit Your Whining

  2. Showing up is often 90% of success.

  3. Get back to work.

Hey there,

^_^. good things to do over summer:

  • Like you said, learn Photoshop or Illustrator. Even if you don’t really do anything with it, just familarising yourself with the program helps. But don’t get too hung up if you don’t actually know to manage to do anything with it.

  • as for what type of things to sketch, Sketch anything, and everything, i learnt that carrying an A5 sized sketch notebook and a good pencil helps. Sketch things like moble phones, Cups, plates. Train your self to notice things. like how things are put together, challenge yourself to think about how things are put together.

  • Go shopping. See touch and feel things. go to different types of department stores. See how they display their goods. And what types of customers are browsing the shops

  • Go to the library, look up good children’s encyclopedia on how things work. You wouldn’t think it , but some of those are really informative. And they usually have pretty good illustrations. Copy and sketch. Good way to practice, and learn how to draw in perspective.

I thought Umea Design Institute is the best…,

But, what I know is this:

One of things at Umea Design Institute surprised me was official racism at lectures and classes. Most of time, Asian and American students were targeted.
There have been so many racism happenings at Umea Design Institute. Here are some instances.
In a class, one Swedish student said ‘stupid America!’ in front of other international students after teacher explained on America style 2D drawing.
In a big hall, it was an open seminar at Umea Design Institute. The lecturer was from Volvo car company, and he underestimated Asian car makers badly several times in front of many international students and other people. Even one of Swedish students told him that if you say that continually Asian people may feel bad.

One of teachers from Denmark showed some factory pictures of China with racism personal opinions at the open seminar.

At the open seminar, one teacher showed many bad pictures of Taiwan and talked to people about racism explanations on Taiwanese cultures.

Well, I experienced this kind of stupid official racism so many times at the Umea Design Institute during my study. Whenever I had a meeting with Master Program Coordinator, I told her on this matter so many times. However, her reaction was just saying that ‘you are too sensitive.’ I thought why this kind happing is occurred at Umea Design Institute is because Umea Design Institute is located far from the main university campus meaning that it is isolated from main campus. Also only a few people, who do not understand the word of ‘international’ and cultural understandings, have managed this school from many years. So, they do not realize what is going on at this school. Also, they looked they would like not to understand other countries cultures even most classes have the name ‘International Master Classes.’ Most of International classes have a half of Swedish students meaning that Swedish culture is the most acceptable culture and forced to international student to follow Swedish cultures.

The town of Umea is located far and far away from Stockholm, the capital city of Sweden. It takes about 13hours to get there by a bus from Stockholm. Umea town is an educational town, small population in a small area. Most big buildings belong to Umea university. Umea is a very calm town and isolated in north of Sweden. The weather in Umea is very unstable and worst, for example, sunny in the morning, raining afternoon, and snowing in the evening in a day. In the winter the sun goes down around 3 or 4p.m., and goes up about 6 or 7a.m. In the summer the sun goes down around 11 or 12a.m., and goes up 2 or 3a.m. This weather condition makes people mad, hardly see people smiling especially in the winter.