Hi, this is my first post but I hope many more will come. I would like to ask the community for some advice, regarding possibilities of becoming an industrial designer. I’ll be starting my senior year in college next week and should graduate in May with a bachelor of science in biology (my emphasis is on ecology and zoology) as well as a minor in studio art. I have always been fascinated by design but never really considered it as a career option until about a year ago. The problem is that my college does not offer any design courses. I already have a strong background in drawing and photography, effectively any work on traditional media and digital 2D, I have done but I’m just beginning to teach myself software such as Solidworks which seems so essential. Over the past year I realized that design is truly what I want to do.
I’m beginning to assemble a portfolio which I hope will be polished enough by early 2007 to submit to studios for an internship starting a year from now. From my point of view this seems like an essential step to take before applying to graduate schools (hopefully entering in fall 2008) where I could really begin to learn and perfect my skills in the job.
My questions are as follows: are these plans reasonable? Do you have any advice that would help me in any step of the process?