Just curious as I applied there and I have browsed this forum for older posts and found some good and some bad reviews of the school, but some of the older posts were before they supposedly revamped their curriculum 2 years ago. I heard that from the school itself and also from one alumnus of Stout that they did a major overall in their ID program. Anyone attend Stout’s ID program or know of anyone who did? That one alumnus of Stout is designing for Herman Miller at a consultency in Minneapolis, and there are a few more Stout grads on their staff too. Don’t know if that sounds promising, lol. Oh, one more thing I heard is that Stout does not have a good Coop program or one at all, but according to their website, they do. So I am totally confused. I am also going to contact the school to get some feedback on that as well.
I graduated from UW-Stout’s ID program in 2005. I am very familiar with the program overhaul that happened in 2003. The new curriculum is excellent. But the majority of its execution relies on the student. If you are proactive and willing to work hard you will get a well rounded education. Since it is a state school it has many other disciplines on campus; Engineering, Social sciences, Vocational Rehabilitation, Packaging etc. which presents the students with many opportunities to be mentored by more than just design professors, thereby expanding your knowledge and providing opportunity to validate design decisions.
The school has a great co-op program, unfortunately it doesn’t extend to ID very well. That being said; I had two internships while I was there, most of my classmates had at least one. Again, it comes down to how bad do you want it and will you work hard to get what you need. Both of my internship came from Stout alumni; one from a Designer and one from an Engineer. We currently have an excellent network of Alumni who seem to say well connected with the school. It’s not the flashiest school, but as Forbes mag quoted, “more CEO’s come from state schools than ivy leagues colleges.” Shot me a P.M. if you have any specific questions.