I just completed my freshman year at CCS. I transfered in with about 34 credits I believe, and planned on graduating in three years by taking two summer studio courses. I had my entire schedule worked out to graduate in three years as a product design major.
Well yesterday I received an e-mail saying that I have been accepted into the automotive design program for sophomore year (They take 24 students from about 150 I believe). This pretty much changes around everything haha. I’m pretty sure I am going to try out auto design for a year and see if I like it, or if I even make the 2nd cut for junior year. I guess it would be a “waste” to not try it out. As a freshman, I was pretty sold on product more so for the problem solving and extremely broad range of products to work with, even cars…I knew some juniors and seniors in product design who were doing internship and had jobs at either of the big three companies.
Anyways…just looking for some advice on this…
congratulations!
if you go for td over pd and wash out, how far will it knock you off schedule? are you willing to accept this? making the “a-list” would be an honor, to me. i guess you need to reevaluate where your passions lay and do some thinking. either way you cut it, it’s a win-win.
Well you cannot take “trans summer studio” cus there is none, that means you will need to stay the full 4 years.
Trans is entirely different from product, from the mentality to the execution. I say it’s good for you to experience the difference, but I doubt you will like it in the end.
I would say it’s better for you to spend your summers on securing internships as opposed to summer studios. Summer studios are always rushed and not very meaningful. If you just want to graduate asap, well, I can tell you that time isn’t really an advantage on getting you a job.
I say go ahead and try it and not worry about your schedule. Furthermore, you don’t need to have graduate to start working. There are people who work part time towards the later part of their student career while going to school. There are plenty of options, don’t lock yourself into one.
good points. my internships helped me immensely when i graduated.
Could you expand on how trans is different than product? You mention that it is different mentality to execution. Thanks
To put it blantly, trans in CCS is more like the money-making version of sculpture. You think about form and surface quality… all the time. There is little regard for the user… or else cars would have been designed from the inside-out and there won’t be those huge wheels on those clay models and concept cars. It’s simply to express a certain emotion associated with the form. To think of it, they always draw the wheels first before the car.
You can definitely argue with the sponsored project they did with Nissan to create a $2400 car. But if the same project is given to a group of product designers, the outcome will be entirely different.
For product design, you start with the person by looking at his cultural and social background. You study how he lives, eats, thinks and interacts to understand what the problem is and find the right solution. The result is based on your decision on how the issue should be resolved, not on the primary basis of creating a beautiful form.
I’m not against anyone who wish to pursue a car design career, but you just got to be an absolute car fanatic to keep yourself motivated.
However, do give yourself a chance to experience it. You may hate it, but you can then say you hate it.
Good points. I would try out car design if you are interested. However, just because you made the first cut or even the second, third… doesn’t mean you will make the cut after you graduate. Auto design is a very competitive field with few job oppurtunities when compared to product design. I’m not trying to say you can’t make it, just giving you a heads up that you have to work really hard and be exceptionally talented in order to get a good job in that field. Me personally, I would get really sick of cars after a few years and start dreaming of designing other stuff.
If you made the first cut you owe it to yourself to atleast give it a shot.
I had aspired to going to CCS, but in the end I decided it wasn’t worth the stress, competion, etc. of CCS. I started off at Kendall and planned to transfer to CCS after a year, but I had a chance to “be enlightened” by a Kendall Grad who said he was in the Trans program and found himself much happier when he left it and transfered to Kendall. It was “THE DREAM” for me, but it I don’t think I could have hacked it.