Risd, worth it?

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I agree with skinny’s first post.

Also its good to see “yo” is more positive this time around, I remember reading a old post and it sounded more like Hate/Hate then Hate/Love

Ive only been in the work force for a year now and if I had to point out one thing that got me a job, it was the internship. I took it after graduation and my only regret is I should have taken a serious internship while I was in RISD. It would have saved me the couple months of pain and suffering haha. By serious internship I mean at a location that is not in providence/RI and at a place that has good designers, so you can see how lacking you really are in the real world and to also learn the things that RISD doesnt/cant/wont??? teach.

I dont know how I feel about RISD. I’m loyal so I’m all FOR the school I went to… but inside I believe it really doesnt matter where you are, it really depends on how badly you want it and what your willing to sacrafice and go through to get it.

Btw yo, nice tut on illustrator.

and i think… RISD should work its butt off to get working alums back at RISD even for a day to talk to the students.

The most valuable things I learned from RISD were from Foundation year, an exchange we did at MIT, clubs and organizations (Go Nads!), and my classmates (including some of the posters above). These four things should not be underestimated. I have something that people who didn’t go to RISD don’t…actually, it would be a huge debt.

Immediately after graduation was a turbulent time. My skills were not up to par. At that time I thought RISD wasn’t even a “Civic” education. I moved back home for what was supposed to be a month. Seven months later I was living the same lifestyle as my retired neighbors. When I moved to Los Angeles, it was clear the Art Center kids had superior skillsets. Finally, I got a job. Real-world experience, plus lots of my own work, finally brought my skillset up to where it should have been upon graduation. Fittingly, I bought a Civic.

Still, I must admit that RISD instilled an entrepreneurial spirit which I’m not sure I would have gained on my own. Of the posters above whom I know, while they may be disenchanted, they are also doing very well. RISD is a terrible short-term investment. Entry-level positions are based around technical skillsets. But if you can stick it out, you will bring a fresh energy all the way to the boardroom.

As an overall school, RISD is great, and getting even better. Providence is growing, and their facilities and endowment are unmatched. They are becoming the go-to art school for pop-culture references, increasing applicants and therefore selectivity.

The ID department is a different story. During my time, the faculty were disconnected, studios were disorganized, entire skillsets were neglected, and professional experience was minimal. Back in the early 90’s they hired, then fired, Karim Rashid from the faculty for trying to update the department philosophy. At around this time they also disbanded the Nissan studio, and refused to rethink their curriculum. While other schools were staying on the cutting-edge, their answer was a failed laptop program and an over-reliance on Hasbro.

What the ID department needs is the equivalent of what CCA gained with the addition of Yves Behar. He has completely turned that program around. I am optimistic about the department’s future. I think there will be a day when the department can stand right next to UCinn and Art Center. Just not today.

for all u alumini let me give u an update on the current situation at Risd. Well first off we are still using piece of shit machines that all u probably and most likely used 10-15 years ago when u were at risd. We actually did get a new table saw, the one that detects electrical currents in the body so when ur body comes in contact with the blade it drops in a split second. the thing is only the wood shop monitors and teachers can use it, wtf? also I believe in what everyone says about doing it urself and working hard, but if im paying 120k for an education thats what i want. why pay the money if i have to do it on my own??? I would at least like if they would professionally critic my work , not worry about when their lunch break is. Also the teachers care more about talking about the lastest fashion trends and stupid shit in their lives than to help anyone with their process. Also the teacher leslie fontana, if anyone knows her is the worse, she brings her annoying kids to crits, leaves all the time, and knows little to nothing about ID or helping students. also i think the student here have no idea what id is. their projects are uninteresting and designed specifically towards different companies. what the hell is that. I also agree on the fact that the teachers have no idea on the current status of industrial design and its true that NONE of them are computer saavy. I guess its true when other students told me, when i told them about this that ur basially paying for the name " Rhode Island School of Design" on ur diploma…

oh yah another thing i wanna know, Yo and brian Chesky, both of u have really good sketching skills, were these skills developed in school or when u got into the real world?

Brian Chesky tought me to sketch with his collection of downloaded (stolen) sketch videos. Suprisingly one is of his Sid Meid videos is of Sid spanking little boys. wierd!

I was just in town this past weekend. Didn’t have enough time to get to the roitman though but providence has changed a lot. Risd has finally crossed the water and has buildings downtown (dorms, interior design, etc). They do always invest lots in buildings and facilities, they just really need to step up on the fact you can be the top conceptual visionary in the world but it does no good if all you can do is flip burgers when you graduate because freshman at other programs know more than you do about actually designing a real world product.

Hopefully next time I visit I’ll be able to go to the id studios but this time the campus seemed pretty dead, wasn’t quite sure if classes had really started yet or if they’re in that first week freshman intro thing so I didn’t want to waste my time.

I’ll also have to agree that you can get a lot / best info from the temp professors. They’ll have real working designers Steve Copeland every once in a while that will come in and completely go against the grain and you’ll actually learn something practical. The thinking part is good and the entreprenurial spirit thing is excellent (I really liked that). I meet designers now that could easily do their own thing instead of slaving at a firm that I know if they had some risd in them, would’ve done it a long time ago and would be reaping the rewards of their awesome skills. But it’s a tossup as to whether that’s worth what you pay for in tuition. I would’ve liked to have been taught more standard skills (that will get you work) in addition to the conceptual stuff for the money going out instead of having to teach myself which I could’ve done without going there.

Either way, like most have said, it’s about what you put into it. Luckily id is more popular now so you have resources to at least let you know what you should be learning so that you can supplement your education accordingly. If I had to do it over again I still would, just with more emphasis on the “billable” skillsets and internships (during school).

I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but…
I’m a senior this year in ID at RISD. I haven’t studied anywhere else so I dont have much to compare to, however I absolutely love this place. I can hate it too at times, but i couldn’t see myself anywhere else. As far as the faculty go, it’s hit or miss like everyone has said so far. Sophmore year sucked- and so did my work produced that year. I think the curriculum needs to be improved- a good time for a lot more of ‘real-world stuff’ to be taught before you enter the advanced studios the next year. I could draw a lot better by the end of the year though. Internships should be mandatory. I learned so much during mine. It supplements all the missed ‘real world info’ RISD skimmed over. The most frustrating thing about the department for me is the bad students, there are a bunch of them. I hate it, its hard to watch these kids cut corners and just glide by- i know there are so many other people out there who want and deserve these kids spots. I wish they kicked more people out. There are some really good students here who produce amazing work and are proud of the school we go too. You just need to find us.

Some advice to jjasinsk: cheer up, your a junior now, the next two years will be amazing if you want them to be. Get an internship this wintersession. Become a monitor for all the shops so you have 24hr access to all three. Get out of 161 South Main for a change and take as many out-of -major studios as you can. Don’t leave the studio, unless your going to the Wild Colonial. Then get your ass back. Dont say we have no idea what ID is.

By the way. During alumni weekend I believe we’re putting a little show together of work we’ve done in the last two weeks. But it has only been two weeks…

mr D.

I’ll be swinging by this coming saturday. You going to be around? I would like to see some of the work going on.

^michael

Hey there;

I recently left a post with a large, local development firm in the Providence area, and I would love to give my $0.02 on RISD. In the 3 years I was there, I was the Design Manager and was in charge of hiring interns and employees for the design team.

On staff, we had 5 RISD grads - 2 at entry, 2 mid-level and 1 that was a development director. All were very talented at their respective sweet spots. We all know what we do unusally well, and also what either don’t do well, or perfer not to focus on. The same goes for design grads.

It’s hard as well as as waste of time to try to be good at a lot of things. Know your strengths and work towards making them your assets. Definitely try to improve those things that you feel deficient in, or want to be better in. But, know your core.

I’ll use myself as an example; I can generate visual drawings of concepts exceptionally well, and it has been my greatest asset (apparent sales item) for my career. However, I stink at CAD. I know it, but I am neither efficient nor wired to make CAD one of my core skills. I’ve bolstered those with improving my communication/presentation skills, people interaction skills, knowledge of materials/processes and marketing/business/prod. development 101 and 201 hands-on-knowledge.

To me, I’ve found a mix of skills/experiences that have helped me to carve a role or definition of myself as a designer. Again, this was partly shaped in college and refined and built on during 13 years of work.

College grads typically come out very raw, but there is an undeniable hint/leaning as to what each is and will be good at. It’s what we try to find during interviews with potential candidates. We are rarely trying to find the all-around guy/gal, but rather, someone with a skill set that fits with what we need now, and with the ability to grow that and other skills over time as well. Each of RISD grads (and other school gradds) are not great at all things - that asks too much of each person, and takes the focus away from what skills they can be awesome at. We leverage those awesome skills and have done great work as a team.

Would it be ideal to find that guy or gal that can do it all? Sure. But the bigger you are as a firm, the fewer generalists you need - you need specialists that can be part of a team that together will be much more awesome than any individual could.

So, in short, if there are skills you feel you lack, try to work hard to improve them. If there are skills you wish you had, but know are not your core (i.e. if you can’t draw a straight line with a ruler, don’t waste a lot of time on pen and paper - pick up CAD perhaps) assess whether or not time invested will help you be sellable. Also, target firms/roles that need your set of skills. Hard to know where they are, but position yourself as a resource that may or may not fit with a company at that given time. You never know when your skills may fit them down the road.

Now, for some RISD critique;

– They definitely are lacking in focus on some core design skills. Their apparent lack of focus on drawing/visual concept communiation is bar far the most grievous. As a manager looking to hire. seeing how someone can concept on paper is a skill that no designer should be without. I’m not saying you need to be like da Vinci, but the skills need to be strong enough to stand up to scrutiny and shouldn’t get in the way of your ideas.

– Materials/Process fabircation education isn’t great - especially mass production. But, it can be learned. In the meantime, read up on books by Jim Lesko (forgot name, but it’s a design-friendly mat/proc book)

– CAD seems good there - Solidworks is fine

– Presentation/verbal communication seems good as well from most candidates

– Mechnical knowledge - I’ve been most pleasantly surprised here. RISD has batches os students with some good, RAW knowledge of mechism and mechanics. We definitely were attracted to some of those people.

– Good entrpreneurial mindset - it’s a great skill when it comes time to inteview/sell yourself and your ideas.

Can’t type much more. I’ll think a bit more and respond if people are interested.

-East Coaster

I would agree with your assesment. To me the biggest thing you get from risd is that entreprenurial mindset, that “doityourselfdedness”.

But the only part I have some issues with are about the specialist thing. That’s been the biggest thing I’ve been fighting with because it’s easy to get pigeon-holed and then made obsolete.
I was in that position and my instincts told me I was in danger, that’s when I moved and I saw exactly what I needed to. I saw people at design firms that just went to damn near community colleges whos work was amazing, on all aspects. These people could draw like davinci, do foam like m’angelo, photoshop render, 3-d model quick and toolable, 3-d renderings, graphics, web design w/ flash + coding, etc…could do all of those spectacularly! And 95% of the people there were all like that, absolutely fast and excellent in everything (skills based at least) and they didn’t go to schools in the top 10, etc. The only “specialists” were people that may have also had additional engineering training or business stuff, etc… but everything “ID” everybody is extremely good at everything.

That woke me up because sure I was the best and fastest at 1 or 2 things, but I couldn’t begin to hang with them on anything else. It’s hard to compete if you’re 5-7 yrs exp (and the money/responsibilty you’d expect) and the cheap local fresh grads with 1-2 yrs under their belts can outperform you on skills based tasks. So I had to take a lot of time off to completely retrain myself, a self-directed grad school to get back up to speed on those core things that it seems like everybody else outside of risd are taught to be masters at. So now I’m a much more well rounded designer and can participate in a lot more than I could before, but it was very crippling that I didn’t have all of those skills right out of school like everyone else (non-risd) I’ve come in contact with because everybody else takes that stuff for granted as skills you should have mastered before getting out of school because they all did.

Skinny;

Your points are taken. I would have to agree that you need to be good at more than one thing. Ideally, it would be great to be a dynamo at all things, but it seems to be the exception to the rule for most kids I’ve had the privilege to interview.

Generally, I would hope to see kids with solid drawing abilities, hand modelling skills, knowledge (whole or part) in CAD and an appreciation for how things work and are made. Inevitably, some skill or skills bubble to the top as to what they are really good at. Those (as a former manager) I try to leverage in development. Rarely have I seen a designer that takes everything on and does so efficiently - from voice of user/research, to concepting, modelling, CAD and the like. Typically, there are those that are more adept at something that take control of an aspect of it.

I still believe it’s good to be a generalist at the start, but you need to be really good at something (or several things) to have staying power. Invaribly, someone more talented (in at least one or more aspects) will come along and could make you obsolete. Push those skills that you have an affinity for to an extremely sharp level and bolster (to a lesser but usable level) some of those that you feel would best help you.

Another thought about RISD, and a lot of universities in general; internships. It would behoove RISD to get really good at placing candidates for internships, or making more alliances for their kids. Some work in the past has been sponsored, but it’s not consistent.

I think this is an area where RISD can grow and help the students, but, I think the curriculum/ and skill sets exhibited by RISD and their students may hamper their credibility when trying to woo a GE/Whirlpool/Sony/whatever to campus. Especially when compared to CCS, CIA and others that have really honed their design schools to resemble more of a trade school.

I can’t tell you enough how much of an impact getting an internship (or several) during the school year or summertime is. It reshapes your entire college education. You finally see what it is all about out there. And, it definitely can refine how you are learning and what you are focusing on. RISD again needs to help make this happen by soliciting companies, but first, they gotta’ correct the flaws in curriculum first. They have to focus on what skills their kids need to survive and thrive out of RISD off the bat.

-East Coaster

good stuff!

I can’t tell you enough how much of an impact getting an internship (or several) during the school year or summertime is. It reshapes your entire college education. You finally see what it is all about out there. And, it definitely can refine how you are learning and what you are focusing on. RISD again needs to help make this happen by soliciting companies, but first, they gotta’ correct the flaws in curriculum first. They have to focus on what skills their kids need to survive and thrive out of RISD off the bat.

you would think every school would look at places like u of c, a try to follow/improve on that model making internships/relationships with industry mandatory or at least aware to their students…

i can not speak on rsid, but i would venture this a pretty common problem at most design programs, i went to a school where most people were either indifferent or unaware of what is necessary to be successful in the field, we barely even had student work up anywhere in the school. so not only were we largely unaware of pro-level work, we did not even have a standard within the school…and i think there this naivety among us, and by the end many were so jaded the majority did not have the desire to be working in the field…

my last semester of school, we had a candid conversation with our professor about the program, about how at the end of the day all he could do was make students aware of what is required of the profession after that it is up to the student to decide and put the effort forth (improving skills, pursuing internships) to be successful because there was not much control with the admission into the program (public uni). the reality is school is big business, and if you feel your institution is not holding up its end of the bargain, bounce. it is your money if you are not feeling you education where you are at you either transfer or suck it up put in the necessary effort where you are at to get it movin’…you owe it to yourself to maximize your opportunity…[/url]

Junglebrodda, I completely agree with you that I don’t know why most schools don’t adopt the University of Cinciinnati model towards coops and internships. It gives kids one and one-half years of real world experience, not to mention the nice pay that kids can earn. Maybe it is just too hard to implement this model. Don’t forget, University of Cincinnati was the forerunner in coop education and has been doing this for 100 years.

Maybe part of the problem is reputation. UC has a stronger reputation in design than that of many schools. Thus, they might be able to easily obtain coops than many other schools. However, I would think that the sam could be said of RISD and a handful of other schools.

Maybe it comes down to a pride issue. One of the nation’s oldest, most prestigious art schools would probably not want to emulate a University program, no matter that it would increase the talent pool and help their customers, their students.

Yo;

I think you are right about the ‘Pride’ issue - especially ay RISD.

After several attempts by my former bosses to whisper into the ears of Mickey Ackerman (design school dean) and crew about how we think or would like RISD Design to be structured, it’s fallen on deaf ears. They apparently have a formula and respective aura that is uniquely theirs and they are proud of it - or stuck with it; I’m not sure which is more true.

It’s just unfortunate that new design students who are looking for more of a structured, U of Cincinnati-like curruculm/skill training won’t really find out the apparent difficiencies of RISD until they are in the program. That said, RISD offers a rich eperience to the right kind of student. I know several RISD alums who wouldn’t trade their RISD education for all of Montezuma’s gold. The right student in the right university is a wonderful thing.

Now, it can be said that an ounce of prevention goes a long way, but I don’t know that a majority of kids who leave with a design degree know that they are going to be designers going into University. Also, that time is a bit of a ‘fat and stupid’ period in a kid’s life where they are really going from one pleasurable experience to another, and may not really be taking the search for the ideal design education as seriously as someone would consider finding a masters school.

To the outside and inside person, RISD looks and talks a very attractive game. It’s in a great location, high-energy, lots of creativity and historical credibility in the arts. So it’s no wonder that it’s attractive to people. It is a name-brand University.

But, it is an ART school, in the big sense of the word. It will probably always be an art school first, and offer some sort of trade education as secondary. That is the fundamental difference between a RISD/Parsons/etc. and a U of Cinn, Carnegie Mellon, CCS, etc. Those schools are structured fundamentally different.

-East Coaster

as much as I B!tch about it, I fall into that category of people who would not trade their RISD education for all (OK half) of Montezuma’s gold as you put it (I like that). It really worked for me and helped make me who I am.

That said, it seems to work for a very narrow category of people and I think they could open the crack in the door a little more and help out more of their students, or restructure the way the advertise the program to prospective students.

Interestingly enough RISD was founded as a trade school (hence School of Design), mainly textile design and tool design for the huge Providence textile industry in the 1800’s, they only added night classes in the fine arts later for the wives of the wealthy factory foremen and owners. It has evolved into an Art School, and personally and BFA education has suited me very well. Freshman year there is very good.

Well, a pretty disapointing visit.

Aside from talking with Shaun Modi and a few guys, the studios were dead, their was no work up at all, in the gallery was a pile (literal pile, not displayed) of mock ups and a row of chairs found around campus (not designed by students), outside instructors were picketing and protesting instead of helping students networ with visiting alumni… not much changes I guess.

Its good to see a few students are trying, and working hard… inspite of their school.