No one said it was a stupid idea. I have a design degree and I would recommend those considering design as a career do the same if they have the means to get one for a better chance of landing a job.

It may be a stupid idea to get a degree from a school that does not have a half decent design program.

It's possible to be a great designer without a degree, but you need the discipline of a saint, a great eye and some great networks. It will be a lot harder to get an interview though so your portfolio better be very, VERY good.

Of course, having a degree doesn't guarantee you will be a good designer. Nor does it guarantee you a job at the end of it.

Hi Buda! Good to hear from you!

Were you talking specifically about a graduate degree (MFA) or an undergraduate degree?

I am thinking about continuing my education after I graduate college and it's just that everyone in world (practically) has discouraged me from doing so. Saying "don't do it" or "it's not worth it," but I just don't know why all these great schools would offer the degree if no one does it/should do it.

A Masters degree really isn't necessary in the design industry unless you want to teach at the college level. Most employers would consider you overqualified.

It's especially not a good idea to get it right after your graduate degree. Having a Masters and no experience doesn't look good. If you really want a Masters degree, I recommend working in the real world for at least 10 years before going back to school.

^ What he said.
I'm just now considering my Masters. It would be in a related field, not specifically design. Not so much to teach but to still be hireable over 50.

Right, and I've heard that all (^) before. But it still doesn't seem right.
I mean, what is all the fuss? Why does it have to be like that?

Plus, with all due respect, how did you come to that conclusion?

Who's conclusion?

The thing about graphic design is experience doesn't come with the schooling. It isn't until you are actually working in the field that you learn something. Sure you have theory. Unless you've actually worked at applying some of that theory to produce actual ROI for actual clients, an education is just a piece of paper. You could have a doctorate in graphic design and still not know how to create a viable marketing campaign for a real world client. Until you've tried and succeeded, or even failed, more than a few times you really don't have anything a potential employer would need. Having a Masters but no experience?
Not in today's rat race.

Having a Masters in Graphic Design on top of a BA or BFA in Graphic Design is redundant.
Why do they offer the programs?
You're thinking about spending money on one aren't you...?

To you, a Masters means you have more education. To an employer, it means they have to pay you more. If an employer was willing to pay a designer more, they'd rather hire someone with years of experience than someone with a couple extra years of school.

There are certain industries where a Masters will get you further in your career. Graphic design is just not one of them.

Ten years after my BFA, I headed back to graduate school at the University of Utah for my MFA to study typography and publications design.

Ten years was too long. I had learned too much during that time, and to my surprise I was totally disappointed by a program full of instructors who were largely clueless about design outside a university setting. They had the university politics thing down, but honestly, not one of them could have succeeded outside an academic environment.

It wasn't that they weren't good designers — one of them had actually gotten semi-famous with his poster designs (all designed solely to enter contests and never hung up anywhere). It's just that they were utterly clueless about technology, the current state of graphic design, and the realistic situation of having to design for the clients' needs rather than for personal and artistic experimentation.

I had to teach a few lab classes for first-year design students under the direction of one of the design professors. What a joke. He had me teaching students how to use ruling pens, spec type and cut amberlith with compasses, and this was at a time when computers were revolutionizing the entire field.

What I learned in that program was not at all what I signed up to learn. Instead, I gained the self-confidence of finding out that I had outgrown college and moved way past what it had to teach me. Seriously, this was almost worth the two years spent there.

There were also other graduate design students there who moved straight from their undergraduate degrees into graduate school. What a mistake. Their lack of practical experience didn't give them the necessary distance from academia to view graduate school from the standpoint of anything but academia. After graduation with their MFAs, most of them just weren't prepared for the real world, couldn't make it there, then headed back to college to teach other unsuspecting students the bad habits that they had picked up during their six years of uninterrupted design schooling.

My best advice would be to work professionally for about three years before heading back to grad school (assuming that your really want to go). Get a taste of the real world, actual client interactions, finding a job and all the other daily realities that an actual professional designer faces. Then with that real-world education firmly under your belt, graduate school can give you the opportunity to explore some areas of personal interest from a more practical and less academic viewpoint.

I'd also suggest carefully selecting the right graduate school. If I had to do it over again, I'd definitely seek out a school where the majority of professors were actual working professionals instead of behind-the-times, academic pinheads who had ended up in teaching because they couldn't quite cut the whole working for actual clients and employers thing.

To me, the benefit of getting a MFA after 10 years of experience isn't for you to learn more (of course you'll know more than your professors by then), it's for the benefit of having that extra advantage on your resume for furthering your career.

I would be hesitant to get a MFA with anything less than 5 years experience (not freelancing). Anything less than that and an employer just won't want to pay you a Masters salary.

I've only ever encountered two situations where a company wanted me to have an MFA in addition to a BFA, academia and some government. The schools believe in their programs whether the programs are practically useful or not. And for some reason, government has the same mentality.

There are fields where a higher degree is useful and even required, but graphic design is one of those fields where you get the degree because it's a minimum requirement for many companies, after that your skills and experience should carry you the rest of the way.

Exactly, why would top arts schools offer the program?

You can also say "real world experience" is best in ANY field. Which in that case, ALL higher education is useless.

I am taking in of all of your opinions but things just aren't adding up still.

P.S. I am not planning on spending a single dime more on education. After going through college I can tell you it's all pointless. But I think it would be useful like it is in so many other fields. I would ONLY go to graduate school on a scholarship (not likely) or a work/TA program where they would pay me to teach and attend their graduate school.

Ok, ok, ok. Thanks, <b>. You are good at this. You always SOLVE my questions and I thank you so much for that!

I appreciate everyone's comments! Thank you all so much!

For money. Colleges don't care about you're career. Running a school is just like running any other business. The first goal is to make money.

It's all about what employers want in a candidate. A company hiring an engineer will likely want a person with more education. A company hiring a designer won't. That's really all there is to it. A Masters degree in design just simply isn't desired by employers, so why get one?

Money.