Graphic design industry

#22

I don’t have any firmly held opinions on for-profit schools since I never attended one. My impression, however, is that many of them do a disservice to their students by taking in most anyone with the money to pay for it, then passing them through to graduation despite knowing full well that their career chances are iffy at best.

It’s been a long time, but I attended a large state university’s design program. There was a required portfolio review before entering the program, and it was my understanding that most were not accepted. There were about 40 students in the program on that first day. By the end of the first year, that number was reduced by, probably, half due to students quitting. At the end of that first year there was another portfolio review that cut the number allowed to move on to the second year by another half. At the finish of the four-year program only five of us graduated. As far as I know, only three of us are still working professionally in the field.

As you mentioned PD, a due date was inflexible and missing it resulted in an automatic fail. No one got to pick their own assignments. Last-minute assignments which due the next day were common, even when it obviously meant staying up all night to finish the work. It was a rough year.

Later on, when I went back for my graduate work, I actually got to teach one of those first-year design courses. I was told to be very tough since failing to do so would just waste students’ time and money who were unlikely to make it professionally. Washing those students out of the program who probably couldn’t make it was regarded as doing them a favor.

One thing my university’s program failed at, however, was a realistic approach to the profession. The classes, for the most part, were taught by academics who approached design as a fine art instead of a business-oriented endeavor. After graduation, it took some time to unindoctrinate myself from that point of view, which was probably just as tough of an education as the previous four years in school.

As I’ve mentioned before, where I work now we don’t consider design applicants without four-year degrees in design or closely related subjects. We’ll look at applicants who graduated from the four-year, for-profit schools, but honestly, very few of them make the cut to an in-person interview. There are exceptions, of course, but a quick glance through the portfolio pieces submitted as part of the application process quickly eliminates most. I can’t remember of an online-only school graduate ever making it into an interview with us. I’m not saying it couldn’t happen, but it hasn’t yet.

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#23

I wonder what has happened to that program since, B.
I checked not too long ago at my alma mater to see how the program had morphed. They no longer teach a straight up “graphic design” course. It’s more like an amalgamation of what you see for a help wanted ad for a designer god. I’m not sure that is a good direction for a college to take. Too much exposure to too many different things at too much of an entry level is no better than not teaching real world production values. IMO at least.

#24

I went to a for-profit school. They taught us some good stuff, but they were a little behind the times technically. What I didn’t like most about the school is that the teachers were evaluated by the students. So the teachers handed out good grades to everyone just to make sure that the students liked them come evaluation time. You had to really screw up bad to get a B grade, and I don’t remember any student getting a C or less. There was a little reduction in grades when the students handed in work late, but it wasn’t much. If I remember correctly, the worst it would do is turn an A+ into an A- or a B. And it didn’t seem to matter how late. I think the teachers would have been more candid had that system not been in place.

What made me feel confident about the school at the time was that students were leaving the University to come to this school because the University wasn’t teaching enough of the skills they needed to know. But in hindsight, I would have been better off going to the University because it just looks better on the resume despite the inferior art education. The school offered general ed 2 years after I was eligible to take it. But I don’t know if it would have made as much of a difference because it would have still been seen as a specialized art school.

University degrees seem to be more respected and transferable than degrees from specialized art schools. I’ll bet if the word “Design” or “Art” appears in the name of the school, it will be seen as a trade school by most employers. That translates to “only knows how to make pretty pictures” in the oversimplified minds of some employers. It’s not entirely the fault of colleges, but they should be taking the lead in changing the expectations of most employers. They don’t seem to have much incentive to do that as long as there is always a fresh crop of ignorance to be exploited with overpriced tuition fees.

There really shouldn’t be an incentive to exploit. I agree with HotButton about the psychopathy of unchecked capitalism. It just hurts the economy in the long run. I’ll admit to being ignorant myself. I was the first in my family history to graduate from any college. It’s easy to say, “do the research” in hindsight. But at that time, internet research just wasn’t possible. Even if the information was out there somewhere, I didn’t know where to look, what to look for, or who to ask other than the people who worked at those colleges that I was applying for. They probably didn’t even no the ROI themselves. They weren’t keeping in touch with many of their graduates. Only the successful ones seemed to want to come back an thank the school.

#25

Well obviously, we need to band together and form a for-profit-but-affordable, accredited private graphic design program.

#27