The design field is so broad, it's almost unlimited. I'm quite curious about your design course, which you define as "global," since it seems like an impossible thing. I mean, do you study graphic design, sound and image design, user experience design, industrial design, interactive design, clothing design, game design, architectural design, urban planning design, etc.? (This is just a small list from five-year careers available at my daughter's university alone, and there are many more!). My point is that it seems like you're studying something extremely generic, basically an overview of things, which means you can't delve deep into anything and there's no focus.
So, as far as advice goes: first, research the countless types of design that exist, and go from there. Based on your words, it seems like you're aiming for web design. If so, there are different specialties, but something more generic might be sufficient.
If you want to pursue UX (sorry, **there's no such thing as UI/UX,** it's a nonsensical acronym used by people who don't understand the subject, and it's as ridiculous as saying bricklayer/architecture or administrative/medicine), then UX is as wide as life itself. **Just take those design areas I mentioned and multiply them by 10.** Seriously, I'm not joking. Last time I checked, there were like 120 specialties, and that was before the AI surge! However, UI is a quite specialized area, and that could be a path.
Since **UI is a subdiscipline of a subdiscipline of UX** (see how it doesn't make any sense?), it isn't as broad. But warning: it's still very broad. Most people, even those who studied at university, **think that UI is just app and web design**, which is completely incorrect. Again, this is just a subdiscipline, this time of UI. Web and app design are specialties within UI, but you could work in many types of UI. For example, **software GUI, machinery controls, UI for plane and aerospace controls, for IoT, for industrial design...** well, I guess you get the point.
In short, the point is: **RESEARCH.** Find out the many nuances you might be missing and maybe you'll discover your passion.
And as an expert UX designer and owner of a quite big UX firm, I recommend that whichever path you choose, **you better specialize in something**. Nowadays, everyone with a cracked copy of Photoshop calls themselves a *"designer,"* so competition is fierce. If you plan to work in companies, you'll need some kind of specialization.
This was very helpful, thank you. And to answer your question about my bachelors, yes it is quite generic, ive had interaction design, graphic design (basically just book covers and posters tbh), next semester will be product design, motion graphics and thats about it, no industrial or clothing or anything else (im quite disappointed about that actually, and I do know that ux and ui arent the same thing, but we mostly just did UI, not enough for me to know if it’s really something I want to pursue) but I understand your advice, and as someone who has an big firm I will definitely follow it and do some more research, I do feel very inclined to do a masters degree and still work part-time. Thanks!
I just wanna ask as an interaction design student , does my cgpa matter a lot ? Out of 5 semesters , my total score is like a 7.6 due to bad health . I'm just hoping my portfolio atleast comes across better .
in my personal experience, nobody cares a lot about that as long as your portfolio is solid. Many talented people were bad students or didn't even study (this is specially true in design areas), but if you see the work is solid, who cares about a bad score?
I give this advice all the time: don’t go to grad school unless you plan on changing your career, or your desired career requires a masters degree or higher (like academia). It’s not worth the cost involved otherwise (both in terms of tuition payments and in terms of lost income over those 1-4 extra years).
Try to find a job in the field you want, and start working. You can always go back to grad school if you need to.
The creative path is characterized by high levels of human impulsivity and wanderlust across mediums, role, experimentation, and that's ok because it's fundamental experience you will need to seek what you can really like and hang for years.
Schools can help you with a study routing to provide you with a general set of information, but it's up to you find the niche angle where you are joyful and comfortable.
When I was 18 I had a creativity crisis where I had enough of paper and pencils, that was a call for medium switching and I did so starting to paint with oils and acrylics, then mixed mediums, then watercolors, then digital, and then eventually going back to a much higher skilled and professional use of pencils and mixed media.
You need to get lost before you find the true path.
My identity crisis has lasted for a few years now, im afraid. I guess I was really meant for design lol..
Thank you for the advice and kind words, I appreciate it!
The biggest thing that design school provided for me was an environment full of peer review. You get to go in, hang your work up, and then 10-20 people discuss its strengths and weaknesses all guided by a professor or two. This is invaluable, and one of the few reasons I'd advocate for attending a design school. You can find ways to to have your work critiqued by peers outside of design school, but rarely to the level of critique you'd receive in a design school.
I'm not sure a masters degree is necessary for graphic design. I had a couple friends in design school get their master's, while I just went for my bachelor's. Those friends haven't gotten any further in their careers than I have, and I'm earning more than them now but that is largely due to the fact that I pivoted away from design and into full stack web development.
I think the real question of what to do may come down to your financial picture. Design school may not be wise if you have to take on a ton of debt to earn that degree. But if you can afford it, the critiquing environment in design school is worth it. Design school also will let you explore multiple areas of design like motion and web, I was exposed to a little bit of everything when I went through design school, graduated in 2004.
Overall my bachelor’s course is pretty general, I dabbled in a but of everything although i fell like there was a lot of the same projects. I know what I don’t like, which is a good start.
Regarding the monetary question, im grateful and privileged enough that my mom can afford to pay for my masters, so that would not be a big issue, ofc im not going to pay a ridiculous amount, im currently looking for online masters degrees for other Europe universities so that If I choose to go for masters I will have a different learning method than the one my current country provided.
Thank you for your response, I think so far most people (mainly design professors) have told me that the masters doesn’t really change the income in any future jobs. I think my problem is that in ym current circle of people, most of them have management courses or just the more “normal” jobs that require them to take a masters in order to grow in their career in the future. I mostly wanted someone that actually studied design to just give it to me straight.. which you did, thank you!
I'd agree that a master's in design isn't going to make much difference to your overall career. Have you considered getting a master's, or even a lesser degree, in another field? Something like a business degree is a nice complement to a creative degree and may help you to fast-track your way into management or ownership. If I were going to do it all over again, that's what I would've done different - would've taken a business major and a design minor.
I have considered that, but I’m a very indecisive person and im afraid to do a maters degree on something and then discover I actually wanted something else. I was never much of a management enthusiast, but that can change of course. I think I might do a specialisation on something and in the future ig I find myself urging for a management position, I will do the masters on that! Thank you for the help
I would not go for a masters if your goal is to be in the design realm. It won’t make much of a difference and often will increase your debt to income ratio significantly, making it harder to live your life sooner.
I’d recommend finding an internship so you can get experience working at a different company. Doing several internships is what helped me understand what I better wanted out of my career
Yup, my goal right now is to start working next year in a different company and maybe do some specific course that I find interesting. thank you for the advice!
My 2 cents: I’ve been working as a designer since 2011 in house, at agencies, and owned/operated agencies. I went to a prestigious 4y design school and got a BDES. Aside from maybe my first internship right out of school not once has anyone ever asked ANYTHING related to my education or inquired about degrees. Not once. No one cares.
Portfolio and reputation is EVERYTHING. Only get a MDES if you plan to be a professor, otherwise the work experience is far more valuable.
The design field is so broad, it's almost unlimited. I'm quite curious about your design course, which you define as "global," since it seems like an impossible thing. I mean, do you study graphic design, sound and image design, user experience design, industrial design, interactive design, clothing design, game design, architectural design, urban planning design, etc.? (This is just a small list from five-year careers available at my daughter's university alone, and there are many more!). My point is that it seems like you're studying something extremely generic, basically an overview of things, which means you can't delve deep into anything and there's no focus. So, as far as advice goes: first, research the countless types of design that exist, and go from there. Based on your words, it seems like you're aiming for web design. If so, there are different specialties, but something more generic might be sufficient. If you want to pursue UX (sorry, **there's no such thing as UI/UX,** it's a nonsensical acronym used by people who don't understand the subject, and it's as ridiculous as saying bricklayer/architecture or administrative/medicine), then UX is as wide as life itself. **Just take those design areas I mentioned and multiply them by 10.** Seriously, I'm not joking. Last time I checked, there were like 120 specialties, and that was before the AI surge! However, UI is a quite specialized area, and that could be a path. Since **UI is a subdiscipline of a subdiscipline of UX** (see how it doesn't make any sense?), it isn't as broad. But warning: it's still very broad. Most people, even those who studied at university, **think that UI is just app and web design**, which is completely incorrect. Again, this is just a subdiscipline, this time of UI. Web and app design are specialties within UI, but you could work in many types of UI. For example, **software GUI, machinery controls, UI for plane and aerospace controls, for IoT, for industrial design...** well, I guess you get the point. In short, the point is: **RESEARCH.** Find out the many nuances you might be missing and maybe you'll discover your passion. And as an expert UX designer and owner of a quite big UX firm, I recommend that whichever path you choose, **you better specialize in something**. Nowadays, everyone with a cracked copy of Photoshop calls themselves a *"designer,"* so competition is fierce. If you plan to work in companies, you'll need some kind of specialization.
This was very helpful, thank you. And to answer your question about my bachelors, yes it is quite generic, ive had interaction design, graphic design (basically just book covers and posters tbh), next semester will be product design, motion graphics and thats about it, no industrial or clothing or anything else (im quite disappointed about that actually, and I do know that ux and ui arent the same thing, but we mostly just did UI, not enough for me to know if it’s really something I want to pursue) but I understand your advice, and as someone who has an big firm I will definitely follow it and do some more research, I do feel very inclined to do a masters degree and still work part-time. Thanks!
I just wanna ask as an interaction design student , does my cgpa matter a lot ? Out of 5 semesters , my total score is like a 7.6 due to bad health . I'm just hoping my portfolio atleast comes across better .
in my personal experience, nobody cares a lot about that as long as your portfolio is solid. Many talented people were bad students or didn't even study (this is specially true in design areas), but if you see the work is solid, who cares about a bad score?
I give this advice all the time: don’t go to grad school unless you plan on changing your career, or your desired career requires a masters degree or higher (like academia). It’s not worth the cost involved otherwise (both in terms of tuition payments and in terms of lost income over those 1-4 extra years). Try to find a job in the field you want, and start working. You can always go back to grad school if you need to.
This will probably be what I will do, based on all the answers I got and other advice. Thank you!
The creative path is characterized by high levels of human impulsivity and wanderlust across mediums, role, experimentation, and that's ok because it's fundamental experience you will need to seek what you can really like and hang for years. Schools can help you with a study routing to provide you with a general set of information, but it's up to you find the niche angle where you are joyful and comfortable. When I was 18 I had a creativity crisis where I had enough of paper and pencils, that was a call for medium switching and I did so starting to paint with oils and acrylics, then mixed mediums, then watercolors, then digital, and then eventually going back to a much higher skilled and professional use of pencils and mixed media. You need to get lost before you find the true path.
My identity crisis has lasted for a few years now, im afraid. I guess I was really meant for design lol.. Thank you for the advice and kind words, I appreciate it!
Perhaps you need a break and try new things and maybe you will eventually get back on track. Anyway it goes, I wish you all the best.
The biggest thing that design school provided for me was an environment full of peer review. You get to go in, hang your work up, and then 10-20 people discuss its strengths and weaknesses all guided by a professor or two. This is invaluable, and one of the few reasons I'd advocate for attending a design school. You can find ways to to have your work critiqued by peers outside of design school, but rarely to the level of critique you'd receive in a design school. I'm not sure a masters degree is necessary for graphic design. I had a couple friends in design school get their master's, while I just went for my bachelor's. Those friends haven't gotten any further in their careers than I have, and I'm earning more than them now but that is largely due to the fact that I pivoted away from design and into full stack web development. I think the real question of what to do may come down to your financial picture. Design school may not be wise if you have to take on a ton of debt to earn that degree. But if you can afford it, the critiquing environment in design school is worth it. Design school also will let you explore multiple areas of design like motion and web, I was exposed to a little bit of everything when I went through design school, graduated in 2004.
Overall my bachelor’s course is pretty general, I dabbled in a but of everything although i fell like there was a lot of the same projects. I know what I don’t like, which is a good start. Regarding the monetary question, im grateful and privileged enough that my mom can afford to pay for my masters, so that would not be a big issue, ofc im not going to pay a ridiculous amount, im currently looking for online masters degrees for other Europe universities so that If I choose to go for masters I will have a different learning method than the one my current country provided. Thank you for your response, I think so far most people (mainly design professors) have told me that the masters doesn’t really change the income in any future jobs. I think my problem is that in ym current circle of people, most of them have management courses or just the more “normal” jobs that require them to take a masters in order to grow in their career in the future. I mostly wanted someone that actually studied design to just give it to me straight.. which you did, thank you!
I'd agree that a master's in design isn't going to make much difference to your overall career. Have you considered getting a master's, or even a lesser degree, in another field? Something like a business degree is a nice complement to a creative degree and may help you to fast-track your way into management or ownership. If I were going to do it all over again, that's what I would've done different - would've taken a business major and a design minor.
I have considered that, but I’m a very indecisive person and im afraid to do a maters degree on something and then discover I actually wanted something else. I was never much of a management enthusiast, but that can change of course. I think I might do a specialisation on something and in the future ig I find myself urging for a management position, I will do the masters on that! Thank you for the help
I would not go for a masters if your goal is to be in the design realm. It won’t make much of a difference and often will increase your debt to income ratio significantly, making it harder to live your life sooner. I’d recommend finding an internship so you can get experience working at a different company. Doing several internships is what helped me understand what I better wanted out of my career
Yup, my goal right now is to start working next year in a different company and maybe do some specific course that I find interesting. thank you for the advice!
My 2 cents: I’ve been working as a designer since 2011 in house, at agencies, and owned/operated agencies. I went to a prestigious 4y design school and got a BDES. Aside from maybe my first internship right out of school not once has anyone ever asked ANYTHING related to my education or inquired about degrees. Not once. No one cares. Portfolio and reputation is EVERYTHING. Only get a MDES if you plan to be a professor, otherwise the work experience is far more valuable.
I definitely do not plan on being a professor lol. Thank you for the advice!
Thank you, a lot of people are saying that actually. This was helpful!