What do you ACTUALLY learn in Design School?✏️❤️

After taking a gap year filled with many different part-time jobs and internships—I decided to pursue a degree in design in university. Why I chose this path is a story for another day. I’ve graduated for almost 2 years now and I don’t regret going to design school at all. I can’t speak for every designer so here is my list of what I’ve learnt in design school.

✏️ It’s all about self-study—You’ll learn to curate your individual experience

Design is very subjective and so is the learning journey of being a designer. What you do in your projects will differ from what your friends do. The era of copying answers from your classmates is now over. Your own ideas, concepts and reflections will drive your project deliverables and outcomes hence you might learn to use different mediums or different applications compared to your friends.

Design and Technology are very connected. To bring your ideas to life, you’ll have to explore different apps and technology. Other than learning these on your own, you’ll have to understand that a lot of professors and lecturers aren’t good at these ever-changing and ever-renewing apps and tech. What they can offer is only their expertise. Instead of the usual Teacher-Student relationship, you’ll be seeing them as experts in their fields collaborating with you to give birth to new projects or refine and guide you through your ideas. You’ll not only get to decide and choose who you would like to collaborate and learn from, you can even choose what subjects and topics you’ll like to dip your toes into.

University level of learning is very self-driven. Some people might decide on pushing themselves on variety of applications and design fields, while others might decide to focus on a certain type of design and stick with it throughout their journey. I love how everyone will have a different experience.

💓 Finding your niche

Skillset & niche are totally different—Skills can be taught and learnt, whereas your niche might lead you into the industry you might get into or even your own business. I see the time in University as the time to water and grow your own garden.

I realised that most of my projects revolve around mental health topics. I am also always incorporating my doodles into my work. That’s when I drew the connection that I like talking about mental health and I love doodling—so it became my Final Year Project, where I created a book to doodle for Meditation.

If you’re interested to see, here it is: 🔗 Formless Forms

🔨  To dig deeper & reflect

You’ll start to draw most of your ideas and concepts from your own experience. You’ll start to dig deeper into who you are—this was really the interesting part. Like most people say, art reflects life right? In university, you’ll get to make everything about you. If it’s not your own life, whose are you going to talk about? This chance to reflect is so rare. Where will you have the chance to focus only on yourself for a few years AND be awarded great grades for it. For one of my first drawing foundation class, we had to do a distorted self portraits—here is mine. While doing this up, I really reflected on how different and uncomfortable it was to find a photo of myself that I liked and to stare at it for hours while completing this assignment. It hit me that I was not very confident about my appearance.

🌞 Concept and ideation

Yes, design and aesthetic is important but what really sets you apart is THE STORY. What goes behind the design keeps the work relevant and alive for longer. A good story is deep and complex which can give birth to multiple artworks and deliverables. Through working on tons of projects, you’ll learn to come up with good concepts almost instantly or through design research. And as you progress through university, you can always re-work a project in another course or module. You might also continue it as your Final Year Project (if your course has it).

You might realise that what I listed aren’t really tangible and that’s because everyone will walk their own path and learn specifically unique skillsets. It seems like design school, just like life, is all about relationships with yourself, your friends and your professors. It’s not just about getting test results and that is what I love about it. I went to NTU’s ADM for university, if anyone is interested, feel free to comment any questions you have! I’ve graduated for quite some time now—hopefully I’m still relevant and I hope you enjoyed this little reflection and enthusiasm for learning 😝 

PS. I also did my minor in Education hence the love for learning.

With Love,

Chara

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