I am a budding designer going through my last years of school and was wondering just what is the best path to take? At the moment I’m looking at doing a degree course in graphic design at either Monash or Swinburn Uni (I live in Vic.) If anyone here could offer advise on the matter it would be greatly appreciated. If anyone else here is actualy Australian for that matter it would also be cool, I guess.
If not I’m sure experiences from other countries couldn’t hurt to be shared.
I am in the same boat as “davidh.”. It would be extremly usefull if anybody had some information for the both of us on this subject…
Do Not Go To Rmit!!
Well I’m in the U.S. so this may not apply to you.
I’ve learned a very simple concept.
if you want a big time federal or state job, go to school and get at least a 4 year degree.
if you want to do freelance work, buy a few books and take a few course’s to help you learn.
i have an Associates Degree in Digital Media Arts. so far i have been getting by, nothing more nothing less. no one has ever asked me where i went to college when looking for jobs, and i don’t think anyone cares.
lol, yes I went to the RMIT open day two weeks ago and wasn’t very impressed at all. It seemed far too busy for me. Thanks for the advise Digitalosophy, I will keep that in mind when the time comes to making a final descision. I think it’s more of a personal goal, to do a degree, rather than to be recognised, as you said no one really tends to care where you went to college.
undergraduate study is to get core skills, whcih yes, you can read books for…
but dont underestimate the fact that univeristy allows you to open your mind more and is a valuable experience…im am doing postgraduate study and find that working with fashion designer throught to vehicle designers broadens your design mind and above all puts you in a postiton to make valuable contacts
It seems that you are being very considerate with your choice so i doubt you will go far wrong…
Thanks, that was what I thought also, I think I would learn a lot more from doing a university course than reading books. It would provide the dicipline I usually need to become motivated, so I think it would be very benificial.
Now all I need to do is find out where to go, but that’s what open days are for and there is plenty more of them to come.
I got to TAFE doing Digital Media Diploma and its great. very hands on practical work. I have a mate doing a similar course at UNI and he does a ****load of theory.
so yeah. hope that helps a little.
HIYA, i am also in the same boat as you,
most of my friends went to many different unis’, there is one at swinbunre doing applied design, another at RMIT doing visual merchandising and another at boxhill tafe doing Multimedia + sound engineering
and every time i see my friends, i ask them how school is going and they say it is awesome, all of my friends produce awesome work that they and i are pround of !!
so it all is gonna come down to what you make of your time at your chosen uni.
ohh and dont forget about private school, expensive yes but awesome !! they are a couple around melb, I.D.E.A, and there is another one but i forgot ! lol
i was thiking of doing mutimedia at swinburne myself … but eh whos knows 
peace and goodluck
[:ninja:EZEkiel:ninja:]
Well my G/F went to tafe instead of UNI, and her sister who got just about 20’s for everything has also started tafe this year.
Why?
From what her friends have told her UNI is very technical, lots of color charts and essays on design etc.
Where as tafe has real clients for assignments, you still have to do your color wheel crap etc. But when you are given an assignment for a logo, it is for a real client who comes in and tells you what they want and you receive a payment for it, depending on what they want to offer.
A employer contacted one of the lectures at tafe and asked who is good, so my g/f is now working fulltime for a publishing company with time off for classes.
One of the clients at tafe she had was Shine SA…. Government agency, she did illustrations for school books and teachers resources that are used all over the state. (SA)
She is still getting repeat work from them, did 250,000 run poster not that long ago.
As far as I know you have no contact with clients at uni.
For stature I would say UNI maybe better, but to get actual work with the chance of having real client work in your portfolio I would say tafe.
Perhaps if you have no design skills UNI might be better as they really grill you on the basics, hence lots of essay’s and color wheels.
Also I maybe wrong but tafe you have to pay as you go…. UNI just whack it on HECS…
Note: This is based on SA and from what I know….
Go there and talk to them… If you haven’t been there before UNI or tafe might seem like a big deal. Just rock up and walk around like you own the place… Ask people for directions and soon enough you will find yourself at the design department. Ask who lectures design and go knock on their door. Just say you are thinking about comming here and want to know what sort of stuff you will be tort and whats the difference between tafe and uni.
It may seem daunting but they don’t care. Just remember you own the place, they are being paid to be there and to be nice to you.
haha, thanks vulcan I’ll keep that in mind. When I went to RMIT it was so busy that I spent half the day looking for my friends I was meeting there and the just wandered aimlessly like a chicken with his head cut off. I’m hoping the other unis will be easyer to navigate :\
Thank-You for you information it sounds good, as i am looking more for client work, after what you said it has pushed me more into the Tafe side of things, payment is no problem so i dont need Hecs.
Im considering doing the Multimedia Diploma at Swinburn University of Tafe next year at the wantirna campus.
i did tafe aswell doing advancded diploma in multimedia. i left it though. that was this year. i am now an IT Tech at a k-12 school. 
but the people in my class were shocking!! they had no sense of design and i dont know HOW that got into the course… but yeah… VUT is good. cheap too. 
Thanx for that, hahaha funny that you say how crap the people are in your course you did, im doing a multimedia this year units 3&4 VCE and most of the class except a few have no idea of design, it looks like work from grade 5!
Thanx for your info…
Yeh that’s true Ben some of the guys at our course are REALLY bad. But I guess you can’t blame them, they live in Wonthaggi lol.
hey all… check this link out…
its a similar topic to whats in question… http://www.kirupaforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=63674&highlight=hornsby
recently i have found that the course actually has not changed, but now the course is much more specialised in its final years, meaning that you can go into Motion/print/web direction.
any more questions feel free to ask.
well i’mkinda in teh same boat, i wan’t to do a double degree with computer science at uni, with either Creative Arts: graphic design new media or commerce: management.
the course at wollongon uni (where i live) looks really good, by second year you do most of your projects with real clints wether it be the university itslef or local business groups, some of them pay well (accoridng to the student incharge at the open day).
the only thing is i need a portfolio of art, not just digital art (whic is bad cos i can’t draw) and most of my work isn’t in the descriptions of what they are looking for, they do ask for a website, and an advertisment using photography and such.
I’ve been doing Vis-Com and Studio art 1 & 2 this year and loving both, I will definatly move onto them in year 12 and really push for top design and top arts exhibition. I’m not a great artist but I love doing it and my teacher is helping me improve. I suggest to anyone who is going to be doing Graphic Design after school to take up and art class just to improve your general skills. It will help heaps.
lots of info there soulty. wd.
i went to hornsby tafe last year doing digital media. great teachers and resources and a really cool tafe.
thanks ando,
who was your teacher?
im back there atm, doing a webdesign course, directed to programming.
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