Creative professionals typically subscribe to one of two markedly different schools of thought about formal education. Self-taught designers often believe that formal degrees are superfluous, and those who graduated from a college or university tend to argue that an associates or bachelor’s degree in multimedia design is a fundamental building block that cannot be replaced. There are solid arguments on both sides, which can obscure the importance of obtaining a degree. A formal degree represents a large investment of time and money, so it is key for prospective students to understand why they need to earn one.
Self-taught Designers Face Disadvantages
Some designers choose to enter the field with no formal training, and a few of them are able to build successful careers. These self-taught designers are able to start their careers right away, but it can be exceedingly difficult to find a job without a degree and a strong portfolio. Many self-taught designers are forced to take jobs that have nothing to do with design. Graduates of design programs typically have an easier time breaking into the industry for a number of reasons.
A Design Degree Provides a Background in the Fundamentals
The most significant reason to pursue a formal degree is professional instruction. Self-taught designers are forced to learn from online tutorials and other piecemeal sources. Online tutorials can be useful for teaching certain things, but there is no substitute for real instruction. Real coursework provides a deep background in design that is impossible to come by through self-directed learning.
Design schools also provide access to industry professionals and other resources that are not available to self-taught designers. These resources can be tremendously valuable to anyone who wants to craft inherent artistic abilities into marketable skills. Schools often employ successful designers as instructors, which can provide students with a real insight into the way the industry works.
Design Degrees Can Open Doors
Professional instruction also comes with a number of other benefits. Design school students often have the chance to form valuable contacts within the industry, which is a common stumbling block for self-taught designers. These contacts are tremendously useful when it comes time to enter the job market, and many students already have a foot in the door before they even graduate. Students also have the chance to network with each other, which can lead to professional relationships in the future.
Design schools also provide structured environments for creative people to learn and grow as professional artists. By the time a student graduates, he or she will typically have amassed an impressive portfolio that can be shown to potential employers. Many graduates of design programs lack work experience, but a robust portfolio can be immensely helpful in a competitive job market.
Students are also presented with a variety of internship opportunities, which can provide valuable work experience. This type of experience can give a design graduate a real edge in the job market. Unpaid internships often lead to job opportunities, but the experience also looks good next to a design degree on a resume.
The bottom line is that a bachelor’s degree in Multimedia design provides a solid foundation on which to build a career. A formal education in design can provide experiences and industry contacts that are out of reach for self-directed learners. In a competitive industry like multimedia design, that can mean the difference between a talented amateur and a successful professional.
I would have to disagree with your dismisal of being self-taught as opposed to the BA route. I am an entirely self-taught Designer/Developer and currently have a half dozen BAs and Tech College Web diplomas working for me. ALL of them do not work in our chosen field as their day job — they couldn’t find the work — and freelance for me evenings/week-ends. All of them respect my opinion and almost all of them will and have said that “Saffron is the better designer/developer”.
The best way to get better at what we do is to build/design more. In the early 2000’s – before I started Freelancing myself – my friends and I all insisted that we re-design our personal websites every single month. That’s 12 designs a year, plus side projects. In a couple of years, I had a portfolio that rivaled any BA and my skills were up to date to boot.
The one, huge downside of a traditional education that you didn’t touch on was the fact that schools are often behind the times. Design Students at my local Technical Arts college still teach Dreamweaver (the syllabus refers to it as Macromedia Dreamweaver too) and there is no PHP, no basic /understanding/ of Ruby, no HTML5, CSS3, basic programming (javascript libraries), basic SEO and text formatting, or a plethora of other vital, current skills. Those students walk out of school after 3-4 years with a piece of paper that proves that they are …. obsolete.
In the meantime, I’ve gained those skills, kept them up and built upon them. That’s why the Traditional Schooled BA grads work in Call Centres to pay the rent and defer to me on Design jobs.
Get the fundamental education. There’s no substitute for a sound foundation of knowledge in the field you want to work in. There’s a slew of things you won’t learn being self taught and arguing that you’ve taught yourself the particulars of design will only go so far. I’ve met many rockstar designers who have jumped into the workforce right away but they’ve also miss some core skill sets that they would otherwise have in place with a traditional education.
There’s also this strange trend of people tying together code with design and thinking that being a better coder makes you a better designer. I think this couldn’t be further from the truth. Understandably knowing the functionality and application for one’s work is a must and in today’s industry is a best practice. Being able to code yourself in place of another person may be a strong hybrid approach but the time your spending learning languages is less time being applied to evolving your personal style and “language”. All to often I meet/work with someone who can code and design and they always related to me how they wish they put down the code and focused on strengthening their design.
Degree is only a prove what major you are coming from. In the end, everything is still depend your real life experience. What you learn in school is just theory. Time and things are keep changing, you couldn’t stop learning. To build a networking is depend how socialize that person can be. If they doesn’t know how to socialize, doesn’t matter how much you pay for the AIGA membershipship fee, or art school, u actually still got nothing. Yes, degree holder in design help u open the door to the industry, but u never know actually self-taught designer can have better portfolio than the new graduated.