Students and designers often ask me about the graduate school experience. Does a graduate degree in design offer more job prospects? How much research do you have to do? Will you get to teach? Will you get paid more when you have a graduate degree? And do they make you write a lot?
These questions always come to me in the Spring to Summer semesters at the University, but by this time, most deadlines have passed for graduate school applications. So first I tell students they need to apply next year. Then they frown a little, but I remind them that this added time helps you craft a good submission packet. They smile. Finally, I turn the tables by not answering their questions about better pay, getting to teach, or writing a lot. I begin with, What exactly do you want from graduate school? The chance to make self-directed work? Do you want to do more scholarly research and writing, getting published in peer-reviewed journals? Do you need the chance to make “new forms” without a client to hound you about your aesthetic philosophies? When I ask the aforementioned, people seem both confused and frustrated by the questions. Get used to it, because that’s what you’ll encounter as a grad student: questions.
The entire master’s degree experience should be about questions, and you should enjoy the opportunity to seek out the answers, realizing that you may never actually find them. Like King Arthur’s Knights in search of a Holy Grail, graduate school will take you down many paths, through many obstacles, and into some dead ends. For me, graduate school was a design immersion that significantly opened my eyes. I learned to treat client work differently. I began to take a different approach to selecting my clients. I also started to see design everywhere, through a more appreciative lens. Prior to graduate school, I would look at things from a single perspective—my own perspective—but graduate school expanded my empathetic sensibilities (thanks to graduate school, I have more empathy; conversely, some programs strip you of it, making you a whole lot more insular and even egotistical).
Graduate school means different things for different people, but it is largely a chance for research, service, and scholarship that should encourage reflection; it allows the student to define their own values and sense of purpose (or critique those of another party). Many designers want and need that, and I was one of them. At an undergraduate internship in 1993, a mentor told me, “Whether you like it or not, design is not about authority. Not art, not creativity. It’s about service. You’re giving people something they want. You’re answering their needs.” Obviously, this mentor was jaded, but I began to take that advice at face value. But I eventually felt that maybe service for clients and consumers represented only one facet. Growing skeptical about this issue was the first step towards graduate school, and it prevented me from becoming too complacent and too jaded. It also forced me to get out of a dead end job.
As a University of Washington Seattle graduate student from 2001-04, I found a place for self-analysis, to question how design has an impact on society, culture, and design itself. I had to put these questions and answers into writing in order to ground ideas every single day: course proposals, project proposals, exhibition proposals, thesis drafts, seminar papers, grant proposals, scholarship applications, and essays. As a graduate student, these classroom essays meant critical response & reflection. Fortunately, we had talented mentors, who instilled the value of writing and emphasized that it also enables you to participate in the design discourse. Our critics and professors were well rounded and encouraged us to be, whether that meant designing, writing, or analyzing. Sometimes, we did all three.
Where did teaching fit into the equation? Not every program offers the chance to work as a teaching assistant (helping a professor with instructional or administrative duties), or graduate teacher (teaching a class on your own). Many designers I meet have a desire to teach and they go into graduate school presuming it will open those doors. However, it is possible to teach without a master’s degree based on a strong record of design achievement, peer recognition, or outstanding clients. Four years of undergraduate study plus two to three years of graduate school isn’t the only path to teaching. Do you think Paul Rand had his masters as an instructor at Yale? If you decide to teach, the first thing you learn is that it’s a lot of work, on top of all the other requirements: studio classes, art history classes, electives, and of course your every day life (eating, sleeping, entertaining, etc.).
For many, work will take a back seat during the entire engagement. Prospective graduate students should be prepared to leave the work force for 2-3 years during their studies. You may return to work with a gap in your professional experience, unless the graduate school you’re attending has a strong professional practice component. University of Washington Seattle, where I went, has such a component and connects you to clients in the Seattle area or on campus design projects. University of Cincinnati and many others will do the same. Chances are that if you study in New York City, you will have plenty of opportunities to freelance if you can get out of the graduate studio from time to time.
On the other hand, you may have to kiss your freelance dreams goodbye whether you like it or not. Administration and professors have been known to prohibit any additional work outside of graduate studies, especially if you get assigned a teaching or research assistantship. However, you may find yourself running errands such as picking up the professor’s dry cleaning on the way back from getting his students’ art supplies. How’s that for a swell teaching gig?
Designers see stars when they think of the design work, teaching, and research they have the chance to do in graduate school. So much so, that they’re willing to shell out any amount of money to do it. At my first teaching job out of undergrad (yes, I was able to teach without a graduate degree, and you could too), one of the assistant professors told me about his Yale experience. As a graduate student, he worked on design every day, every night for three years straight. By 1998, six years after leaving graduate school, he had $64,000 in student loans left to pay off. No financial plan. Before you start, have a financial plan, for god’s sake. Don’t get into deep debt. With student loans, realize what you’re getting into and plan to pay it off diligently. Rates are competitive; don’t take the first thing you get offered from a University student loan officer. Look at your bank. Consider a credit union if you’re a state employee. Ask your current employer if you can have them finance part of it while you continue to work. Consider borrowing from family with the promise of paying them back.
You may wind up losing a lot of money during the process, but it could be worth it. You may also wind up losing a lot of sleep during the process too. You have to live between teaching classes; attending studio, seminar, and history sessions; being married; getting homework done; and planning a thesis. Even though graduate school ruined my sleep hygiene because I had to stay awake many consecutive nights, I appreciate the value of a strong and ambitious work ethic more than ever. I also learned a whole lot about time management.
When it comes to the questions that I get asked about graduate school: cool design projects, finding work, teaching, research, or getting scholarships, I cannot answer any of them because it depends on you, the institution, where the institution is located, and your own personal finances. I can, however, answer two questions completely and wholeheartedly. Will you have to pull a lot of all nighters? Yes, yes you will. And will you get used to not having answers? Maybe.
Thoughtful article, Jason. If only someone said all that to me years ago.
On Jan.31.2008 at 12:02 AMI never graduated from Pratt Institute where I went to school. A serious mugging in the streets of Brooklyn changed all that. And yet, for years, I worked from Manhattan's Madison Avenue to New Orleans' Poydras Street without ever needing any degree. Experience, I convinced myself, was the best teacher.
But when asked to teach at 2 design schools lately, the impediment of non-deploma status shot up like the Berlin Wall. Didn't matter if I had qualifications, or skill organizing a quarter and I understood that perfectly. How could you ask students to strive for a degree if the teacher never did? The few design courses I have taught at Atlanta's Portfolio Center were exceptional fun for me, and now I kind of regret not getting that accreditation.