Graphic Designer unsure whether to go to university at 25?
Hello all
I left school and went to college to start A Levels, I left after a year with 3 AS Levels as I was commuting from far away and it was a bit of a nightmare so I didn't proceed to the second year. I then completed a BTEC National Diploma in Graphic Design.
I worked for a little while doing odd jobs before I landed a junior designer position at a design agency, I was there for a year a half and have had a few other design jobs since, so in total I have just over 3 years of graphic design work experience.
I'm 25 now and at a bit of a crossroads, I'm in a design job that isn't really going to anywhere (no progression) and doesn't satisfy me creatively, whilst it pays well I don't feel it's doing my portfolio or CV any good and frankly, I'm quite unhappy. I've never left the city I've lived in and am just itching to go somewhere else and try something new.
My portfolio is lacking in digital/web work and from my research it seems that this is where most of the jobs seem to be (Digital/UI/UX/Web Designer jobs seem to be everywhere), so I've recently considered starting a degree in Web Design & Development (BSc). I feel this will enable me to specialise in a specific area of design and give me the skills and knowledge to do so and potentially open more career opportunities in the future. I would learn the basics of coding (HTML/CSS etc) leading up to starting the course so that I'd be at a reasonable level to build on that knowledge. There is also the appeal of the overall uni experience, meeting new people, developing my portfolio, placement opportunities, learning new theory/practical skills.
I should also add that my parents live abroad so I'm completely separate from them financially.
My main concerns are:
- Finance: how does one afford to live whilst studying? Food, rent etc? Is there time to have a part time job on the side?
- Am I taking too much of a risk by putting my (working) career on hold?
- Has anyone else studied a course like this? Were you able to get a job afterwards?
Any advice/thoughts would be appreciated
I left school and went to college to start A Levels, I left after a year with 3 AS Levels as I was commuting from far away and it was a bit of a nightmare so I didn't proceed to the second year. I then completed a BTEC National Diploma in Graphic Design.
I worked for a little while doing odd jobs before I landed a junior designer position at a design agency, I was there for a year a half and have had a few other design jobs since, so in total I have just over 3 years of graphic design work experience.
I'm 25 now and at a bit of a crossroads, I'm in a design job that isn't really going to anywhere (no progression) and doesn't satisfy me creatively, whilst it pays well I don't feel it's doing my portfolio or CV any good and frankly, I'm quite unhappy. I've never left the city I've lived in and am just itching to go somewhere else and try something new.
My portfolio is lacking in digital/web work and from my research it seems that this is where most of the jobs seem to be (Digital/UI/UX/Web Designer jobs seem to be everywhere), so I've recently considered starting a degree in Web Design & Development (BSc). I feel this will enable me to specialise in a specific area of design and give me the skills and knowledge to do so and potentially open more career opportunities in the future. I would learn the basics of coding (HTML/CSS etc) leading up to starting the course so that I'd be at a reasonable level to build on that knowledge. There is also the appeal of the overall uni experience, meeting new people, developing my portfolio, placement opportunities, learning new theory/practical skills.
I should also add that my parents live abroad so I'm completely separate from them financially.
My main concerns are:
- Finance: how does one afford to live whilst studying? Food, rent etc? Is there time to have a part time job on the side?
- Am I taking too much of a risk by putting my (working) career on hold?
- Has anyone else studied a course like this? Were you able to get a job afterwards?
Any advice/thoughts would be appreciated
(edited 7 years ago)
Copying in @Roving Fish (you're the only graphic designer I know on TSR 
), hopefully he can offer some nuggets of wisdom.
), hopefully he can offer some nuggets of wisdom.Thank you @Snufkin !
@Roving Fish I notice on your profile you went to Saltash .net and City College? I live in Plymouth!
@Roving Fish I notice on your profile you went to Saltash .net and City College? I live in Plymouth!
Original post by jessicab
Thank you @Snufkin !
@Roving Fish I notice on your profile you went to Saltash .net and City College? I live in Plymouth!
@Roving Fish I notice on your profile you went to Saltash .net and City College? I live in Plymouth!
Oh wow, yeah, that's where I'm from.
I live in Birmingham now though, working as a graphic designer. Does that mean that you're studying at Plymouth Uni or PCA?
Original post by Roving Fish
Oh wow, yeah, that's where I'm from.
I live in Birmingham now though, working as a graphic designer. Does that mean that you're studying at Plymouth Uni or PCA?
I live in Birmingham now though, working as a graphic designer. Does that mean that you're studying at Plymouth Uni or PCA?
No I would prefer to go elsewhere, so bored of Plymouth! I'm looking at courses in Southampton, Manchester and Edinburgh.
Original post by jessicab
No I would prefer to go elsewhere, so bored of Plymouth! I'm looking at courses in Southampton, Manchester and Edinburgh.
I'll answer your thread OP in a bit. Sorry that I completely missed it out!
Original post by jessicab
Hello all
I left school and went to college to start A Levels, I left after a year with 3 AS Levels as I was commuting from far away and it was a bit of a nightmare so I didn't proceed to the second year. I then completed a BTEC National Diploma in Graphic Design.
I worked for a little while doing odd jobs before I landed a junior designer position at a design agency, I was there for a year a half and have had a few other design jobs since, so in total I have just over 3 years of graphic design work experience.
I'm 25 now and at a bit of a crossroads, I'm in a design job that isn't really going to anywhere (no progression) and doesn't satisfy me creatively, whilst it pays well I don't feel it's doing my portfolio or CV any good and frankly, I'm quite unhappy. I've never left the city I've lived in and am just itching to go somewhere else and try something new.
My portfolio is lacking in digital/web work and from my research it seems that this is where most of the jobs seem to be (Digital/UI/UX/Web Designer jobs seem to be everywhere), so I've recently considered starting a degree in Web Design & Development (BSc). I feel this will enable me to specialise in a specific area of design and give me the skills and knowledge to do so and potentially open more career opportunities in the future. I would learn the basics of coding (HTML/CSS etc) leading up to starting the course so that I'd be at a reasonable level to build on that knowledge. There is also the appeal of the overall uni experience, meeting new people, developing my portfolio, placement opportunities, learning new theory/practical skills.
I should also add that my parents live abroad so I'm completely separate from them financially.
My main concerns are:
- Finance: how does one afford to live whilst studying? Food, rent etc? Is there time to have a part time job on the side?
- Am I taking too much of a risk by putting my (working) career on hold?
- Has anyone else studied a course like this? Were you able to get a job afterwards?
Any advice/thoughts would be appreciated
I left school and went to college to start A Levels, I left after a year with 3 AS Levels as I was commuting from far away and it was a bit of a nightmare so I didn't proceed to the second year. I then completed a BTEC National Diploma in Graphic Design.
I worked for a little while doing odd jobs before I landed a junior designer position at a design agency, I was there for a year a half and have had a few other design jobs since, so in total I have just over 3 years of graphic design work experience.
I'm 25 now and at a bit of a crossroads, I'm in a design job that isn't really going to anywhere (no progression) and doesn't satisfy me creatively, whilst it pays well I don't feel it's doing my portfolio or CV any good and frankly, I'm quite unhappy. I've never left the city I've lived in and am just itching to go somewhere else and try something new.
My portfolio is lacking in digital/web work and from my research it seems that this is where most of the jobs seem to be (Digital/UI/UX/Web Designer jobs seem to be everywhere), so I've recently considered starting a degree in Web Design & Development (BSc). I feel this will enable me to specialise in a specific area of design and give me the skills and knowledge to do so and potentially open more career opportunities in the future. I would learn the basics of coding (HTML/CSS etc) leading up to starting the course so that I'd be at a reasonable level to build on that knowledge. There is also the appeal of the overall uni experience, meeting new people, developing my portfolio, placement opportunities, learning new theory/practical skills.
I should also add that my parents live abroad so I'm completely separate from them financially.
My main concerns are:
- Finance: how does one afford to live whilst studying? Food, rent etc? Is there time to have a part time job on the side?
- Am I taking too much of a risk by putting my (working) career on hold?
- Has anyone else studied a course like this? Were you able to get a job afterwards?
Any advice/thoughts would be appreciated
1. Affording to live whilst studying... You will have the option to get a maintenance loan which will cover your living costs which works out to be approx £7k a year. Affording to live on that isn't horrendous - but you won't be able to live as you do now, it'll be very much a student budget.
I'd say that there's time for a part-time job but only if you find one that's fully flexible and you ensure that you can meet the demands of the course.Graphic design courses can be very demanding in terms of research and development. Something that I found very interesting was that courses will encourage you to spend extensive hours on ideation and concepts, when in practice you don't have time for that at all.
2. Career Risk... Being completely honest I think that it might be a better bet not going to university. You've got 3 years of experience and formal qualifications, you just need to build your portfolio on the side. Will your job not allow you to work on any of the digital stuff? Could you move into a mixed-practice agency so you could continue to upskill with digital?
If you were to go to university then you'd have the upper-hand at the end of it. The problem with getting into industry as a graduate is that most people have just been to uni and have no work experience. You've got three years of it, which you could continue to build on while at uni (interning, part-time work, freelancing) which would put you marks above your colleagues.
3. Anyone else?... I studied at the University of Worcester and I thought that their course was bloody marvellous. Had a mix of industry experience, theory and lots of skills taught. I did Graphic Design and not Development. The degree that you're looking at would be a lot more code based than I think you realise. As it's in the course title, I'd expect 50% of the content to be coding like PHP, Ruby, Javascript, jQuery.
I wonder if you might be better off doing a core graphic design or digital design and specialising on web within it? You have module choices, so could gear it towards that. A graphics degree is essentially three years to do what you want to and not what your client wants you to. That's the beauty of it. You can arse around with whatever design and take as long as you want. That's how graduate portfolios can be so visually striking. But then that's also why a lot of those graduates are unemployable - because it took them 4 weeks to do, so they have no idea of studio pace.
University can be a great experience, I think that it's often worth it for personal development, it just feels like if you can skip it (and the debt) then you probably should.
It might be a good idea to reach out to some people like recruiters, senior designers, art directors on LinkedIn? See if they can offer you any advice?
Also when you look at the universities, sit down with their careers team and with the course leader to discuss your thoughts in full. They're there to help you and advise - even if your question is: should I go to uni? If they're good then they'll give you great advice but without the marketing bs.
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