RCA Graduate Diploma in Art & Design

No sure if you're still here but I'm in the same boat. Do you remember when you got your offer? Did you go ahead with the program, and if so how was your experience?

Hello there! I applied around the beginning of January for the first round and got my offer around February's end. I would say my offer came a lot earlier than general. I accepted the offer and I am only one month short of finishing the program from today. In a very general sense, I would say that the program has a very wide approach in all things art & design as the title suggests. My expectation from a higher level education such as masters was to find a strict path that I can follow and be guided and mentored along the way if possible. I can hardly say the program met my personal expectations.
But I should put that I met many people that benefited a lot from this "wide scope" the program grasps onto the field. For practitioners that are new to the field, for people that wants to change their specializations in art & design (for example pick up on fine art while doing fashion initially etc.) this program meets their demands and brings on a fresh and up to date vision on the field. For me, this was too wide of a scope and I couldn't get the focused approach on what I intended to do which was to dive deeper into the graphic design more towards branding, campaign design and design activism.
This program is best fit also for people that tried to get into masters level but have seen that they require more to do so. Graduate Diploma in Art & Design will definitely give people the chance to take another stab at RCA's master courses as the program is really readying people for it quite evidently. And I should say that Royal College of Art, with all of its courses really do wish to raise innovative practitioners that always challenge the cutting edges of what they do, always pioneer new practices and ways of thinking. This is what RCA champions and actually how it stays above all other schools in QS rankings in my opinion.
However, if you wish not to always seek for newer grounds in art & design and always try to do different stuff whatever you may be doing, then RCA is really should not be the answer. The title of "RCA" looks wonderful on the CV, but the journey becomes very exhausting as it was to me. There was a lot of times I questioned my practice and how I simply wanted to "do" what I wanted to do, and not "challenging", "groundbreaking" design that was unrevealed to us on every class we participated in. Entrepreneurship, innovation, challenge the fields, initiate startups and become a pioneer in a field = make your way into RCA and take up on Graduate Diploma as well, it will ready you for the master %100.
The past 7 months have been teaching me a lot about the masters and the professional fields here in London and how to understand them, so I would love to help more in whatever way. I love to talk

Thank you so much for the reply! I really appreciate it. I should say when did you officially receive your offer e-mail? I applied for a full MA, got rejected, but they told me I could do a Graduate Diploma instead but no official way to accept the offer. Did you get the official offer e-mail much later?
I'm sorry to hear it hasn't been what you expected. I'm nervous because I know what I want to do and have several years of professional experience. I applied for Design Products specifically to get a more rounded education around product design as my current job is a very niche type of design. My undergrad program sounds very similar to what you described. It was a very generalized multi disciplinary program but it was at a non art college and focused much more on fine arts as opposed to more applied paths.
It's been a rough few years and I do think I need to strengthen my personal artistic identity and get a stronger foundation. I can afford the Diploma plus a potential Master's without going in to debt but I am anxious about spending that much money. I do like that the Diploma can significantly help getting into a program but it's not a guarantee. I do need some priming so I'm glad it seems like it might be a good fit for my situation.
Emotionally I feel like I need something vastly different from my current living situation and working in a more guided studio atmosphere doesn't bother me. I want to push myself artistically and that's something I felt my undergrad was severely lacking. I wanted to study abroad during my undergrad but that did not work out. I also just really want to go and meet new people who have the same interests as myself and work together.
Thank you for the response! I'm glad to get a perspective from someone actually going through the program. I have a lot to think about.

Hello there! I applied around the beginning of January for the first round and got my offer around February's end. I would say my offer came a lot earlier than general. I accepted the offer and I am only one month short of finishing the program from today. In a very general sense, I would say that the program has a very wide approach in all things art & design as the title suggests. My expectation from a higher level education such as masters was to find a strict path that I can follow and be guided and mentored along the way if possible. I can hardly say the program met my personal expectations.
But I should put that I met many people that benefited a lot from this "wide scope" the program grasps onto the field. For practitioners that are new to the field, for people that wants to change their specializations in art & design (for example pick up on fine art while doing fashion initially etc.) this program meets their demands and brings on a fresh and up to date vision on the field. For me, this was too wide of a scope and I couldn't get the focused approach on what I intended to do which was to dive deeper into the graphic design more towards branding, campaign design and design activism.
This program is best fit also for people that tried to get into masters level but have seen that they require more to do so. Graduate Diploma in Art & Design will definitely give people the chance to take another stab at RCA's master courses as the program is really readying people for it quite evidently. And I should say that Royal College of Art, with all of its courses really do wish to raise innovative practitioners that always challenge the cutting edges of what they do, always pioneer new practices and ways of thinking. This is what RCA champions and actually how it stays above all other schools in QS rankings in my opinion.
However, if you wish not to always seek for newer grounds in art & design and always try to do different stuff whatever you may be doing, then RCA is really should not be the answer. The title of "RCA" looks wonderful on the CV, but the journey becomes very exhausting as it was to me. There was a lot of times I questioned my practice and how I simply wanted to "do" what I wanted to do, and not "challenging", "groundbreaking" design that was unrevealed to us on every class we participated in. Entrepreneurship, innovation, challenge the fields, initiate startups and become a pioneer in a field = make your way into RCA and take up on Graduate Diploma as well, it will ready you for the master %100.
The past 7 months have been teaching me a lot about the masters and the professional fields here in London and how to understand them, so I would love to help more in whatever way. I love to talk