No experience with that program but just some things i've learned over the last few years of practicing ID.
- Theres the more visual side that is very artistic, styling, fancy renderings, animations, presentation design, far out stuff, and the more functional side, ease of manufacture, mechanical functionality, material properties, patentability etc that falls more towards mechanical engineering and business development. Through school, the highly visual stuff is really fun, and it is super important, but the more skilled you are at communicating and understanding the engineering and business aspects as well will only bolster your ability to generate designs that will actually get produced. I have noticed that the Art school ID programs tend to be very lacking on this front. I went to the Ohio State University, and that was one of the best parts was the exposure to other disciplines. One of the hardest lessons I learned was the importance of understanding patents. Having a product you spend years on getting blatently knocked off with nothing you can do about it is pretty harsh. Patents are something NO ONE really tells you about in depth through school cause the Unis typically want a piece of the pie if you generate something big.
Outside of the actual design program, id recommend the following areas to also study. I was laser focused on design through school and had to do alot of work on my own after school to "fill in the blanks" that no one really told me about.
mechanical engineering (if there was a good dual major, it would be ID and ME)These are two sides to the same coin, and the fact that they are so segregated is kinda silly.
entrepreneurship- ID is all about creating new business opportunities. regardless of whether you go into business for yourself or a company, its really helpful to understand how you're decisions affect the bottom line.
Patent law- you will generate MASSIVE amounts of Intellectual property through school and your career. know how to protect the good ideas and how to capitalize on them.
Math. I skimped on math hard and its bitten me in the ass more times than I care to remember. Math describes everything in the universe, and CAD.
Computer technology- you are much better off if you can spec and build the computers youll be using. Macbook Pros don't cut it for the heavy stuff lol. A good engineering workstation will boost productivity and abilities massively.
Coding- pretty self explanatory these days, just a good skill to have. I havent learned yet.
Marketing and sales- I used to think that good design pretty much eliminated the need for marketing but that is false. Someone needs to sell this stuff, and the easier you can make it to sell the better. Retail experience has really helped me out in my career. The marketing and exposure side is something I am still weak at.
Textiles- good to understand how softgoods are made, composites like carbon are textiles.
Chemistry- if you are interested in advanced materials chemistry is very helpful.
Art and design history- this stuffs cool, and its helpful to understand how everything came to be. plus people are always impressed when you can spout off the name of the guy who designed that thing. I am bad at remembering names and this is something im not as good at too, but ive noticed it helps sell yourself and add cred.
Hope this helps! oh yea, make as much stuff as possible! everything you see in the world is made by regular people, not super corporations, robots, machinery, etc. those are tools, not the thing doing the actual work, that's always been done by people and having that intimate understanding of a raw material being transformed by processes will help you more than just about anything else!
Cheers!
