I would browse around College Navigator, the federal government’s website on colleges. If you select Programs/Majors, it lists tons of majors. Using the key word “design”, these are all the majors that came up. Browsing through the other majors on the site may spark some additional possibilities, too.
I’ll think about some other schools later, but one possibility your D may want to look into is East Carolina (NC). ECU definitely has sports enthusiasm and has an Art & Design Living Learning Community. It also has the Marching Pirates, which does require an audition. Some majors that might interest your daughter include:
BFA in Art w/concentration in animation/interactive design, textile design, metal design, among others.
BS in Design with a concentration in architectural technology or mechanical technology
Hi there. It looks like no one here mentioned U of Cincinnati’s DAAP program. It’s very prestigious for industrial design. The school has a strong marching band and the stadium isn’t far from the DAAP building. Only hitch is that Industrial Design there requires 5 trimesters of a coop and to do that while in marching band, they have to stick with local employers. You can find accredited programs in this major on the IDSA website. There are about 50, including at GA Tech.
I just learned that the band director at UMiami is retiring, and his replacement is someone I know, who is straight-up phenomenal! If the design-related majors there would work for your kid, I can promise that the band piece is going to be amazing. Since it’s still early for your kid, Miami’s summer programs could be well worth considering - could help to determine whether she’d like a BArch program or not. Summer Programs for High School Students | School of Architecture | University of Miami
Thank you for this info! We’ll definitely check it out.
Update, DD is now finishing her sophomore year. She’s going to the NC State design camp this summer that @MomOfSome mentioned upthread – we toured NC State’s design program specifically as well, and she loved the program but was overwhelmed by the size and feel of the school overall.
I’m really hoping that camp will help narrow down her focus – she’s been leaning away from industrial design lately and more toward general graphic design? We’ll see. She’s got a digital design class on deck in the fall, as well as an honors construction/architecture/engineering class.
And here I was about to make a suggestion of another school! It would be a highly likely admit (and highly likely to come with a big merit aid package), but U. of Louisiana - Lafayette offers majors in industrial design and architecture. Its BFA in Visual Arts offers concentrations in 10 different areas, including Computer Art & Animation, Graphic Design, and New Media & Digital Art. And should her interests shift to engineering, there are a number of ABET-accredited options here, too. There are about 13k undergrads, so much smaller than a school like NCSU, though obviously not small. Lastly, there are nonstop flights from Atlanta to Lafayette (ATL is such a great home for nonstop flights!).
ETA: And there’s a marching band (with entry by audition)
One more random thought… Nashville is well within your desired radius, and Vanderbilt has a marching band program that I think fits what you’re looking for. (Legit program but not over-intense.) Vandy itself doesn’t have a lot of design type stuff (I’m sure the studio art major is good, but your d seems to be looking for something a little more “applied.”) But Belmont U has a range of majors in their College of Art, and their students (as well as students from other area colleges) are also welcome in Vandy’s marching band. So, maybe that could be one to look at, if you’re okay with the religiously-affiliated aspect of Belmont. (Some say that isn’t a big deal at all, but I have no direct experience so ymmv.) Watkins College of Art: Programs of Study
Looking for schools with industrial/product design (and preferably architecture and engineering options, too) along with a list of schools with marching bands is surprisingly difficult to find, outside of some of the big names in sports. But some of the schools in the eastern half of the U.S. that might be considered are:
Iowa State
Ohio State
Purdue
Syracuse
U. of Cincinnati
U. of Houston
U. of Minnesota - Twin Cities
Virginia Tech
Western Michigan
I don’t know how intense their marching band requirements are, but thought you’d like to know.
And this was the list of schools I used to look for marching bands:
Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston has Industrial Design, Architecture, and Engineering and you can join the BC marching band. The BC band is open to students to several colleges throughout the Boston area. D23 has a friend that attends Wentworth and is in the BC marching band.
That’s awesome to know! I had thought of Wentworth as a great potential option, but didn’t include it because of the marching band. Here’s more info on how students from partner school can participate:
I don’t think Virginia Tech’s design program includes graphic design (it’s great for industrial design though). For graphic design at a Virginia public you could check out VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University), which has a top-rated art school that is very hard to get into.
My daughter did the summer precollege program at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. It was great! Many options for design, including industrial/product and transportation.
100%. In fact this was a blessing and a curse to S23 that wanted specifically a BArch program plus Marching Band. It really helped narrow down the schools. UTK is another option.
The Marching Band programs at larger schools are pretty intense (big time commitment). I don’t know how intense the studio/curriculum would be for industrial design program but it was pretty evident at the larger schools that kids that do Architecture don’t usually go much past the first year or two with Marching Band due to time constraints.
@aquapt That’s an interesting thought about Belmont, thank you! We’ll have to talk about the religious thing. She’s at a private Christian high school right now, so it wouldn’t be unfamiliar, but I think she wanted a different sort of environment.
Still, her school sends a lot of kids to Belmont (and my older one was a theatre/chorus kid, so several of her friends are there), and I vaguely knew that they could participate in Vandy’s marching band but had forgotten.
I looked quickly at the majors, and it looks like the Experiential Design is in line with what she might like. Definitely something we’ll look into – thanks again!
@KateKara24 – yes, my daughter liked the NC State camp a lot. She did the one-week residential one that gave an overview of several different areas. She thought she might be intimidated because she doesn’t have much art background, but she fit right in.
It’s been almost two years since I wrote this original post, lol, so she’s now a junior, and we’re a little further along in the process. She kind of wants a small liberal arts school experience, but she’d really like to study game design or perhaps UX/UI stuff – which isn’t available at small schools.
But yes, GA Tech is definitely on her list, even if she’s not sure it would be the perfect fit – especially because it’s in-state for us, and it would be cheap! Great school – their industrial design program is fantastic, but they also have a computational media major that leans more game design and UX/UI.
If your daughter is interested in industrial design, check out GA Tech’s two-week summer program for that. It’s pricey, but it might be worth it.
If anyone’s seeking marching band/architecture, and has a kid with strong academic credentials, another option is Cornell…
D24 had a great first semester at U Cincinnati/DAAP in industrial design. The first-year class in her major has 86 students, which is very small vs other majors but bigger than at most other schools. It’s an intensive program, with first-years spending 18 hours/week in the studio their first semester.
