<p>My sister wants to study graphic design and I am trying to research some schools to figure out where she should go. I am a political science major myself, so this is a whole new world for me. What aspects of a graphic design program make it good? What should I be looking for? Is there anything I should avoid?</p>
<p>[Making</a> Choices About the Study of Graphic Design](<a href=“http://nasad.arts-accredit.org/site/docs/AIGA-NASAD%20PUBLICATIONS/AIGA_NASAD_student_brochure.pdf]Making”>http://nasad.arts-accredit.org/site/docs/AIGA-NASAD%20PUBLICATIONS/AIGA_NASAD_student_brochure.pdf)</p>
<p>Hmmmm…good question. It can be hard to evaluate a program at arm’s length. Take into consideration the following points:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>How many faculty in the GD department? The more the merrier, IMO. Diversity is a wonderful thing. You don’t want to have the same professor over and over and over. </p></li>
<li><p>How many faculty are adjunct and how many are full-time? Cohesive programs tend to have more full-time faculty since adjuncts pretty much come and go without much communication with their peers or the institution. </p></li>
<li><p>Does the program offer History of Graphic Design as a course? It should be a required course for all GD majors.</p></li>
<li><p>Review the curriculum and be certain it will prepare you for a career in GD. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>For example, for a few years at SCAD, the school offered only one 5-week course in Web Design to undergraduate Graphic Design students. This was a significant and irresponsible oversight. I believe the issue has since been rectified.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Opportunities to expand the breadth of your studies with electives in other departments.</p></li>
<li><p>Internship opportunities, and connections within the industry.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Hmm, thanks! This is a starting point. She has only just started to think about colleges and she has mentioned the Kendall program at Ferris State in Michigan. I know Ferris is not a very selective school but since this is a different game from poli sci I don’t know if that even matters. She is probably going to graduate with somewhere between a 3.5-3.7/4.0, hasn’t taken the ACT yet, and has an ample portfolio of graphic design projects. My dad owns a software development company and he makes websites for his clients as well, and my sister does all the graphics and has done lots of creative work on the side for fun and she’s very talented with anything artistic she attempts. The one hang up here is that she has recently decided she may also be interested in child psychology, so we need to find her an undergrad institution that will allow her to change her mind without transferring schools and, should she decide to change her mind, the school has to also offer good preparation for grad psych programs.</p>
<p>I’m glad I went from film to poli sci while I was in community college, this is a complicated search!</p>