BACHELORS DEGREE vs DIPLOMA
Upon graduating high school in 2015, I launched straight into studying a Bachelor of Design Arts, excited to be working towards my career as an interior designer.
I completed the first half of a this degree, where I struggled to get out of bed each morning and make the 2 hour commute to the campus. If I loved it, I wouldn't have minded, but I didn't feel like I was taking anything away from studying there. I'm the type of person that tries to avoid confrontation or causing disappointment, so I was scared to make the decision that I wanted to withdraw from the course without having completed it, let alone tell that to my parents. To my surprise, telling them was like lifting a huge weight from my shoulders. They weren't disappointed in me, they were proud of me for speaking up, for having researched what I would do, for making a potentially risky decision.
I enrolled in the online Interior Design Institute shortly after. While I would only be studying a Diploma rather than a Bachelors degree, this was the only doubt I had about completing this course instead. Ten months on, I have completed this course and I am confident it is the best decision I could have made in the circumstances.
Being a completely self-paced course, it allowed me to work most days and truly made me enjoy life. I was earning money, loving working at the local cafe and studying something I really loved. I looked forward to studying, racing through each module and quickly getting onto the next.
Being a world-wide Institute, you may question the support network given you never get face to face contact with your tutors but boy, you couldn't be more wrong. If i had any questions I got an answer within hours, upon submitting assignments, I had my results within a couple of days, I got lengthy feedback, both constructive criticism and praise on what I had done well. This helped me to develop and gain an understanding of where my strengths lie and what needed more work.
The modules that made up this course took you from the basics of what makes a good design and how styles and movements have changed over time, to increasing my skills in hand drawing and gave me an opportunity to work with CAD and develop my skills there, to teaching my the more technical part of the job; quoting according to budgets, job scopes, how to deal with customers and the basics on how to get your own business up and running successfully.
This course also offers a number of ‘Advanced Modules’ that allow you to further your skills in particular areas. I am currently completing one on ‘Property Styling and Home Staging’ which I am quickly discovering that I have a real passion for, and ‘Kitchen and Bathroom Design’ as these two spaces of a room are generally the more complicated spaces to get right.
Property Styling is an area of Interior Design that I can imagine myself loving to work in, styling and staging a home for sale to help every potential buyer to walk through the house believe that it could be their HOME. I hate the idea of living somewhere that doesn't really feel like your home. You should be completely comfortable, happy and safe in your own space and I love the concept of being able to help you feel this way in your own sanctuary.
