Why you should follow your heart and study design
pic: our students' recent visit to AirBnb office in Singapore to learn more about design
You have gotten your O level results and it is now the time to choose the path you want to pursue.
Always have a flair for drawing and want to study design but your parents disagree.
It doesn’t help that your friends are not choosing this course too.
This happens often to most Singaporeans when they are in their teenage years and will almost always resulting in them pursuing a career they have no interest in at the end of the day.
If you need more convincing, here are 5 reasons we have complied from a survey with our students on why you should just follow your passion in design.
1) Enjoy what you are doing for the next few years
“Why start something when you don’t even like it in the first place?”, is a question one of our surveyed student will like you to ask yourself.
Unlike other disciplines, a portfolio is much more important that a certificate in the creative industry. This is why you will be doing design work after design work instead of memorizing textbooks for your examinations.
Projects are to help the students build up their design skills, both software and creative thinking, and their portfolio.
Like we always say in MAD School, “if you can memorize textbooks well, you have come to the wrong school.” This is because we do not believe in examinations at all.
pic: our students at the recent Creative Circle Awards The Gong Show 2017 by 4As
2) The friends you make
One thing for sure, you will be making friends who think like you, behave like you and have the same interests as you.
You don’t want to be talking about balance sheet and numbers for 3 years when you have totally no interest in accounting.
Having a like-minded support system will help you breeze through your 2-3 years of studying for a diploma.
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Being able to study in Clarke Quay (MAD School is located at Clarke Quay area) and hanging out with your classmates in this area after school is a bonus though.
pic: our annual student trip to Korea for the AD Stars event
3) Future career
Yes, your parents are not lying, not all design disciplines can get you a job easily.
However, there is a huge demand for creatives in the advertising industry and this industry has been growing exponentially for the past few years.
It is not a secret that graduates from the advertising design cohort are currently highly sought after by both creative agencies and tech companies alike. This is because everyone, be it Google, Facebook, MediaCorp etc., is after the advertising dollars and that is pushing up the demand for advertising creatives.
A creative director from a reputed creative agency (and there is never a short of agencies in Singapore) can easily earn in the north of $10,000 per month.
Now show this to any naysayer who is trying to dissuade you from studying design so that you can have a better career in the future.
4) Longer route
More than 70% of our students in MAD School are working professionals.
This number alone should tell you something about the percentage of locals (yes, we only enrol Singaporeans/PR*) choosing the wrong course and going one big round to come back to school again to study something you like.
Among the students we have surveyed, more than 80% of them agree that they will not waste years studying something they didn’t have a passion in if they can do it all over again.
As one of the students rightly highlighted, “A normal Singaporean will retire at around 67 and I am 27 this year. I don’t see myself doing something I don’t enjoy for the next 40 years.”
pic: our students winning big at the recent Crowbar Awards 2017
5) Workshop
As mentioned, since you will need a strong portfolio more than a certificate (although you will still get one after completing your studies), one can always take up a workshop for one of the design modules before going for the full diploma.
You may even get an exemption for that module if you decide to upgrade to a diploma after that.
This will allow you to try if you really like design enough to commit to a full diploma course.
Taking up a workshop first can also help you in creating the first entry for your portfolio and acquiring a new design software skill (photoshop, illustrator etc.) at the same time.
MAD school offer part time workshops in marketing, design and advertising courses.
