Hey y’all! I’m going to be graduating from the college of florida with a BFA in graphic design subsequent spring and hopefully plan to do an internship afterwards. What i’m actually frightened about is that having a BFA in graphic design isn’t sufficient for all of the artistic jobs on the market. Am i overthinking it or ought to i simply go for it and do a masters?
If i shall do my masters in promoting, what faculties are finest? thanks for studying for those who’ve gotten up to now!
Work for a little while and then decide if you need more education. If you want to move up from graphic design to a strategic role in ad/brand/marketing, that’s where a masters would come into play. You absolutely don’t need it for a graphic design job.
Have a BFA also in GD and have worked at numerous ad agencies so no a MA isn’t really necessary.
A BA will be enough. Aside from the extra time and cost, a Master’s will disqualify you from some jobs. You’ve have little to no experience and more education than most people applying for entry level jobs. Don’t do it.
The value in a design degree is in the development you received, how good it has made you, which should be evident in your work. (That’s why people usually say “only the portfolio matters” as it’s essentially saying “just be good enough”.)
It can also take 6-12 months to find a job out of school, but while it’s not as if there are people just waiting with jobs for you, at the same time not everyone entering the industry is of equal ability and development.
If you went through a good 4-year program, you should be able to rise above most of the applicant pool, but at the same time grads (even from good programs) tend to make a lot of mistakes in their portfolios, and most people don’t know what networking is or how to utilize it.
With virtually every single person who posts here about struggling to find work they are making some obvious mistakes, or have significant factors limiting their odds (eg their specific country or in a rural area and can’t relocate so can only seek remote jobs, etc).
You mention internship after graduating, but more often internships are for students, as they’re learning experiences and essentially charitable on behalf of employers. Once you graduate you should be seeking out (certainly as a priority) actual entry/junior roles, not internships (which would only be fallbacks until you can actually find a real job).
As others mentioned, a master’s is unlikely to matter in terms of graphic design jobs, you’d still just be a fresh grad with no experience, and unless the additional degree actually improved your understanding via your work (basically, allowed you to have a better portfolio) then it won’t matter. It will not fast track you, give you a better salary, or otherwise directly benefit you over your existing degree.
Generally a master’s is for teaching full-time at university, it is not at all required to advance in our field, reach higher positions, etc.
Congratulations on the BFA in Graphic Design
I have read studying advertising can be a waste of time now, the technology used changes so fast that the course will never keep up with it. There is one part that I would love to learn is the psychology of the consumer.
Masters is only if you plan on going into education. Whether you can get job or get paid well is based on SKILLS. Not number of years at school.