Where to find an affordable, primarily distance learning graphic design degree?
January 15, 2010 by
Filed under graphic design degree
I live in Eastern NC and would like to work toward getting a degree in graphic design. I already have a bachelor’s in marketing, which hasn’t done much for me, and have a passion for the art of design.
Are there any schools in the area that offer programs in design that would allow me to take either distance learning courses or mainly night and weekend courses (because I work a M-F, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. job). The more affordable, the better. Thanks!
If you type “graphic design distance learning” into your search engine (like Yahoo or Google), you will get a list of schools to look at.
I know that the Art Institute is pretty popular: http://www.aionline.edu, but Westwood is also fairly popular. http://www.WestwoodOnline.edu/graphic, as well as Devry: http://www.devry.edu/programs/college-of-media-arts-and-technology.jsp?WT.ac=college-media
If you check each college, there should be a tab within the page that his a link to their tuition costs. If not, or you’re unsure if they’re right for you, you can ask for information by typing in your phone number, and a representative of the school will call you and answer your questions. I recommend going this route because you can get a bit of a “feel” for the fit of the school. If the rep. can’t answer your questions, or seems to fast talk you, you can pretty much figure that you’ll have problems there. Most of the representatives should be well versed enough about the college program of your choice to at least tell you if it works in a semester or quarter system, the cost per credit hour, if the books and software will be part of the tuition or if you will be responsible for them, and give you a run-down on some of the classes you would need to take. They should also be able to tell you the necessary system requirements, and what sort of classroom portal you’ll be using (such as Blackboard, Angel, etc.).
You also want to check their accreditation. That’s very important because the accreditation should be regional (national accreditation sounds great, but you will actually have more trouble getting plausible credits to transfer from your original degree). Whether it’s an Internet school or a ground campus, this is true, so either way, I suggest know what your original college’s accreditation is and matching it with the new school. You should also try to check out their rankings, but not on their site. Of course, they will try to boost themselves up, so I always look around the web to see if I can find standings and see if I can find student ratings.
Graphic design is going to be easy to find online courses for. The most common distance learning degrees are actually those that are business or computer based. Healthcare is also coming into the forefront, but anything to do with business or computers (such as IT, graphics arts and design, web design, etc.) are going to be the easiest to find.
I’m a recent online graduate from Colorado Technical University, so I had to sort of learn the ropes of the distance learning “thing”. Distance learning gets a bad rep. these days because there are a LOT of scam schools out there that say you can just pay them a lump sum and have your degree within weeks, or that pretty much hand your degree over after a bunch of useless, silly assignments. So, I’m going to give you a url to a site with real online students. The site helps you with financial aid and scholarship questions and questions you might have about schools and ratings. http://www.ELearners.com. From there, you can read articles written by real students in the blogs or ask questions in the forums. You can find out about schools to avoid (such as University of Phoenix, which has only a 2% graduation rate), and some of them can help you with tuition costs questions. You can even find a link that might help you find ground campuses in your area if you decide distance learning isn’t for you.
Another reason why people seem to think that online college is a scam is that they don’t believe you have to work. That’s absolutely not true. In fact, I went to a traditional college for four and a half years and quit because they chose to “up” the requirements to where I would have been spending as much time as most doctors to get my education…and sadly, I didn’t learn much for all that money I spent! I learned more in less than 3 years of online college. The knowledge was “hands on” and was actually more real world. But, you have to be able to motivate yourself to go to your classroom and do your work. You are treated like an adult, meaning that, if you don’t feel like doing your homework or studying, you won’t have a teacher nudging you along. I really liked that aspect. I felt like I actually earned the degree I received, and gained a lot of self respect and esteem from it. I plan to further my education the second I find the school that matches my current program interests.
Anyway, I hope this helps a bit, and I wish you luck!
If a Bachelor’s in marketing isn’t doing enough for you, I think another degree in design will do even less for your money. There is a glut of graphic designers out there looking for work right now. The job market sucks for advertising and marketing in general right now.
If you want to be employed, a degree in project management is much more versatile and you can still use it within the marketing/advertising field. If that don’t pan out a project manager is employable in most fields and a good step towards management.
If you really have a passion for design, you can probably teach yourself it, by reading lots of books and online blogs, as well as practicing by doing self assigned projects. There are alot of self taught famous designers. It’s really all about having a great portfolio.