Daniel,

I would add that the number of design graduates (certainly in the UK) is
at an alarmingly high rate. At a Design Industry Skills Event I attended
recently, the Design Council suggested that there are 60,000 design
students in Higher Education in the UK. They later acknowledged that
this is likely to be a conservative estimate. 

In a recent article I wrote for New Design magazine (issue 55, pp.
58-59), I calculated that there are over 20,000 product design graduates
studying (and potentially looking for work) every year. This figure took
into consideration the fact that there are 290 product design courses in
the UK (cf. UCAS). I estimated that there are 25 graduates in each class
for a 3 year course, thus 290 X 3 X 25 = 21,750. This number did not
take into account postgraduate students. It should also be noted that
many product design courses in the UK have many more students in each
year than 25.

Again, according to the Design Council (UK) there are 185,500 people
working in the design industry in the UK. To this end, I would agree
very much with Keith's point about education over training. Moreover, I
believe we should bear in mind the need for far greater
interdisciplinarity in our design graduates for many reasons (including
those noted by Keith).

Best,

Paul 

-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and
related research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Keith Russell
Sent: 04 April 2008 04:02
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Extending student horizons

Dear Daniel

I like to tell design students that very few of them will ever work
directly in their degree named area (Graphic Design or Industrial
Design).

Most of them will end up in some part of the larger
design/communication/manufacturing world.

So, we'd best make sure that their degree is a degree and not a
pre-training program for a profession that doesn't really exist.

cheers

keith russell
OZ newcastle

>>> Daniel Chambers <[log in to unmask]> 4/4/2008 1:41 pm >>>
Hello everyone...this is my first post to this list, so I'm really
looking
forward to your responses.

I would like to pose the following question:
'Is design education under-performing because students and lecturers are
fixated with the perceived requirements of design consultancies?'

In an attempt to highlight areas for improvement in design education I
have
been looking at the common and contrasting expectations of design
students,
lecturers and practitioners.  However, I made the mistake of assuming
that
the purpose of design education is to feed into consultancies and the
like.  

I don't think I am alone in this misconception, as it seems most
students go
to university to be 'designers' (in consultancies / self employment /
in-house design teams) and both the marketing spiel given on UCAS tours
and
the projects set whilst at university would tend to suggest that this is
where lecturers are pitching their courses too.

To my mind, this is in effect hiding the scope of design from the
students
by being overly focussed on the work of the consultant.  Design is
central
to the creation of wealth and the advancement of humankind, so the scope
for
employment is huge!  Is there perhaps some fear that students will
reject a
course if they feel they are not being geared up for consultancy work?  

There is a great deal more that I would like to add to this post, but
for
now I'll keep it short and sweet, where some more ideas can hopefully be
explored through debate.

Thanks in advance for your insight,

Daniel
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