I was recently chatting with Nick Hallam, one of the founders of Sex, Drugs & Helvetica, about the perception of Shillington in the design industry. His response really stuck with me. “Fast and expensive!” he said. It reminded me of that age-old expression, and the Designer’s Holy Triangle:
Fast, good or cheap. Pick two.
The conversation got me thinking. Is Shillington really fast and expensive?
Fast is one word you could use to describe Shillington, but I think that intensive is a far better description. Our full-time course has over 520 hours of face-to-face learning. Compare that to your average one year Diploma—a mere 15 contact hours a week over eight months. 480 contact hours in total—40 hours less than what Shillington provides in three months.
But are all contact hours equal? Shillington provides one teacher for every 12 students, a far cry from the anonymity of sitting in a university lecture hall with 200 others. I don’t know about you, but it was common practice at my university for people to text their mates and get them to sign into lectures for them so they could stay for one more beer at the pub.
A teaching ratio of 1:12 means that we can provide a more bespoke approach to design education—inspiring, motivating and mentoring each student as an individual.
And as for the Shillington course being expensive?
The cost of education has been rising rapidly over recent years. Government-funded loans make courses seem cheap, but the reality is that money has to be paid back at some point—with interest added. Compare our course to your average one year Diploma, and we might come out as being slightly more expensive. Compare it to a university degree? It makes our fees look like loose change.
If you factor in the potential lost income from studying for a year, two years, or even three years, Shillington looks like economic common sense. Within three months of study, Shillington graduates can enter a studio and start earning.
And not just earning, but learning. By the time all those students who took the university route are graduating, Shillington graduates will have already had two and a half years of real-world design experience under their belt, and the skills to show for it.
Our graduates, armed with all the necessary technical and conceptual design skills they need to land their first design role, are impressing employers around the world.
I’ll take my pick. Fast and good!
Infographic by Sydney full-time teacher Jason Cooper.
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