Polytechnics started their school term this week, and it made me think about how nervous I was when I was going to school. Would I have the skills, or enough knowledge about what to do? What are the exams and classes like? How much do we “study” in design school? There were so many questions!

So, here are some tips and tricks to survive the first sem of art/design school:

Key Terms in School

1. Teachers = Lecturers
2. Brief = Assignment/homework
3. References = Reading to quote later
4. Mods = The topic/subject to study and you will be scored based on your mods
5. Credits = Every module finished has a credit amount. Find out how many credits are needed to finish school.
6. GPA = Grade Point Average. The total score of all the mods you’ve taken, divided by the number of mods you’ve taken. Poor GPA doesn’t mean you don’t finish school. It just means you didn’t score well. You finish school based on Credits completed.
7. Submissions = Handing in work. Follow the submission criteria exactly. If not your hard work might not be accepted for marking.

No Exams

For most of the time at least. There is project work, and project work, and more project work. Everything in design school and art school is about producing creative work, or observing creative work, learning how to reproduce it in one way or another.

While this is great for us who might not be academically inclined, it does mean that you always need to be working. Pulling last minute work is obvious to both your peers and your lecturers.

On top of that, most arts and design modules will require you to track your creative progress, from sketch idea all the way to finished product or artpiece. Creative Process Journal is the term used in LASALLE; other schools use terms like “development work” or “process book”.

So even though there are no exams, you might do a lot more work than studying for a test!

Casual Lecturers

One of the strangest things was not having to call our lecturers “Mr So and So” or “Ms So and So”. It was just their name. There are also a lot of discussion times with the lecturers. This makes the entire enviroment very casual, and quite relationship based.

Pro Tip: to score in design school well, you can either do absolutely mindblowing and award winning design, OR you could just design what your lecturers prefer. The best match is to make something uniquely yours, that your lecturers are able to easily appreciate too. Think of your lecturers as your very first client. Read carefully through their design briefs (assignments), and clarify as much as possible to produce good work quickly.

Using the Library well

The school libraries usually have a huge stock of design books. If they don’t, check out the design section in National Library at Bugis.

Despite recent reliance on TikTok and YouTube for design inspo, the actual meat and bones of design is usually found in printed books and material. This statement is definitely debatable, but most art and design books produced come with a lot of hard work put it. It makes for a higher professionalism, that cannot be matched in a Reel or clip.

Find some good references, and use them as launchpads for project work. Your lecturers would easily find your work refreshing, in this current age of mainstream design and art media.

Spending Your Own Time and Money

It is not possible for a design lecturer to cover every single design example in a module. There is too much information, and our brains can only take in that much at one time.

Therefore, you can read up on your own. And by doing so, your design repertoire will only grow bigger, which will give you a stronger sense of what works in the design world. You might also need to spend your own money to join different design programs, or art exhibitions in order to grow better.

This cost isn’t usually covered by the school, but if you suggest it to your lecturers, you might be able to go as a class, and the school might be able to get an educational pass. Then it’s free, or highly subsidised.

Lastly, buy a Mac

The education pricing for Apple computers is just unbeatable. You’ll not be able to get the same pricing, unless you continue in your studies for a Bachelor’s or Master program.

Also, most creatives prefer Apple not purely for aesthetic. Apple’s user interface is a lot more visual. This means if I click and drag things, it flows as naturally as possible. Windows are still usable for sure, but if you need to constantly fly through design programs, or to do artwork across different programs, MacBooks can usually take you through easily.

---

Hopefully all this helps. These are things I share with different students as I meet them, and many stem from questions I had in school.

Maybe we should even make a zine out of this… haha!