Sometime last year I opened up my laptop and googled ‘online interior design course’. I’d been thinking for a while that as the kids were getting older (and Mabli started nursery school) I wanted to pursue an interest outside of being a mum. It also needed to be something I could fit around childcare so I also wanted it to be something I could be studying from home. I found an online interior design diploma course from the University of Nottingham and am now almost halfway through a year-long diploma.
Interior Design Course – Online
Interior Design is something I have always naturally been interested in, from doing up the first home that we bought ten years ago to moving to our new house a year and a half ago. I also recently set up a separate ‘home account’ on Instagram to show all the bits and bobs we are doing to our place. I think that the incentive to post more about home and interior-related content has just naturally occurred as we are coming out of the baby/preschooler days and whilst those years can be so consuming I feel like my brain has a little more space to think about other things finally.
I’ve been asked quite a lot on Instagram for details on the course and how I’m finding it so I thought it might be useful to pop some more details into a full blog post.
For starters, the course is via the University of Nottingham which is called the National Design Academy. I wanted to do a distance learning course that I could start straight away (rather than waiting on certain term dates which others seemed to offer). The interior design course online costs £695 in full (although I think you can pay this in installments also) and you can complete each section of the course by the deadlines given or by extending them if need to (which I’ve had to do a few times!).
The pros of the course have definitely been how flexible it is. I had hoped to fly through the assignments but life (and especially life with small children) doesn’t always make that so easy. So for the flexibility aspect, I think it’s brilliant. The cons, however, have been a little unexpected. I’m not sure if it’s this particular course or just that it’s been ten years since I’ve been in formal education but I’ve found the structure of the course and the marking of it very wooden. I’m reminded when it comes to things like art and design a lot of it is simply one person’s personal aesthetic preference over another. I know this from my degree in graphic design and illustration but somehow being out of that ‘system’ for over a decade it’s a hard one to get used to again!
I’m also not sure if it’s my age and the fact I am now a parent but getting back into the whole ‘student’ mindset again has been a trickier adjustment. I’m used to speaking to people as if I’m their equal now I am of similar age whereas I guess at 18 I would be more used to speaking to tutors as them being the ‘adults’ especially just coming straight from school. I think this also could be seen as a con of visual learning, reading people’s comments in email is different from speaking to someone face to face. I think being able to ask questions would be much easier in person but that being said there is always the option to send messages whenever.
Following on from a degree
As the online interior design course I’m doing now isn’t a continuation of my degree (like a master’s or Ph.D.) you’d expect to find older students I think the tone of the course and marking feels a little bit more ‘school-like’. A diploma is generally taken between A-Level and Degree level so I’m only assuming perhaps the other students in the interior design course aren’t in their 30’s. That being said I’m enjoying the actual subject matter and learning about the different aspects of interior design.
It’s important to me to learn more about the process behind Interior Design as I become more passionate about creating that kind of content here and on Instagram. I’m not sure where it will lead me but it’s nice to have a change and use a different part of my brain for a bit too!
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2 Responses
I’ve always loved interior design and always thought about how I could get into it, going to check the course out, I dont see it as a career for me but just something to help with designing the family home. Would you say the course you did would be good for that?
I’m so sorry for the late reply! To be honest, I don’t think it would be the best for that is its more learning about the ways to technical draw or learn certain terms or write essays about certain styles ect so its interesting but I don’t think I would have learned any styling tips or anything if that makes sense! xx