I have to agree with Dan here. A remote learning program in
interaction is not a great solution regardless of its convenience.
You can certainly access texts and publications from nearly anywhere,
but immersion and social learning is an important component of the
experience. I am sure that you can learn the principles and
guidelines of the field from books, but the discourse, collaboration,
debates and even the arguments are what crystalize the foundations
for your passion and expertise. I will go a step further and say that
while having a source for direct application of what you learn (a
job) is great, the experience for me was optimal when I could devote
2/3 of my time in research, theory and classwork rather than 1/3. The
evening classes are a great option to expand reach of the discipline
and this program... but immersion is well worth the price of admission.
Mark
btw: I am amongst a couple of dozen masters graduates from the
University of Kansas that studied in this program prior to the formal
degree now offered. Of those graduates... most found employment
almost immediately at firms like adobe, microsoft, motorola, etc. I
highly recommend the program and am happy to discuss it offline.
On Jan 21, 2009, at 5:06 AM, Renee Rosen-Wakeford wrote:
On Wed, Jan 21, 2009 at 7:58 AM, Dan Saffer <[email protected]> wrote:
On Jan 20, 2009, at 9:03 PM, Ben Vaughan wrote:
However, I must respectfully disagree that the only way to benefit
from a program is by personally attending.
Based on what exactly? Is there anyone on the list who has
attended design
school who thinks it can be taught remotely? If so, that's an
opinion I've
yet to hear.
It wasn't quite design school remotely, but I did take the
postgraduate
module on user centred design from Open University which is a highly
respected institute of distance learning in the UK. It gave me a good
foundation in the basics of UCD, though it has a IS/engineering
bias (lots
of use cases, etc.). I did that so that I could work full-time while
studying - none of the UK HCI or IxD postgraduate programmes in the
UK have
evening classes. Even part time, they assume you will only work a
few days a
week.
A few years later, I took a year off and completed an MSc in HCI
from UCL.
Although I learned a lot from the OU course, the UCL one was much more
in-depth, partially because it was a whole MSc instead of just one
module
that was part of another MSc, but another was the fact that it wasn't
distance learning and we had lots of design and other kinds of
workshops.
On the other hand, the basics/foundations of the course could
probably be
taught by distance learning. So maybe the solution is to create more
programs that combine distance learning with workshops later in the
program
or more infrequently - i.e., 1-2 intensive weeks of workshopping
that allow
students to use their holiday time to attend full-time but can more
easily
keep their jobs while doing the rest of the study. It might take
longer to
get the course done that way, but it always does if you're
attending part
time.
As for getting a job without a degree or considerable experience,
it's very
hard in the current market, at least in London. Before I had the
MSc but
with the OU course and some experience (plus years of industry
experience as
a producer/front-end developer), I got interviews. After the MSc, I
got job
offers and now work as a User Experience Architect.
I think the KU course sounds like a good idea with evening classes for
professionals in Lawrence and Kansas City. If I still lived in the
area and
didn't already have a degree, I'd seriously consider it, especially
since
Masters programs are 2 years full time in the US instead of just 1.
(KU is
my undergraduate alma mater, though I studied totally unrelated
fields to
what I do today.)
--
Renée Rosen-Wakeford
[email protected]
Twitter: @lilitu93
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