Hey There,

I did go to school to learn the programs and I think it depends on which school you go to as to the kind of experience that you'll have. I would suggest a program with hands on training versus a lecture class where you do all your hands on work in a lab on your own.

I also find that these courses just provide a starting place. Your actual education comes in the first few years of in the field work.

This is an old post, but I'm new to this Tribe. I'm using my newness as an excuse...;-)

I didn't go to college for graphic design. I have one bachelors in Chemistry and another in Classics, plus eight years toward a PhD in Classics...my background is about as far as anyone can get from graphic design. Graphic design is something that I picked up on my own. The software part of it, learning to use Quark, PageMaker or InDesign, from my point of view, is the easiest thing to master on your own. Provided you have access to the software, you can pretty much tool around with it until you get good and comfortable with it. The art/design part, while I have done this on my own as well, might be the part where you'd want to be in a classroom setting. At least for me, a lot of the nuts and bolts of coming up with 'art/design' was not intuitive.

I've seen, in my vicinity, advertisements for graphic design 'degrees' (if that's what you wish to call them - nine month to two year certificates from junior colleges or technical trade schools) being offered and the price tag seems so incredibly steep. Graphic desgin is an area where it's hard to find work so that the money put into these certificates would not be remade quickly. If you financed such a course of study with a loan that needed to be paid back quickly upon *graduation,* you might be out of luck.

If you've got access to software and design instruction outside of a formal technical trade course, I'd go for it on your own. Especially if paying for these trade classes is a hardship.