Is Interior Design School Worth the Time AND Money?

If you’re wondering “Is interior design school worth it?” before spending years and potentially tens of thousands of dollars on a degree, this video is for you.

I’m sharing what I learned from my own experience in interior design school—and what I would do differently if I could go back in time. I studied art and design at the Savannah College of Art and Design and later earned a Master of Fine Arts in Interior Design from the New York School of Interior Design.

Looking back, I’m grateful for everything I learned, but I also realized that the traditional path wasn’t necessarily the best path for the kind of interior design career I ultimately wanted.

In this video, I’m sharing an honest look at:

• What you actually learn in interior design school

• Interior architecture, construction documents, and building codes

• AutoCAD, Revit, SketchUp, and other design software

• Why your career goals should influence whether you pursue a degree

• The financial cost of an interior design degree

• Whether a bachelor’s or master’s degree is necessary to become an interior designer

• Alternative ways to learn interior design

• What I wish I had done before committing to a 3-year graduate program

• How you can learn to design interiors without immediately committing to years of formal education

For me, formal education ultimately cost around $200,000 when tuition, moving, living expenses, books, and supplies were taken into account.

That experience is a huge part of why I created the kind of interior design education I wish had existed when I was trying to figure all of this out.

If you’re considering interior design school, an interior design degree, online interior design courses, or another way of learning design, I hope this gives you another perspective to consider before making such a big investment of your time and money.

✨ Learn more about my approach to learning interior design: intuitionandinteriors.com‍ ‍

And if you’re still deciding whether interior design is right for you, subscribe for more videos about interior design education, choosing the right path, interior design degrees, and learning how to design spaces that actually feel like you. #InteriorDesign#InteriorDesignSchool‍ ‍#InteriorDesigner#InteriorDesignEducation#LearnInteriorDesign#InteriorDesignCourses#DesignSchool#InteriorDesignCareer#DesignEducation#InteriorDesignStudent#InteriorDesignTips#OnlineInteriorDesignCourse#onlinedesign

---

Video transcript:

Violette Phoenix (00:00)

Hi everyone, I'm Violette, and today's video is on if I could go back in time, would I go to school for interior design? And for my background, maybe I'll do a different video with all of the details, but I went to the Savannah College of Art and Design for classes in art and design, and then I went to the New York School of Interior Design.

for their three year Master of Fine Arts program in interior design, which actually was more of interior architecture and interior design.

Yes, so those are my degrees. I also had a bachelor's degree in business.

I don't like to like boast, so I won't.

But if you'd like to see the different awards I've won, awards through my schools on a national level and on an international level. So you can check out my website. That's intuition and interiors.com and go to the page about me and then scroll down to the awards section if you want to see what awards I've won for my design work. Yes. Okay. Okay.

But the thing is,

was it worth it? Was it worth spending all of that time, all of that money

on a degree in interior design? Or if I could go back, would there have been other ways for me to learn what I needed to learn to get me to where I wanted to go? so.

if you're in this place where you're maybe considering going to school for an associate's degree, continuing education classes, for a bachelor's degree, for a master's degree, for any type of degree, or not even a degree, just to take classes in interior design or interior architecture, and you're wondering, is it worth it? Stay tuned

to find out it's worth it.

and it's maybe not worth it to I'll let you know what I would have done instead.

Okay, let's get into it.

So to start, why do people go to school for interior design? Like what can you learn?

Also, I just want this to feel like like a coffee chat, like you and I are out to coffee and you're asking somebody who's been through it if it was worth it to them and then they're sharing their experiences. Yeah, that's the vibe I want it to be. so

What can you learn Interior Design School?

do learn a lot of nitty-gritty details. So for example,

In my master's degree, we had a whole course on building codes. And we had a whole course on building structures. And you know, it was a lot of construction details and construction documents so that we could work with contractors to say exactly how we wanted things to be built behind the walls, structurally, ceilings, staircases, everything. now just immediately as you're hearing that, you may say,

I don't actually want to become an interior architect. I want to be an interior designer. I want an architect or a contractor to handle the construction. Little did I know I wanted that too. And so the degree might not have been worth it for me, but We'll get back to that. So, what else do you learn? Okay, they take you through all of the details because it's a three-year process for master's degree and a four-year process for a bachelor's degree.

You learn everything from line weights, which is like you can Google architectural line weights

Really precise details on

how to make floor plans by hand, but also on the computer, and how to make construction drawings.

Again, there's a lot of technical details and the nuts and bolts. There

also were a lot of classes purely dedicated to technological software. So you have a whole class on AutoCAD. You can take an elective on SketchUp. We took a whole class on Revit. I learned separately Rhino.

And while those are useful, again, if you want to go into like a big firm that does architecture and design, or if you want to move more towards the interior architecture side of things, those courses are useful. But for me, for what I ended up, for what I ended up realizing that I wanted to do, which was more interior design, so picking materials and selecting furniture.

And laying out mood boards and color palettes and inspiration and all of like the feelingness within an interior that makes you feel special. I actually, looking back, do not think I needed all of those months on those technological software I don't end up using them now. I have the programs installed on my computer and they just sit there. And so for me,

you can even look through the curriculums of different schools. Like, what are the different classes that you would be taking? Are there whole classes on these softwares? And the course names may not say like autoCAD they may say design development or design detailing. They don't say the softwares, but that is what you learn when you're in the class. It

was months and months.

in months and years, years of my life that

Looking back, I don't know if it was worth it to me.

Huh, like I'm grateful for it. Everything happens for a reason. It got me here. But if I could go back and do it again, I actually don't think it was necessary not to learn interior design. I can feel the guilt as I say that, like, no, I don't want these schools to hear me say that. But you know what? They are good for other people. That's another good question for you to ask yourself. what are my goals? Like

If your goal is to work at a big architectural firm as an interior designer, a degree could help you get into the door, could help bolster up your application. If you want to work, designing hospitals or schools, a formal degree in interior design will make you more credible. But now looking back, I didn't want to design hospitals. I didn't want to design hospital bathrooms, I didn't want to design

schools and libraries. Yet we had whole entire semesters on those specific topics that again, sure, maybe it like got me to practice my design skills, but looking back

I don't think it was worth my time given where I wanted to go. But I didn't know of other options because there weren't other options that I wanted to do, which is why I created what I wish I had back then, the option that I wish I had. And we'll get to that in a second. I'm so excited to share with you what I wish I could have done back then, which is available now in case you want to take it now. Okay, we'll get into that. And

The third point I would invite you to consider when you're considering is design school worth it, is the cost, is the price financially. So you can again look up different courses and different schools. Everyone has a slightly different tuition, but off the top of my head, maybe I'll post them here. each semester of design school was about $20,000. And there are two semesters per year, at least at the school I went to. So that's $40,000 a year.

And there were three years of school. So that's a hundred and twenty thousand dollars that I spent on my education.

I wish there was a way to learn interior design at a lower cost financially. and that doesn't even include the price of moving. I had to move to New York City I had to pay apartment that doesn't include books and supplies and all these other things.

Honestly, it probably added up to like $200,000. And again, for me wanting to just learn interior design,

that huge investment was not worth it. So what I ended up creating, and this is not an ad, this is just like from my heart, in case you want to take the thing that I wish I could have taken, I ended up designing entirely online courses that fully teach interior design.

Because I wish I had been able to live in my home and learn interior design, that I didn't have to move to a different city. I didn't have to leave my friends and my family and spend hours in the studio learning the technical details of interior architecture, even though the program was called interior design. I

wanted to learn how to make interiors feel good, to make them feel good for me, to make them feel good for other people.

And I wanted to do it in a shorter time. So each of my courses is eight weeks long. There are two eight-week courses because I wish that I could have learned in, let's do the math on that. Each one's about two months, in four months, in half a year, learn everything I needed to learn to design interiors. Especially if you, like me, were unsure at first if interior design was something that I was gonna enjoy, was something that I was gonna be good at.

So if that is for you, if you're wondering, like, I don't know if I will be good at interior design when I do it. I don't know if I'll actually enjoy the day to day of it. And you're just wanting to test it out, my courses are incredible for that because it gives you hands-on practices. So you can really see through the homework assignments and the in-class, I don't call them homework because they're not homework. They're just independent assignments. We do the

We do exercises in class so that you're comfortable doing them yourself. And then you get to practice doing them again on your own. And then you come back to class and you can ask questions, you can show what you've done, you get feedback from your peers. It's really collaborative and supportive. And you feel uplifted, you feel inspired, you really enjoy the design process. That is what I wanted. And so that is what I'm now offering the world.

And again, I wish I had had these courses so that I could have seen, hmm, do I like interior design?

And yeah, if I then decide, you know, actually I want to take my design skills further. I do want to learn these technological programs, then I could have gone to graduate school or to a continuing education program at an institution to learn the softwares but I would have gone into them with that certainty of like, yeah, I know why I'm here. I know what I want to get out of this, and it probably would have saved.

It definitely would have saved a ton of time and a ton of money and just giving me a whole bunch of peace of mind to have had this taste test first. Ha. as I say taste test,

I actually want to clarify that it's not a taste test. It's not like a watch a five-minute video and learn how to design. Cause I feel like just YouTube videos, even like this, it's all conceptual. You're like, I think I get it.

Or even when someone shows you a redesign of their space, you're like, that looks good. But how do I design that myself? Like when I'm faced with a blank empty room, how do I design from scratch? And that is what my courses teach. So they are a bit of a deep dive within interior design. by the end of the courses, you feel empowered that you know how to design spaces from scratch. That feel good to you.

so that they're not copy and paste of other people's work. They really speak to your essence and what you want to bring to the world. So yeah, the courses are a bit in depth.

We meet twice a week and each each of those two days, we meet for about two hours.

And part of that is lectures. So you learn the conceptual topics of design, the principles, the elements of design, the how-tos. But then I leave time for practices so that you really get to use your hands, your body, touch materials, touch fabrics. And I layer on energetic practices so that you feel calm and supported while learning design.

It's really beautiful. I love the courses. But again, not an ad. This is just what I wish I had been able to have learned, to have gone through, instead of having to go through the $200,000 three-year process of a formal institution. the courses I designed, you can check more details online.

they do cost money, I believe it is entirely worth it because it is giving you exactly what you need to learn design.

You really get value for what you're paying for. It doesn't waste your time. You're getting a ton of knowledge and a ton of hands-on experience. So you come away feeling like, yeah, that was worth it.