villa maria interior design
it's an exciting time to be in design. our software is always changing. what was relevant five years agoisn't anymore. something that's really awesomeabout our program is i know jillissa has kind of taken it over andrevamped it. i know within the past year she'schanged like 17 credits in our program. it's really important that i myselfam also current on everything. i need to know what's going on withinour industry, so i depend a lot on going to interdesign education council conferences.
i talk with other educators across the nationand see what they're doing for their students to make sure that my students are still at that competitive point where they can compete with students at four-year programsor two-year programs. so i kinda keep my ear low to the groundand see what other people are doing. i also am involved in professionalorganizations, and so that allows me to speak with people that are practicinginterior design and interior architecture and say, "hey, what are you using for your software?"
we're really providing students withwhat others are doing and beyond that as far as software is concerned. what's really nice, too, is she is agraduate of iowa state, so, as she's teaching our program she'sactually having us create projects that iowa state isdoing currently, right now. so, when we graduate from our two-yearprogram, we're actually coming out with the same types of projects thatiowa state is doing, which makes our portfolios like just as good asa four-year colleges’. i know that overall in the state,iowa state is the top for interior design,
but we're really coming like right up ontheir coattails--like, right behind them, and i think that it's almost better forus because by the time they're still in school, we'll be out in the working world,getting experience. we're working sometimes on three or fourdifferent projects at one time, which is very realistic in the field. so, that's going to help a lot when weall go out and find our jobs depending on what it is that we're gonna do. so, she's preparedus really well for that. i used to be a nursing student and hadworked at mercy hospital, but
i loved design and i--you know--reallywanted to actually come into this field. so, i almost think it would be coolto be in some kind of career that even designs hospitalfacilities, medical facilities-- just since i kinda have a background in that. since i was younger, i have always beenreally obsessed with houses in general and real estate in general. so, i wanted to get into interior designnot only to design it, but to also eventually get my real estate license, too. and i think they go hand in hand almost,because you can hire a realtor and
also that realtor could designyour house for you. one of the important parts that i was looking at when i wasevaluating our curriculum before was, "how can we get students to cross-collaboratea whole lot more?" “how can i get my students to interact withindividuals and majors who they will be interacting with when they graduate?" so, that means reachingout to architecture, construction, or graphic communications, or--you know--anybody, really. getting them that cross-collaborationmakes them stronger students
and it also makes them more prepared toenter the working world.