Degree Or Not To Degree
As a designer, honestly, you don’t need a special degree or certificate. Do you to learn? Yes. Study? For sure. But you don’t need any those expensive degrees out there. You can make your craft perfect from many sources, the best of course is practice, without a doubt.
In Portugal you need to pay a lot for a degree. I did study interior design in a private school in Lisbon. Never practice interior design curiously. What I like to do is identity design and I am learning by doing. It may take me a little longer than usual, but it doesn’t mean I will be worse than someone else who has a degree.
The downside of this in Portugal:
(prepare yourself!)
Companies think that who doesn’t have a degree is useless or don’t know how to do their job as they should, it’s common sense here, unfortunately. It doesn’t matter if you have experience and a good portfolio.
Being a doctor without a degree is impossible, I think. Being a pilot is also impossible without some kind of mechanical education and learning. But working in this type of creative field like design, cooking, writing, you can be very good by yourself just by practice, education in important and very good for anyone at anytime, but some type of jobs require way more other type of skills than what any degree can offer, something like love for what you do.
I choose not to go to university and I don’t regret it. I choose to work and prove my value every day, with a degree! Just not the one companies think I should have.
