For potential design students, selecting the right program is no easy task. There are many factors that will guide your choice of school, not all as obvious as location, size and cost. What you might not find in a guidebook are a description of the department’s focus, record on placing graduates and faculty details. Much of this can only be learned from school visits and conversations with faculty and current and former students. Most important is to understand your own interests, as much as possible, so that as you learn about each department you will know whether it’s the right place for you. Your design education is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and you want to get the most out of it, so selecting the right program is crucial to your success.

Some schools offer a "pre-college" program that typically runs for a few weeks over the summer, or part-time and evening courses, that will give you a taste of the ID program before you apply. Once you've got your top-ten list, you should inquire to see if participating in a program like this is possible.

Following are some of the items that potential students should understand before they commit to a program.

Philosophy
Different programs have different emphases. Some are more skills oriented, others more conceptual. Some educate graduates who are more suited to corporate design offices, others teach those who are more suited to consultancy work (not to say these are mutually exclusive, but consultancies often have somewhat different needs). Some programs emphasize knowledge of engineering and manufacturing more than others, while others have a focus on environmental sustainability. None of these is necessarily right or wrong, you just have to think about what you want.

Placement
A program needs to have a good post-graduation network to help you find a job. Ask the head of the program about how many of their graduates go on to successful design careers - ask for specifics of when, and what companies, and in what capacity. How connected is the program with the local (if there is one) professional design community? Do outside designers come in for critiques? Does the school sponsor projects with outside (local or other) companies?

Internships
Find out what requirements the school has for internships (in my view it should require at least one before graduation, as many employers strongly prefer even freshly-minted graduates to have work experience in a design studio and how much support it provides to help students find internships. This is related to point #2 - is the school well connected? If it's not and doesn't have design firms locally that can provide internships, you will be left to your own devices and will have to relocate temporarily to do the internship (which will need to be over summer break). All of these things are do-able, and living in different parts of the country to work can be great fun, but it’s good to be aware of options.

Faculty
Faculty make or break a program. Some of the most important questions have to do with them: what is their experience level as professional designers? How good are they as teachers?. Some schools, particularly universities, have a larger proportion of tenured faculty that might not have set foot in a design office in 15 or 20 years, and relatively few part-time professors who are also working designers; while other schools have the reverse. Again, ask for specifics: which members of the faculty have worked at which firm for how long, in what capacity, and what kinds of projects did they work on? Ask to see resumes. Not to say that tenured faculty are all bad, but the design world is changing rapidly at the moment, and a good program needs to be up-to-date and bring real-world experience into the classroom.

Reputation
As much as you can, once you've got your list narrowed down, ask around in the professional design community about the reputations of those schools. It’s good to hear from others that the program you are interested in is worth attending. And make sure the school is accredited! This is absolutely essential in the US, especially if you decide later you want to go for a graduate degree. The IDSA has a list of accredited ID programs, and if a program is not accredited you should really think hard about investing yourself there.

Fundamentals
Don’t take this for granted! All programs should provide an understanding of the basics of the profession and access to facilities that will allow you to explore the design world. Learning how products work, how to make them work better, how they are made, why they look good or bad, and how to present ideas are all core requirements in this field. Easy access to libraries with relevant industrial design materials, as well as to wood-working, metal-working, and plastics shops, is essential to your studies.

At a recent design conference, I heard hiring designers reviewing student portfolios remark "If I were some of these students, I'd demand my money back from the school. They just aren't prepared." Don’t let yourself be one of these students. By doing your homework before you start your education, you’ll be prepared to take advantage of every opportunity the program has to offer, and become a better designer as a result.