Masters in Design-Application Tips (Study Abroad)

The tips shared in this video helped me go from a single admit in 2022 to getting 5 admits plus scholarships in 2023’s intake for Master’s programs in Design across different countries and universities

Let me know if you’d like detailed videos on any of these sections in the comments below!
#studyabroad #design #mdesign #scholarship #designportfolio #statementofpurpose

📚🔗 Explore the list of shortlisted courses here (I did not apply to all) : https://lnkd.in/dvp6sr49

Timecodes:
00:00 – Introduction
01:10 – Shortlisting Universities & Courses
02:24 – Finding the right Mentors
05:04 – Design Portfolio
07:21 – Storytelling in Statement of Purpose
08:14 – Letters of Recommendation
09:28 – How to begin preparing the application
10:28 – Explaining the “Work Experience”
12:59 – Financial Aid and Scholarships

hi guys I’m aushi Saka currently a design student at Royal College of Art in London UK I have done my bachelor’s in architecture from school of planning and architecture Delhi and I’m now pursuing ma in service design I have also worked both as an architect and a ux designer in the industry for around 2 years so this channel is going to be all about careers in design where I plan to share topics ranging from Masters in India abroad different Pathways which you can take up as a designer and basically a place where I share anything and everything that I learn about design so for today’s video and the very first video on this channel I’m going to share some tips and tricks which worked well for me in my Master’s application process so I applied in two intakes in 22 and in 23 and though the results of the 22 outcome were not so good I could learn a lot from the mistakes I did then which helped me improve my appc application and landed me here at RCA which is one of the world’s leading design colleges and also helped me bag a few other offers so let’s Jump Right In so I began my application process by critically choosing the courses that I want to apply to now as straightforward as it may sound selection of the right courses can be a very daunting process you’ll come across universities which offer multiple courses and the names sound very similar for instance a course in ux sci design research and whatnot in such cases it’s helpful to go and check out if the university has given a comparative Matrix between the programs which highlight what what differs them from one another secondly it is also very helpful to go and visit the LinkedIn profiles of the students who are already doing the program it gives you a very clear end to endend picture of what the profile of the student was before entering the degree and what they went ahead and did after completion so one mistake which I did in the previous intake was applying two courses which had a lot of technical requirements and me being from a design background obviously did not qualify well so this LinkedIn profile check helped me a lot in the 23 cycle now the next thing which really helped me out in my application process was finding the right mentors I reached out for people who were a part of the program then or had recently graduated and asked them if they could help me review my material for the same now I found these people through platforms like LinkedIn or ADP list which are obviously both free and you’ll be surprised to know that there are so many people who are readily available to help you out so I asked them for their help at multiple stages stages and I would highly recommend that you do not wait till the end to send out your final cut off the SOP or the portfolio rather seek their help from the very beginning also what uh makes uh these people special is that they have been working with the faculty very closely and they know what kind of values is the faculty coming from and what are the learnings that they are trying to inculcate in the students so they will help you refine your material in a way that these values get reflecting reflected through your essays through your portfolio Etc so for me I made sure that I have at least three to four people read through my work before I submitted in the final application I tried to keep a mix of people who are from the field as well as some outside of it because it’s very important that the story that you’re trying to convey is comprehended by everyone even if they are unable to to understand the technicalities of your work they should still be able to understand the gist of it now I did not keep any Consultants which would help me in the application process however I had hired one in the previous round and I felt that they were well wored uh with people from Tech backgrounds or business related backgrounds and had more knowledge about that and design being a very Niche field their uh knowledge was very limited and what they provided uh for the SOP formats or the portfolio formats was very much like a cookie cutter uh template which I feel uh uh shows very negatively on your application and then the only area of help is in filling out the forms which I feel is not the difficult part and one can easily manage it so for me I did not have any Consultants this time and I think taking the responsibility on my own actually made made me more alert and helped me do the process much faster now your design portfolio is one of the very very crucial part of your application now whenever you hear tips on making your design portfolio you you will hear people saying that show the process of the project now this is absolutely true but the design process can sometimes be very messy and be a lot of back and forth hence result in a lot of process work so how to pick and choose what’s best to show in the portfolio so for me I tried answering a few questions and beginning with making a flowchart so that there is a story line that I’m following in my in my design projects I started with answering that what were the constraints or the fixed parameters for the project and what was the design brief about and what larger problem was it solving next I tried to focus on my approach and what research I did to go deeper into the problem and how did it lead to my strategy or concept lastly I focused upon what the final outcome was and restated while concluding that how my final outcome solved the larger problem or how did it respond to the brief so it’s very important to have an intro to the project a body of work what you did and a conclusion of how your work responded to the problem so for my portfolio I tried to have a wide variety of projects ranging from some research work to design projects some group work as well as some individual design projects and I had also included some professional work in it now how this helped was that it allowed the reviewers to see that I have a wide variety of skill sets and I can apply my mind in different kinds of projects differently hence there is very less use in showing the same process or the same kind of case study again and again in your portfolio I would also recommend you to include some Workshop or some self-initiated projects in the portfolio because it shows that you went ahead of what was required for you to do and bend that extra mile to achieve some new skills so your sop is that part of the application where your skill as a Storyteller should absolutely shine through so how I went about structuring my sop was that I first thought of an ultimate goal which I would like to achieve in my career then I picked out the learnings from each of my past experiences which have added up to that goal and how this degree would be like another stepping stone and would help me go a little closer to that career goal now this aim should not be something that that appears to be out of the blue it should be something that is well connected with all your past experiences and should be an add up of whatever you have been doing and whatever this degree is contributing to so coming to the next thing which is the letter of recommendations or LS which you’ll have to ask for from your faculty or your ex bosses or people whom you have worked with now the only very very important tip that uh worked for me in this cycle was asking for the ls well in time so what happens many times is that there are so many students applying for masters that especially the faculty gets booked out well in advance so when they commit to three to four students beforehand then it’s very difficult for them to focus on newer students who ask them for the letters so I would say anywhere in about July or August just ask the people people whom you want the recommendations from so that uh you have they have committed to you that they are going to write you the letters also it’s uh very important to discuss uh about your program with your recommenders so that they have some clarity of what kind of values uh do they need to talk about in the letter and what is the program intended towards so have that conversation with them and have it well in advance so one thing which I really struggled with when I started uh preparing material for my application was that where do I begin with what format should I follow for my portfolio how many pages should it be like what should be the word limit of my sop so on and so forth so I would recommend picking one course which is of either your top most priority or has the earliest deadline and then tailoring all the application materials as as per its requirements then once you have that in place start iterating it for the other programs and when you make each iteration you will obviously keep on improving on the previous one so what happens is that when ultimately you are starting to revise your material and when you come back to your first application you already have a lot of better versions and then you’re able to put your best foot forward in your uh topmost priority College so now most universities especially for design related courses do not have a mandatory work experience requirement and they take people from zero workx years to people who have a lot of uh work experience as well but in my opinion I think uh the one year of added workx from 22 to 23 really improved my entire application not only does a year of workex uh add to the number of years on your CV but also it gives you some professional projects to add to your portfolio which have some on ground real impact so it enhances the quality of projects then it gives you the ability to get some professional LS which can talk about how you work in a collaborative setup so highlighting your teamwork skills which is again very very important and uh relevant and related work experience also makes you sure that the degree that you’re going to pursue is something that fits you well so I think all these parameters make workex very relevant uh to your Master’s application so in case of having lesser number of years for workex or having no workex at all there are uh some mandatory internships that all of us have been have been a part of as part of our undergraduate degrees or any voluntary work that we have taken up so it’s always good to mention things which were not a must do for you but which you did uh Beyond and above what was required so for instance for me I had actually collaborated with one person who was trying to work on a startup idea and I helped him make his uh business decisions a bit and also some of the design work for the p Pates Etc is what I was involved in and I talked about it in my application so even though I did not have any experience of working in a proper startup but this gig added value to my uh to my entire application because it was something that I did extra on my part so picking such instances from whatever you have done since uh College is very important and it highlights what different skill sets you possess so lastly if we talk about any financial aid or scholarships I will be making a detailed video on how I was able to get two scholarships to fund my master’s program however in a gist I would say that when you are uh researching for uh programs that you are applying to it’s very important that at that time itself you see if there are any Ta Ra opportunities that are available able on campus for you or are there any scholarships or funding that the university provides to the students and I would highly recommend that apply to only those universities which either give you a funding or you will be able to afford because there is no point wasting uh the time and effort and the uh application fee on colleges which you will not be able to afford ultimately so do this research beforehand and it will come very handy to you you and it will also save you a lot of application fee cost additionally in the UK there are a number of universities which do not have any application fees so consider applying to those when you are doing your applications and it will save you the initial upfront costs so with this we are at the end of the video and um just a disclaimer that these tips and tricks were very uh beneficial for me and all of them may or may not be useful for for all of you aspiring students however I hope these uh could benefit you in some way or the other and I hope for the very best in your application journey and lastly the most important is do not stress out do not wait till the last day to submit your application do it well within time to save the stress of the last minute uh submission and yeah all the best