For most people – yes – but not for the reasons universities tend to advertise. The education itself is valuable. The portfolio you build, the peers you make, the three years of relatively consequence-free experimentation are definitely worth it. What it won’t do is prepare you for what the industry actually feels like on day one and how to engage with it on terms that it understands. That gap is real and nobody warns you about it adequately. Some of what’s on this site is an attempt to address that.

Critical. But probably not in the way you think. Most students treat a portfolio as a gallery of output. A brochure. Finished renders, polished visuals, the best-looking pages. What most people hiring actually want to see is how your mind works. The process, the thinking, the wrong turns and how you navigated them. A portfolio that shows a brilliant mind working through a messy problem is more compelling than a beautiful document full of resolved outcomes.

Consultancy is not half as glamorous as it looks from the outside, and in-house is not the compromise it’s often portrayed as. Consultancy gives you breadth, variety and the experience of working across multiple industries quickly. In-house gives you depth, context and the chance to actually see what happens to your work after it leaves the studio. Both have significant drawbacks. Base your decision on evidence rather than assumption or hearsay. I’ve written about both in some detail so it’s worth reading before you decide.

Completely normal. Almost universal, in my experience. The design industry is particularly good at projecting confidence while quietly panicking. You’re observing the performance, not the reality. Most people sitting next to you in that studio are feeling some version of the same thing. The ones who seem least phased are usually either very good at hiding it or haven’t yet encountered the thing that will unsettle them. It will pass. And then it will come back. And then it will pass again.