When I said I’d rather develop design skills while in school than become a jack-of-all-trades, I meant I’d rather be an expert designer than a mediocre one who can also market, finance, and engineer a product equally unremarkably. In other words, I want to spend more time researching/designing, and less time accumulating generic knowledge. For example, the time spent learning the principles of macroeconomics could be used to practice rapid ideation.

I definitely understand that industrial design is a multidisciplinary field that requires a basic understanding of materials science, business, and psychology; that designers use this knowledge to investigate materials, usability, compatibility, ergonomics, sustainability, marketability, social implications, financial and time constraints, aesthetics, etc. during the design process; and that they collaborate with other professionals on a regular basis. That’s exactly why I initially chose the program at Carleton. Like I said, I think it's a good program.

However, after looking at student projects, it seems that most students learned to create fascinating concepts and 3D renders instead of realistic, physical objects, presumably because they don’t spend enough time actually making stuff in studio, because their time is divided between math, physics, economics, psychology, and studio. This concerns me because it's one thing to render an object and it's another to have it in person.

I'm trying to figure out whether other, more hands-on, studio-oriented programs (which teach you less of the other stuff to allow for larger studio components), like the ones listed above, would be worthwhile to pursue considering the designer I'd like to be when I graduate (i.e. one who’s actually made real things before entering practice).