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I'm considering a number of different options, including Computer Science, Graphic Design and Physics.
I enjoy graphic design, but I wonder what jobs I would be able to do with said degree - does it open up career paths other than design in particular?
First off, in nonregulated fields such as design a degree is largely irrelevant. Likewise, and particular to your question, there are many other fields that also have no regulations. What I mean is you can be a programmer with no degree, you can be a marketing manager with no degree, you can be a carpenter, a painter, or a candle stick maker with no degree. So someone who studied graphic design could go into any number of other fields. I know a few of my own classmates that have gone on to do sales, robotics, chef, and baker just off the top of my head. Not to mention myself who is now a marketing manager. So yes you can go into other career paths. Even ones that do have certifications and licenses required it just means you'd have to do a bit more work to switch - prerequisites and whatnot.
Now with that said, technology comes and goes. The important parts of your education are learning to think critically, solve problems, adapt, communicate your ideas, and meet deadlines. In addition to that it will be an opportunity to network with peers, professors, alumnis, fraternities, and all sorts of other student organizations.
Finally though, you learn these very same things about thinking critically and solving problems and all of that in any program. So if you have even a slight inclination to do an advanced degree in a different field I would go that route and do design on the side. It will be much more time consuming and costly to go from undergraduate degree in design to a graduate degree in physics for example as a result of the missing math and science courses you'd have to take.
The typical career path would be becoming a graphic designer. Then eventually an art director or creative director.
But people with graphic design degrees end up in all sorts of positions...UX Design, project management, account management, marketing teams, printing, sign making, trade show display fabrication, fashion, etc.
The thing is there are two kinds of learning education and training. The later teaches you to do something specific, it gives you a set of motions to follow to achieve something. Education answers the question why something is and how it works.
Training leads to a fixed career path. The aim of education is for you to be able to train yourself. To be useful you need to have both. In general schools vary, some schools do more training than others. Most students want more training and less of an education. Because training is easy to apply, just follow the motions. But if we interview people 5-10 years later they would have wanted to be more educated.
What follows from a good education? The answer is we dont know. Lets assume your gong for a 5 year program. Then lets assume you spend 5 years as a junior. By the time 10 years has passed. We dont really know what the world looks like then. Maybe everybodys mostly virtual? Dont know what skills you need. If we look 10 years backwards, how useful would flash training be today? But even more dramatic changes happened in the 90's we went from no internet no mobile phones to mobile and internet.
So while you can be a Graphic Designer for sure, you can also be a lot of other things as long as you can convert your education to a valuable skill. Give a man a fish and all that... So we can say that today you get these jobs, but maybe not in future maybe something else.
World needs educated people who can turn education into skills withou training. But this is often nonovious so pay attention.
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