Should I pursue graphic design?

Question

For about half of my life I've wanted to be a pediatric cardiologist--a children's heart doctor--because of events that happened when I was young. I'm currently in my second year of undergraduate physiology, but I'm beginning to question this career path. The courses are getting intense, and the more and more detailed they become, the more discouraged and less motivated I become. As a result, I'm questioning if I really even enjoy the material. The education required for medicine is long and difficult (with good reason) and if this is something I'm passionate about, I'm more than happy to do it. However, I'm beginning to wonder if this is what I'm cut out for. I enjoy helping people and interacting with people, but I'm not sure if I'd be completely passionate about doing this for sick people.

For maybe 5 years or so I've dabbled in graphic design projects and web design more and more, and it's a field I've considered to be a hobby in my life. But, looking at the way I spend my time, this field is possibly something I'm more passionate about than medicine. I could see myself spending time reading about design (I even do now), whereas I fear I would dislike doing extensive medical reading in a future career. I find that if I have a graphic design project to do, as I do voluntarily for certain people, I'll make that a higher priority over schoolwork simply because I enjoy it more.

If I were to switch paths, my university offers a major in Art and design which would allow be to take several visual communication/graphic design courses, and, being a large university, I could take marketing, business and computer science classes as well to become more rounded.

The only thing I'm skeptical about is the salary. Graphic design is very competitive and there aren't enough jobs to go around. The jobs that do exist maybe make $40k on average. I know I want to have and be able to support a family one day, and I'm not sure graphic design will be able to do that for me. What should I do?

RoaringMice · Accepted Answer

I've spoken to several graphic designers recently, all of whom are either leaving the field, wish they'd never gone into it, or struggling. They tell me that a lot of design is being outsourced to India and etc. now. There are fewer jobs out there, and most of them are freelance, part-time, no benefits. And it's one thing to enjoy something as a hobby, quite another to have to do it for a living.

It sounds like you already have some examples of your work for a portfolio. What I might suggest is that next term, you take some art and design classes, and that you do GD work for clubs and organizations on campus - including getting a job doing ads for the campus newspaper, if you can. As of February, begin to focus on getting an internship in graphic design for the summer. See what you think after all that. If you still love it after having to have done ads for the back pages of the Village Voice for a summer, then you really are in love, and you should pursue this. But gain some real world experience in the field before you make any decisions.

At the same time, test your thoughts about medicine and things related to helping people. Learn more about other fields that are related to those interests, and yet take less education than does an MD - social work, physicians assistant, occupational therapy, physical therapy, etc. Talk to people in those fields. Get some volunteer work related to those fields under your belt. Find out the demand and pay for the fields you think you like.

Then, once you've done all of this as research, decide your next steps. At that point, you should have a much better idea of the realities of the professions you're looking at, and you can make a wise choice.

Should I pursue graphic design?

1 Answer