WHAT DO THEY DO? A SURVEY OF EMPLOYMENT AND WORK SITUATION FOR “IDE ” CANDIDATES

Design students are often concerned with a possible mismatch between their education and the real world reality in professional life afterwards. Industrial Design Engineering students at NTNU therefore in 2002 initiated a job-market survey amongst candidates from the IDE course. This initiative has been supported by the department and repeated biannually, latest in 2008. This paper is primarily based on the survey from 2008, The results are presented and discussed. Central issues here are: Employment, Time it took to get the first job, Type of company, Job tasks and Relevance of education. It has been difficult to find any comparable surveys, which makes this work hard to compare with other design or engineering educations. The job situation for IDE candidates is good and stable, with 35 % in industry, 20 % in design consultancy and 20 % in IT and communication, 10 % in education/research and 15 % in other sectors. Candidates value the experience with projects and team work highest, when asked to evaluate the education. There is a wish for more basics in economics and management within the education