Sneak Peek: How Do You Study at Interior Decorator Schools?

When it comes to taking courses in interior decorating, it can be difficult to figure out how to study. Like with most of QC’s courses, there isn’t one absolute way to complete your assignments. Your tutor is looking for what you have to offer as a decorator!

Interior decorating is subjective from one person to the next. But you still need to know the “rules” and theories behind your design choices. In your course, you’ll cover various topics like color theory, layout options, and how to work with clients. Figuring out how to study all this information is up to you… but we’re here to help!

Set Goals

There are so many benefits to enrolling in interior decorating school online. For example, you can still balance your family life or full-time job while working towards your dream profession! Self-paced courses means you decide how your course is going to fit into your life… rather than trying to carve time out of your busy schedule to attend classes in-person.

In order to be successful in your online studies, planning is key. You need to know exactly when your studies are going to fit into your life. Decide when you want to finish the course and your goals. This initial step will help you make a strong study schedule. For example, if you want to finish the course in three months, you’d put in more time per week than someone hoping to finish in six.

To determine how many hours you’ll need to spend on your studies, look at your goal timeframe. Then, subdivide it into smaller sections. There will be a section or timeframe for each unit in your course. This way, you’re figuring out (early on) when you need to be done each unit.

Create a Schedule

As for making your daily/weekly schedule, start out by adding events that have set times. For example, if you’re working, add your working days and hours to your calendar first. Scheduling events that are “set in stone” will help you figure out where your studies fit into your life. After you know the events you’re working around, you’ll be able to determine the amount of hours a week you can spend on your course.

Next, add in exactly when you’ll be working on each unit and assignment. Maybe you’ve found you have a good opening of time on Wednesday afternoons. Block off that time in your schedule to dedicate it to your course. Then, according to your goals, determine what unit you’ll be working on each week.

Commit to your schedule! Make sure you’re checking in with yourself to ensure you’re on track with your goals. This way, you (hopefully) won’t fall off your track to success! And if you do fall behind? Figure out when you can slot in some extra study time to get you back on track!

Take Notes

You’re going to cover lots of important information throughout your course. A great way to ensure that you remember it and can effectively apply it to your assignments is to take notes as you go. So, as you’re watching your course videos or reading the material, jot down some key things you think will be helpful for your assignments. And no, don’t just highlight or write down everything!

Unsure about what information is important or not? Consider your future assignments! If you’ve followed our previous tips, you should be looking ahead and have scheduled when you’re doing each assignment! So, have a look at the requirements of each assignment, too. That will help you know what information you need to take note of!

Let’s get into an example (and a course sneak peek!)

To help you visualize how these study skills will really work alongside some course material. Let’s walk through the process with help from Assignment E1 of QC’s Interior Decorating course.

Assignment E1: Bed Placement

Read the entire lesson text titled Designing Bedrooms

In this assignment, you’ve been instructed to design bedroom layouts to practice your bed placement skills. You have been provided with a handout that includes three identical bedroom floorplans, as well as cutouts to use for your placement.

Steps:

1. Using the cutouts provided, create a different layout for each floorplan. The bed should be placed in a different location in each layout. Be sure to use at least 3 items of furniture in each layout, not including the bed. You may vary the size of the bed for each layout if you wish– ie. you may use twin, double, queen, or king-size beds. If you want to use pieces of furniture that are not included on your page of cutouts, or are different sizes, feel free to draw your own. Make sure they are drawn to ¼” scale.
2. Scan or photograph your three bedroom layouts, and save them to your computer as separate files before uploading them to the Online Student Center.
3. Provide a short explanation of why you decided to place the bed where you did in each layout.

Let’s rewind a bit. At the beginning of your course (or at least before starting the unit), you followed our instructions and looked ahead! The Course Guide dictates Designing Bedrooms as your required reading before completing this assignment. Reading your assignment instructions ahead means you’ll know exactly what to take note of when reading your course text.

From this example, it’s clear that the simple key to studying success while taking an online interior decorator is simple: planning! Studying (and knowing what to study) will become so much easier if you know what to expect.

QC’s courses are all self-paced, which means you don’t have to rush to hand in assignments. Figure out what works best for you and your schedule and work accordingly. Maybe you get to the bed placement assignment and don’t quite feel ready to tackle those three floorplans. That’s okay! Your only deadline is the goal you set for yourself! And if you need more time than expected to really understand the material, simply readjust your timeline.

How do you study? Let us know!

Wondering the difference between doing interior decorating schools online vs. in-class? Check out this article!