Harrington College of Design

I bring my Interior Design students here every year for a field trip. A Harrington instructor gives us a tour of the Merchandise Mart and another instructor give us an elevations drawing class. The campus is beautiful and the school provides a lot of opportunity for success for their students. I would highly recommend that any one interested in Interior Design visit their campus and take them up on their offer to sit in in on a class!
For those concerned about cost, Harrington is aligned with College of DuPage. This means you can get your associates from COD and then finish your bachelors from Harrington. This is a huge money saver while still having the great education that Harrington provides.

I feel it is only fair that I warn you not to go here. In fact, seriously reconsider a career in ID altogether at least for now. Outsiders are unaware of the secret turmoil going on within the ID industry due to oppression by elitist organizations ASID, IIDA, and the NCIDQ Council. It is really a long, complicated story and the details are still being investigated by people like myself. Back to Harrington.
Harrington College of Design is «a for profit college and is owned by Career Education Corporation (CEC), which is being investigated for Possible Encouraged Fraud in Deceptive and Questionable Marketing Practices.»
A good reference on For-​Profit schools is by David Halperin, Author of «Stealing America’s Future: How For-​Profit Colleges Scam Taxpayers and Ruin Students’ Lives» Here is the description of this e-​book which is available on Amazon:
«Americans have become increasingly aware that many for-​profit colleges — the career training schools that bombard TV, websites, and city buses with slick ads promising high-​paying careers — are a bad deal for students, and that some are simply scams. These schools have been caught luring students — veterans, single mothers, and others struggling to get ahead — with false claims about the cost of programs and the value of degrees, and then leaving them unemployed and buried in debt. The for-​profit college industry has been taking more than $ 30 billion annually in taxpayer dollars. But when President Obama’s administration sought to hold predatory schools accountable, the industry worked to derail reforms by buying the most expensive lobbyists, the most revered endorsers, from Colin Powell to Suze Orman, and the allegiance of powerful politicians. This is a story of how Washington created a monster, one so big that it can work its will on the political system even after the facts have heavily discredited it.
David Halperin has been fighting on the front line of efforts to protect students and taxpayers from predatory for-​profit colleges. His book is a heavily-​reported account of the industry, the victims of its fraud and corruption, and the Washington showdown it provoked.»
My story — Harrington falsely advertised themselves to me and thousands of other students, promising that our education would be of value but the truth was learned after our graduation. There were too few jobs and those jobs that were available, required 2 or more years of experience, and today, many of these jobs require you to be NCIDQ certified. Harrington did not prepare me or my class of 2005, to take this exam, which is 75% on test taking technique. Nor did Harrington inform its students just how time consuming it is to even get to take this exam… how I’d end up paying a few thousand dollars just to pass it… if you fail it, you will never be told why (at least yet but NCIDQ has gotten a lot of complaints about this so maybe it will change). Although the NCIDQ Council is always changing its mandatory requirements depending on what hot water they are facing, 99% of the time they require that your 2 years of work experience be done under a licensed interior designer or architect. However, because they make it so difficult to pass this exam (consistently has a 50% fail rate) and because many Architects don’t hire interior designers (especially recent grads) a new graduate will find themselves in a vicious cycle and trust me, it’s nothing short of suicidal level depressing in that collectors still expect their money.
10 years later I still owe $ 60,000 in student loans and I pay $ 500 a month! A lot changes in 10 years — I have a family now — this $ 500 could be going to my children but I am stuck. It is now a burden passed onto my husband. It has become a stress on our marriage. 2 years after I graduated is when the economy dived and the industry is just now starting to recover. However, now you will find the NCIDQ has raised a generation of the meanest people you could meet because it has worked to pit designer against designer. These people viciously argue who should be «allowed» to call themselves an «Interior Designer» vs. an «Interior Decorator». It doesn’t matter if you put hard work into a college education — if you can’t pass the NCIDQ exam you probably will never be able to call yourself an Interior Designer nor practice on your own without the fear of a bill getting passed in Washington that would render your work as «illegal» because you are not NCIDQ certified. The NCIDQ Council has brainwashed the industry into believing that anyone practicing interior design without NCIDQ after their name, is a harm to the public. What a lie.
Interior Design is a vicious industry and by vicious I mean nothing short of dangerous cult-​like brainwashing activity is going on. Those brainwashed are willing to lose money, family, basically their entire lives, just for the sake of being called an «Interior Designer». Proceed in this direction with CAUTION.

Professors are extremely kind, but unprofessional. They’re incredibly flexible with your schedule (if you’re a traveler or if you work a job that could have unpredictable hours, this is the school for you!), but that also means that they’re incredibly flexible with your schedule (which means that they often move exam dates willy-​nilly, cancel class an hour b/​4 and use email as the means of contacting students to let them know, let you out of class 2 hours early instead of spending those 2 hours TEACHING you). All interior design professors here are more architect than ID and thus we’ve barely been learning anything in classes about ID. Daniela Ghertovici is a particularly controversial professor. My opinion of her: Strengths: 1.) truly loves teaching 2.) brilliant, creative mind 3.) doesn’t tolerate B.S. 4.) holds u to a bar higher than you think you can go 5.) Is improving on her communication skills 6.) U do leave class w/​some solid info. Weaknesses: 1.) Major time-​management issues (students try to meet with her first in class, b/​c if u meet with her 1^st, you’ll get 30 min’s and if ur last, you’ll get 5 min’s of impatient/​panicky feedback). 2.) Can be downright rude/​mean. (But she’s getting better.) 3.) Doesn’t deal well w/​life after 9p. 4.) Very unclear assignments 5.) Ill-​prepared for each class. 6.) Info is dispensed in sporadic fashion. Basically, feels like she’s «winging it». Also winging it/​disorganized are John Martin-​Rutherford and Constantine Vasilios. U’ll learn very little in their classes. John shows up to class about 70% of the time. Organized, well-​prepared, info-​packed-​class professors: Jan Whitmore, Crandon Gustafson, Louis Raia. After 3 semesters of ID in Masters Program, I barely know anything about ID. The program is so unprofessional in its lack of basic time-​management, info dispensing and organization.

I lived with two roommates that went here, for two year, in the Photography program. One had photo experience and the other didn’t. I don’t know anything about the other two programs but…
Fact is this is a FOR PROFIT school and they do treat it as a business. If you drop classes or fail them, expect to pay, and they will get there money. there like the friggin IRS with that. but if your a big boy or big girl and realize that then read on.
i have witnessed Sam go from amature to superstar. This place will take your skills up to Pro in a couple of semesters but you can’t treat it like its easy. My other roommate Jacob, who had taken photo in high school. Wasn’t done parting and procrastinating. He thought it was too easy and failed to learn how to make money and profit form his skills. While Sam is an entrepreneur with her own studio in Atlanta. Truth is this place is for people who want to be professional and make professional contacts, and not a regular college were you can have slack to mess around and still make up credits latter.
I’m a designer but often had to pose for them on assignments. The images looked very professional and awesome but I know they had a hard time marketing at first. I remember she had to do a lot of free work for magazines and stylist. In May when she graduated she was doing weddings for $ 2000 and had 9 set up throughout the summer.
My point is that «if life is what you make of it» no one will give you a job you have to show reason why your the best, no question. They have equipment you would never get to use because it super expensive and learn from industry professionals. Consider taking general educations credits at a local college and transfer them in, to avoid paying there rate. Avoid failing classed due to lazyness and be sure you want to be a commercial photographer.
I still help out friends every so often, posing for there assignments and I here about a few people who graduated and went to work for Sears and Target. Not very smart life decisions because Commercial Photographers like Sam are making $ 8000 a month down in Atlanta…
but what do i know…

I went there for a summer semester (HIP Program) and 1 fall semester.
the summer was amazing. intense workload but the people i met, the teacher i worked with — it was worth it.
But the fall semester was just another miserable winter.
I was looking forward and excited for the school but no one explained to me the consequences of dropping a course. so when i got a letter from the school thinking i would receive a $ 1000 stipend, turned out i owed that amount because i was no longer considered a full time student.
my $ 5000 scholarship was revoked.
that just killed it for me. what sucked more was the administrators could do nothing about it.
so now I’m stuck with the loans. and i paid off whatever i owed. financial dept was courteous enough to extend my payment options even after i withdrew from the school. i guess whatever it takes for them to get their money’s worth.

I hate this school, i was in the first group of photography students to go threw the new photography program, they sold me on the fact that it would be easy to find a job and all this other bull shit. i had a great time learning while i was there. but not 2 years after i started they were already going away from the Mamiya camera they made us get and letting students buy digital cameras. now im stuck with a mamiya that i have not used since i was in school. o and the career service department sucked so bad, they could not help me find a job or have an leads or connections or anything. and becasue i wanted to focus on digital retouching they were even less then helpful. so since the spring of 06 when i graduated i have struggled. i could never find a steady paying job in photography everything is freelance and thats a large problem when you have racked up the large large large debt from the school there is no way anyone can work freelance hoping to make money each month and still pay bills and rent and everything. so as of last week i decided i was goin to join the US Air Force to help me pay off my school debt and by joining i wont have to pay rent or for food or insurance or those things so im gonna put it towards my debt. and when i just called to request my transcripts so i can join the air force as a E3 they told me it was gonna cost $ 10 for that, where the fuck did all those thousands and thousands of dollars i payed to the school go you fucking think they would have been able to take a little from each payment and put it aside for the nice fancy paper they use to print my transcripts on. i cant stand this school and they way they treated me at the end of my school and how not helpful they were. i hope someone from the school who is important with them reads this and will consider how horrible i feel about them and how much i feel like they screwed me over and lied to me about what the school would be able to do for me and how it could help me. and if i could afford to or knew how i would defiantly have sued the school.

I went to school here and I loved every moment of it. I didn’t care about walking 16 blocks from the train station to michigan avenue with a drafting tube, a 30 lb art case, and a 3’x4’ portfolio, plus a back pack of books! 1^st and 2^nd semester you will need all that… everyday, remember that! This school is tough and some teachers will critique so bad that I’ve seen many students cry! But when you finally get all your hard earned work done then you know you’ve made an accomplishment! And that’s the best feeling ever! What I liked even more was the intimately small classes of 15 students or less! Most of my classes had 10 students or less. You become friends with all your teachers and classmates. What I also loved was knowing that Frank Llyod Wright’s (master of american architecture) was on the 10^th Floor of the Fine Arts Building and I always heard opera down the hall which was soothing! Now they changed locations to madison and wells so you don’t get that anymore!

I graduated from Harrington College of Design in 05′. It does a great job of preparing you for entry level design jobs! My only concern is that is seemed like it was «all about the money-​all the time» (with the exception of the wonderful faculty). Also, they PUSHED the idea that Harrington is elite, but once you leave Chicago, no one has heard of it. I had to explain in interviews that ‘no it was not a community college’ which sucks because you leave with debt of about 90k.…I would save some money and go to a good state program.

I’m entering my fourth year at Harrington and still feel as great about the school as the day that I began. The school can be a bit pricey, I believe that most students enter the school knowing that and accepting that and agreeing that the education you get from Harrington is well worth it.
Harrington is well known nationally and locally among the design/​architecture community and it is true that over the many years Harrington has seen some highly talented students graduate and go on to do exciting things.
I feel that Harrington has given me my money’s worth, the work load is intense (to be honest) And I feel that is a great thing. The instructors are working professionals in the industry and are always encouraging students to push further than they may initially. I’ve had such great experiences at Harrington.
About financial aid and office staff, I have never personally had any problems with the office staff, but I also don’t spend much time there. I think that in the grander scheme, your occasional experiences with the office will be trumped by the amazing learning experiences you will discover at Harrington.

I go to school here. I thought I would state that right away. Though I don’t know why it took me this long to Unilocal my school. I am not a college newb, this is actually college number 2 for me.
Anyway, Im a big fan of this place, generally the instructors know what’s going on, and thats a huge plus! The actual school its self is fun, its designed pretty cool. I guess since its a design based school, it should be.
Im not going there for design, Im doing photography.
Now I know one reviewer said it was a huge waste of money. Its possible. If your used to the prices of a community college, then yes, this may seem expensive. Did you forget that this is DOWNTOWN CHICAGO? Apparently.
My tuition runs about 14,000 a year. I don’t see that as insane expensive.
And yes, photography is an expensive field, you should have known that before you got into it. Cameras are expensive, lenses are expensive.
But the great thing about Harrington? They have a huge «cage» full of equipment that students can check out. FOR FREE.
As far as what they ask you to have, its simple. A camera, a light meter, a tripod, and possibly a lens o two. Nothing too horrible. Hell, you can even borrow a card reader from the cage!
Its a great school. I would give them 5 stars, but the people in the financial aid office seem to be a little… scatter brained.

If you have a knack for art, this might be a wonderful school for you. This is known to be Chicago’s top interior design school and they have lots of other programs to offer as well. They have a great, rigorous program and its a great place to get a degree.

One of the top schools for interior design — ten of their senior students were featured on HGTV’s «designer finals» — they do amazing work for cheaper prices since they’re just starting off and need more experience for their portfolios — also, their digital photography program is starting to climb the charts, too — I’ve done a photo shoot for one of their students and got free pictures out of the deal as long as she got to use them for a class project.
Another great thing is — one of their senior students is currently designing the inside of my condo — not only does he have fantastic ideas but all of their adjunct faculty are professionals in the field that give him great suggestions. The designing of our condo is coming along fantastic — I feel like I’m getting a huge deal out of it working with him in the interior design of our condo.