OCAD University

The GD program is solid. After 3rd year you'll be more challenged and start to understand the industry -- at least that's when it all started to click for me. Profs are a mix of industry people who know what they're doing and academics. Be prepared to learn the software on your own -- OCAD is teaching theories and principles so that you'll be set as a strong designer as technology changes. Your portfolio is really important -- start thinking about that right away and how your work can fit into it. A simple website with your work will get you in the door for internships coops and jobs, then you have to have the right "fit" in terms of personality and ambitions to get that first job on your on.

The location and the people are honestly probably my favourite things about OCAD's GD program. Campus in downtown TO is close to Art Gallery of Ontario, design firms, cultural hubs, great restaurants and plenty more. If you're not from Toronto and are maybe from a small town in Canada, this will be a very cool cultural experience with loads of job opportunities.

Happy with my decision to come to OCAD and do the Graphic Design Program. Just work hard and network and you will be able to create opportunities for yourself.

The instructors in industrial design, from CNC to woodworking, are not adequatley trained. Former students get hired as lead technicians who can't service machines and this is what you get. I would have chosen Humber or Centennial if I could go back.

The woodworking shops are dangerous because they are supported by technicians with no formal training, no real life furniture construction experience and only a vague idea woodworkings’ potential or of what wood working actually is. The student techs are dangerous because they think they know what they are doing. The student monitors should only work to keep the shop clean. Studio management should learn what PM2.5 and PM10 are. Furniture design’s professor came to school a day early and left a day late to insure their project direction and and safety of their students. Router bits and cnc cutters regularly while spinning at 18000 +/- rpm fell out of the machine. The wood shop techs do not even have the base training to know nor made the effort to know that collets need to be replaced periodically. Consequently the students suffer thanks to OCADU’s nepotistic process of hiring ex-students as lead technicians, recent students even students from other curriculums as student techs and the least useful and the potentially dangerous are the student monitors who seem to thinks they are qualified to proffer advice. Machine cutters and hand tools were constantly dull, a professor would have had to ask for the machines’ dull cutters to be replaced. Hand sharping of hand tools is not a skill the techs possessed nor do they know how to use our respect traditional hand tools. Stationary grinders for rough sharpening were positioned beside the wood lathes. Dust from the lathes, nearby sanders and grinder sparks are a fire hazard.
Close the woods shops until OCADU hires actual woodworkers with 5 plus years of experience, (not cabinetmakers) who are red seal certified. Figure out PM2.5 and PM10 are. The time our prof gave to the students to be sure they were safe and succeeded put him at a minimum wage level.