• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
• /
• v.23 no.6
• /
• pp.133-141
• /
• 2014

Graduate education in general means nurturing scholars who are capable of research that adds to the 'body of knowledge' and educators in the higher education system. Therefore 'discovering' new knowledge has always been a major role of graduate schools. However, interior design is a special field that 'application' can also produce new knowledge and therefore a wider understanding of scholarship is needed especially in the graduate level education. The purpose of this paper is to understand Interior Design graduate education system in the United States in order to develop issues that need to be discusses and addressed in Korea. Therefore, this paper first examines meanings of graduate degrees in general and current situation of Interior degrees offered in Korea. Then investigates the different types of graduate degrees in the U.S. such as post-professional degrees, first-professional degrees, and differences in general degree(M.A., M.S.) and professional degrees (M.F.A., M.I.D.). The researcher has used websites of each school and information lists of degrees offered by KIID and IDEC that serves as the main educators council in each countries. The characteristics of graduate degrees in America can be described as a structured system based on variety, flexibility, and distinction. For instance, M.F.A means a professional degree that is focused on building theory based project abilities, longer period to study but counted as a terminal in the field. However, in Korea even though the title of the degrees may differ there is not much difference shown in the educational contents. Therefore issues such as developing a more universal and international degree system, flexible and selective educational road-map, mutual understanding and unified system between various organizations for better graduate education system are proposed. Moreover, hope to start a discourse on defining scholarship and professionalism in the field of Interior Design.

• Korean Institute of Interior Design Journal
• /
• no.23
• /
• pp.58-67
• /
• 2000

The purpose of this study is to look for the tendency of 391 Masters' theses(among total 405 theses), which were conferred from graduate school in interior design from 1993 to 1999. This study has been developed by two steps. First step is to select factors such as conferment year, graduate school, field and subject and space of study. Second step is to extract the characteristics of five factors and their interrelations during seven years. The conclusion could be summarized as follows; In the early years, interior design studies were chiefly made by a new schools. And these studies tended to carry out design projects which were connected with residential, commercial and exhibition space. Space design was an absolutely major subject and field of study. But gradually, by many graduate schools, interior design studies have been developed both in quality and in quantity. Various spaces and various subjects were included with design-oriented theories. It was very natural that the character of study depended upon the graduate school. In the future, interior design study had better add some related designs and theories to support it.