Best path for interior design (NCIDQ exam) for bachelors in another field?

[spohara]

I'm looking for the cheapest/fastest route to the NCIDQ exam for interior design for someone with a bachelors degree in another field (no related credits).

From what I can tell so far the options are slim and mostly in person.  From what I see there is little difference in the credit requirements between the handful of "first professional" masters and bachelors degrees.  There don't seem to be any online masters and local would be tough (UNA is the only program close enough).  Any good way to hack these? Alt credits possible (I see nothing on SDC)? 

There is also theoretically a "certificate" option, but I am not sure these actually exist and meet the 60 credit requirement.

[Jonathan Whatley]

Penn Foster College (not RA, NA DEAC) offers a decently priced distance AS in Interior Design they state offers 45 of the 60 required credits to NCIDQ certification. If you go this way make sure that in any plan to fill in the remaining 15, the CIDQ would not count too many of the credits you'd add on from elsewhere as duplicative with the 45 from PFC.

Cal Poly Pomona and UCLA Extension offer a qualifying program where a certificate from UCLA Extension ladders toward an MIntArch from Cal Poly Pomona, both online.

Check out online degrees from Academy of Art University, Ball State University, Berkeley College, Boston Architectural College, Fairfield University, Florida State College at Jacksonville, the New York School of Interior Design, Ohio University, and the Savannah College of Art and Design. An online MFA from Brenau University is only for holders of an interior design or architecture bachelor's.

Yorkville University, a small for-profit in Canada with every appropriate approval there that I expect should be recognized as equivalent to US RA, has an NCIDQ qualifying program.

I believe there are also online degrees in interior design from the UK. You'd want to confirm a specific program from outside the US and Canada in particular would work toward the NCIDQ goal.

[spohara]

Academy of Art is about $84k for the full masters program, not much cheaper per credit for the bachelor's (assuming no gen-ed would be required). SCAD is around the same price, and also isn't fully online. NYSID is close to the same price tag for just an AAS Boston Architectural College is a disgusting $115k. Fairfield is "only" $61k. I think Ball State is maybe $50k ish, which almost starts to seem like a bargain, but again they aren't fully online for their "first professional" track. For the Florida State -Jacksonville Associate degree it is about $24k if I assume gened can be transferred, which starts to approach reasonable for this career field. Similarly, the tuition per credit for Ohio looks reasonable, but it is 81 semester hours of in major courses - quite a steep time commitment, total comes out to around $26k which is toward the upper limit of what I think is worth pursuing. Looks like the UCLA extension program is 82 quarter hours? Reasonable cost, but why stop 8 hours shy of the requirement? When stacked with the Cal Poly masters it no longer becomes a cheap option (although maybe $46k is cheap in this field)

I appreciate you digging these up. From what I gather - these degrees really aren't very hackable, and there is no real inexpensive route (nowhere close to what we're used to on this forum with $5-10k degrees)?

[Jonathan Whatley]

Penn Foster College with gen eds transferred in, plus a relatively cheap source of an acceptable additional 15 credits?

UCLA Extension and just stop at 8 additional credits?

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Not cheap, not easy, but a little more versatile: you can also qualify for NCIDQ with a bachelor's or master's in architecture…

[spohara]

Penn Foster is definitely well priced. From the language on the NCIDQ site, I was under the impression you couldn't just take random credits, had to be part of a program: "...60 semester or 90 quarter credit hours of post-secondary interior design coursework that encompasses a degree, certificate, or diploma...". Maybe I'm reading too much into the "encompasses".

I do wonder if it would be possible to find a local BFA program that will take NA credits. Could be as close to "hacking" as it comes.

[bjcheung77]

You may want to do a search, even a google search of possible inexpensive institutions... You can then try to ladder any credits to maximize the transfer of those credits into the program of choice. Most institutions will have a transfer policy, from 60-90 max transfer credits into their Bachelors program, you can always inquire about the option to take alternative or NA credits on a case-by-case basis if they have conditional acceptance options.