Interior Design graduates embark on next stage of their careers
Al Stover / Reporting and Photography
published in issue 41.12 of the SFCC Communicator
Maxey and Rice are two of students who are graduating from SFCC's Interior Design program.
Students in the program can earn A.A.S in Interior Design, or a Interior Design Professional Diploma, according to the SFCC website.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of people in the interior designers is expected go up 18 percent. Interior designers can make anywhere from over $20,000 to over $80,000 a year, depending on their specialty, experience, reputation, and employer.
As a child, Rice said she grew up in Oak Harbor, on construction sites with her parents. She said she researched a lot of public and private programs before settling on SFCC.
"Once I met with the program director, I was sold," Rice said.
Maxey had grown up in Port Angeles and had wanted to be an interior decorator when she was a little girl. After she had her baby, she and her husband talked about what she was going to do.
"My husband is a contractor, and interior design came up," Maxey said. "I took a test at SCC and it said I should be an interior designer."
Both Maxey and Rice learned that the interior design field is more technical than they had thought.
"It's nothing like the design shows, it's planning upon planning and very detail orientated," Rice said.
According to Maxey and Rice, they had learned the basic skills and knowledge in designing. In their second and third year, they worked on several residential and commercial projects.
"For a retail space, we redid the whole interior and gave the exterior a face lift," Maxey said.
In addition to learning about the technical aspects of interior design, Maxey said she learned how psychology can work into designing rooms for people.
"You learn how you function within a space and what decorations can increase comfort and lessen stress," Maxey said.
Rice said she also learned about different things from the projects the class worked on.
"When we worked on the hospital, I learned things about nursing and medicine that I didn't know before," Rice said.
Maxey is working with Womer and Associates, a Native American enterprise that specializes in architecture, engineering and environmental services, according to their website. She plans on attending Washington State University. She also said that SFCC’s Interior Design program was very time consuming and expensive.
"You don't have much of a social life, but you get to be so creative," Maxey said. "You get back what you put in."
Rice is currently doing an internship for Joanie Wick back home in Oak Harbor. She said there were moments when she had to remind herself why she had started the program.
"I had to get pass the stress," Rice said. "This program in itself has challenged me to become much more time efficient."
To read the story on the Communicator website follow the link
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