Why Study On-line?

TRADITIONAL OR VIDEO BASED ON-LINE LEARNING?

Traditional or "face to face" landscape design schools require you to attend classes in person, whilst a video based online garden design program offers all of the coursework through an online learning environment. Traditional programs require you to attend school on specific days and times, with classes varying in size from 5 - 40 students. Video based on-line programs such as those at Oxford College of Garden Design provide courses that can be taken 24/7, with class sizes limited to a maximum of 10 students per tutor. Tutor and student interaction in these programs occurs via our virtual classroom with webinars, VOIP, email, and other technologies, so that you are not required to be “in class” at any specific time.

Here are some other considerations when choosing between the more traditional garden schools and the online program at the Oxford College of Garden Design:

	Traditional schools	Oxford College Online Diploma
Will my course equip me to practise as a professional garden designer?	Sometimes	Yes
Can I continue to work full time?	No	Yes
Will I have to give up my salary?	Usually	No
Can I continue to earn a living while starting my new business?	Sometimes	Yes
Can I study whenever and where ever I want?	No	Yes
Can I repeat my lectures?	No	Yes
Can I extend my course for up to 36 months?	No	Yes
Are my tutors working designers?	Sometimes	Yes
24/7 access to course materials?	No	Yes
Daily access to my tutors and classmates?	Sometimes	Yes
Multimedia instructional videos?	No	Yes
Group discussions and 1-2-1 critiques?	Sometimes	Yes
Flexible hand in dates?	Sometimes	Yes
Classmates from around the world?	Sometimes	Yes
Able to ask questions 24/7?	No	Yes
Will I have train/petrol parking expenses?	Usually	No
Will I have to spend time commuting?	Usually	No

This is not a correspondence course delivered online. This is the world’s first and only video based course where you get exactly the same lectures via the internet as you would if you were sitting in the classroom in person.

Double Gold for Former Students at Hampton Court Palace Flower Show

The Oxford College of Garden Design has two students who have won Gold at this years RHS Hampton Court Flower Show
Dan Lobb won gold and Best Conceptual Garden and Melissa Jolly got a Gold for her garden entitled ‘Picturesque’ also in the Conceptual category.

Dan’s garden is a subterranean underworld. Above ground the garden may appear somewhat austere with steel periscopes surrounding a tilted panel of turf - but gaze through a periscope and you can enjoy your own private view of the extraordinary garden below.
The undulating landscape of Landscape Obscured is planted entirely with edible fungi interwoven with mosses and liverworts surrounds a “lake”. The imagination feasts on this surreal, subterranean world reminiscent of fairytale forests while the angular, modernist steelwork reflects Man’s relationship with the land. Fungi form the longest living and largest communities on earth and are often overlooked. This garden provides a glimpse of these fascinating life forms.

While Melissa’s garden aims to evoke the works of specific artists or genres through the use of planting. By replicating the layout of an art gallery, openings in the gallery walls frame the different compositions of planting and the viewer’s attention is focused on each contrasting picture.
Picturesque illustrates how both gardens and plants can be seen as forms of art, and demonstrates a method for creating beautiful views even when external space is limited.

Gold Medal for Former Student

Melissa Jolly a former student of the Oxford College of Garden Design has been awarded an RHS Gold Medal for her 2011 Hampton Court Show garden entitled ‘Picturesque’
This unique and innovative installation is more art than garden, using plants to represent famous paintings.  Designed as a gallery, the public are invited in to so a series of recessed pictures made up of a combination of collage, photography and planting.
As part of our online diploma course student have to design a Chelsea Flower Show garden as an exercise and are taught to think outside the box. 

Melissa, who has already won several other medals for her show gardens says “that this exercise was invaluable in helping her think creatively.  I wouldn’t design a garden like this for a client, but this show that I can create something special for my clients.”
She then went on to say “I can't quite believe it and have had some really lovely feedback from the press...esp. The Independent journalist who said I should see if I can take it to the Royal Academy”

We would like to extend our congratulations to Mel for her well deserved award and hope this spurs all are students on to bigger and better things.

Career Prospects for New Garden Designers

 

I was asked recently by a potential new student what his career prospects were like if he chose to do our Online Postgraduate level Diploma in Garden Design

Career prospects are a tricky issue, as the one thing that I can't do for my students is to make the telephone ring for them after they graduate.

I have heard stories of a principal from one particular London college, bragging to a prospective students,  that if they are taught by him they will be guaranteed to get work after they graduate which is not only extraordinarily arrogant but quite frankly rubbish.

The only way you can tell if a school is performing well, is to look at its past students

The Oxford College of Garden Design has one of the best track records in the country with our student working for almost every top design firm in the country and those that choose to set up their own design practices getting plenty of work and winning many of the major design competitions.

What I will say is that it takes at least 12-18 months after you graduate for you start to earn a reasonable income, as it takes a while to get your name out and to market your self.

Personality also plays a big part in this as if you can't communication or sell you can be the best designer in the world and you still won't get work.

I tell all my students that they need a contingency plan to make sure they allow for this 12-18 month start up time after they graduate but this is true for any new business.

I am not in the habit of giving students an unreasonably optimistic outlook when they first start. I suggest they should look to complete approx. 4 projects in year 1, 8 in year 2 and 12 in year 3

The online course allows student to continue to work while they study and in the current economic climate I see this as a real advantage.