Article on Career Opportunities in Interior Design
Our interior design program prepares students for entry‐level positions in interior design within a variety of career paths. Options related to either residential or commercial design may be pursued, with specializations including areas such as environmentally‐sensitive design, corporate/office, retail store planning, showroom, hospitality, kitchen and bath, health care facilities, design for the elderly, institutional design, and historic preservation.
Students who choose a commercial oriented career path may pursue opportunities within commercial design, architectural, and interior architectural firms, corporate facilities departments, commercial furniture dealerships, product distributor showrooms, manufacturers, and other related types of firms. Students who have a strong business orientation have pursued careers in design‐related sales and management.
Students who wish to pursue a career in residential design may, upon graduation, work at a small design studio or in a retail furniture environment, seek positions within the furniture industry or at trade showrooms. Many specialize in kitchen and bath design or other areas such as environmentally‐sensitive design, universal design, or working within the real estate industry.
The Bachelor of Science in Interior Design degree affords graduates a wide variety of career opportunities, based on their individual interests, skills, talents, and motivation. Following is a partial list of firms where our interns and graduates have worked in recent years:
- Capital Office, Anchorage, AK
- CBI, Charlotte, NC; Raleigh, NC; Charleston, SC
- Chada, Sydney, Austrailia
- Crossville Ceramics, Charlotte, NC
- Davis Square Architects, Somerville, MA
- Design Within Reach, Charlotte, NC
- Don Duffy Architects, Charlotte, NC
- Duke Medical Facility Planning, Durham, NC
- Four Hands , Austin, TX
- Gensler, Charlotte, NC
- Global Seating, Charlotte, NC
- Herman Miller, FL
- HBF, Hickory, NC
- HOK, Dallas, TX
- Holder Construction Company, Atlanta, GA
- ID Collaborative, Greensboro, NC
- Knoll, Charlotte, NC; Philadelphia, PA
- Lambert Architects, Winston-Salem, NC
- Little, Charlotte, NC
- LS3P, Charlotte, NC
- Pierre-Yves Rochon (a division of Perkins+Will), Chicago, IL; Charlotte, NC
- Planning Interiors Limited, Nairobi, Kenya
- Pursley Dixon Architects, Charlotte, NC
- Redline Design Group, Charlotte, NC
- Robert Johnson Architects, Chartlotte, NC
- Roughton Nickelson De Luca Architects, Raleigh, NC
- Stephens Office Systems, Charlotte, NC
- Sotheby's Mountain Properties, Banner Elk, NC
- Storr Office Enviornments, Raleigh, NC
- T2PM, Winston-Salem, NC
- TotalOffice, Boston, MA
- Waterworks, New York, NY