Five ways this one-year degree will give you an edge in a growing sector

If you’re an interior designer or architect intrigued by the ways lighting enhances the beauty, functionality and sustainability of your projects, know that there’s never been a better time to get a post-professional degree in lighting design.

Right now, there’s intense demand for hires with lighting design expertise coming from many areas of the building and design industry: architectural lighting firms, large architecture firms and engineering firms that are starting their own lighting design departments, and the manufacturers of luminaires. “The lighting industry has been growing, especially the design section of the industry,” says Shaun Fillion, LC,CLCP Educator IALD, program director for NYSID’s MPSL and Chair of the Illuminating Engineering Society Progress Committee. “Energy codes required by states have pushed architects and engineers to the point of bringing in lighting designers to help bring their projects to fruition. As lighting codes and controls get more complex, lighting designers are in demand for all types of buildings.”      

This is one reason NYSID’s one-year Master of Professional Studies in Lighting Design has a 100% job placement rate within six months of graduation, and it has for years. Graduates from the program are often getting competing offers from top firms, usually before they graduate. “Everybody in the program got multiple offers from lighting design firms,” recalls program alum Diogo Coelho ’18 (MPSL), now a Lighting Product Manager at Amerlux, who was hired as a lighting designer at the architectural lighting firm Cooley Monato Studio soon after he graduated from NYSID, and worked there for four years before moving to the product design and development side of the lighting industry. Adds alumna Estefania Diaz ’15 (MPSL) / ’16 (MPSS), Lighting Designer at Ventresca Lighting Designers, “I had multiple offers for internships. NYSID helped me vet the offers. The professors know the companies and helped me choose what option was the best for me.”

Other reasons graduates of NYSID’s MPSL have great employment outcomes is that this program has an outsized reputation, and its students have outstanding portfolios. Here are five factors that give students of NYSID’s MPSL an edge:     

1. A World-Class Lighting Lab

NYSID’s lighting lab is designed for hands-on experiences of lighting. It incorporates contemporary LED technology with historical sources. Students can explore concepts of CCT (Correlated Color Temperature) and CRI (Color Rendering Index) with a 7-channel color mixing system that enables exploration of metamers. The lighting lab was made possible with donations from Designers Lighting Forum of New York (DLFNY). Says Fillion, “A key component of lighting education is a student's personal experience of light. While computer renderings are helpful, the experience of seeing a luminaire first-hand and manipulating the light is a critical part of understanding the impact of light on space.”

2. A Deep Dive into Photometric Software

Says MPSL alum Diogo Coelho, “NYSID’s program taught me the most important tools to become the lighting designer I am today. They teach you how to work with a particular software called AGi32, so you can make photometric predictions about how your design will affect space.”

3. A Mentor in the Know

Iliana Filotheidi, ’19 (MPSL),  an alumna who is now a senior lighting designer at HLB Lighting, says of MPSL program director Shaun Fillion, “Shaun is more than an instructor. He’s an inspiration and a mentor.” Fillion, the award-winning Director of Lighting Design at RAB Lighting and the Chair of the IES (Illuminating Engineering Society) Progress Committee, has deep connections in the lighting design community. He often takes his students to meet the principals and managers of the many world-renowned lighting firms in greater New York City.        

4. Connected Instructors

The instructors in NYSID’s MPSL are practicing lighting designers and / or lighting engineers with real-world insights to share.

5. A Diverse Cohort

One of the things that attracted MPSL alumna Estefania Diaz to the program was the diversity of the cohort. Diaz got her undergraduate degree in interior design in Ecuador, where she was born and raised. She says of NYSID, “A very global community forces you to open your eyes to new things, and this feeds design.” Cultural diversity is just one factor Shaun Fillion considers in assembling each incoming class at NYSID. He also strives to bring a diversity of experience to the classroom, recruiting theatrical lighting designers, lighting engineers, interior designers, architects and more. Fillon adds, “Having different forms of expertise enriches the interactions between the students. Designers bond in this tightly knit program and form a powerful network that spans the globe.”

NYSID offers the in-person MPSL in New York, and an entirely online MPSLD, that can be experienced from anywhere in the world. Both programs are structured to work with the schedules of people who are working full time, and can be completed in one year, or rather, three consecutive semesters.

For more information reach out to MPSL Program Director Shaun Fillion at sfillion@nysid.edu. You can read more about the MPSL and start an application HERE.