Turning a Hobby into a Career

Nick Rogers can't remember a time when he didn't care about the way he dressed. He always recognized fashion was a quick and easy way to make himself stand out as well as a way in which he could express himself. Now in the Bachelor's degree program in Fashion Design and Marketing at International Academy of Design & Technology in Tampa, Nick plans on turning his "hobby" of fashion into a career.

Eighteen months away from graduating, Nick, a former baseball scholarship athlete at a university in Virginia, hasn't yet starting thinking too seriously about what sort of fashion career he wants when he gets out of school. He prefers to hang back and see what might come his way. Whatever fashion-industry job he ends up in, though, Nick is certain the Academy in Tampa will have prepared him for it.

"The curriculum here is so well-rounded," he says. "We take classes covering everything from presentation to research and construction." And Nick still has more than half of the fashion design and marketing curriculum to go.

"Whether I get a job where I need to show up in a suit and tie and make a presentation or one where I have six months to design an entire collection, I'm going to know how to do it. I'm getting both ends of the fashion spectrum here, as well as everything in between."

Listening to Nick talk about how much he is learning at the Academy in Tampa, it is hard to believe he says he was often a "zombie" sitting in classes at his previous colleges. Before landing at the Academy, Nick did a semester at a university in Virginia and took over a year's worth of general education classes at two different community colleges.

"I'm learning so much more here at the Academy than I have anywhere else," Nick says. "And I'm remembering more of what I'm learning than I ever have before. At other schools, I would be physically in a class, but be like a zombie. I wouldn't learn a thing. Two weeks before the test, I'd start studying and retain it long enough to spill it out on paper. After the test, I'd never think about it again. At the Academy, the stuff I learn just feels like it sinks in better. I think that is partly because I have found what I enjoy learning and partly because the classes are so hands on."

"I'm working harder than I ever have before, but I'm also making better grades than I ever have before. If I didn't like my classes and the Academy, I wouldn't work so hard."