Interior design programs prepare people to plan and design indoor spaces. Students learn drafting and graphic methods to express their designs. They learn to select furniture and furnishings to fit their space designs. They also learn about building codes and laws.

Where some people see a couple of walls where they might put up some artwork, you see a space to install bookcases and set up a corner home office. Where other people see a fading wingback chair, you can already see the chair's rebirth with new upholstery and restyled legs.

Does this sound like you? Are you imaginative, resourceful, and open to new ideas? Do you consider yourself an artist who would love to use three-dimensional space as a canvas?

Yes, yes, and yes? If so, interior design may be the program for you. As an interior designer, you use problem-solving skills to take the needs and desires of a client and translate that information into plans and designs for a particular indoor space.

The types of indoor spaces you might work with span an exciting range. You might work with a residential space such as a living room or a kitchen. Or you might design a commercial space such as a gallery, an office building, or a movie cinema. You could design a children's waiting room in a hospital or a lounge area in an airport.

Interior designers do more than decorate walls, add ornamental lighting fixtures, and upholster furniture. They combine aesthetic appeal with functional quality. In other words, they are concerned not only with how good a space looks, but also how well it functions as a space that people can use.

As a student in this program, you learn the basics of how to communicate visual ideas about three-dimensional space onto paper. You learn to do this by both manual sketching and computer programs.

You also study the historical and sociological developments in interior design so that you learn from the past. This also teaches you to restore past technologies such as Victorian furniture and help preserve them for future use.

You learn about using color, textiles, drapery, and different kinds of furniture. You also focus on your own studio time, developing what you've learned into your own design projects. These are just a few of things you learn and study in an interior design program.

Many schools offer accredited interior design programs where you can earn a diploma, or an associate, bachelor's, or master's degree. Both a diploma and associate degree typically take two years of full-time study after high school. A bachelor's degree usually takes four years, and a master's degree from two to three years after that.