Students Showcase Work at Interior Design Exhibition

A group of 15 Clover Park Technical College Interior Design students showed off their work to potential employers, fellow students and other visitors at Tuesday’s Student Portfolio Exhibition.

The event ran from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. in the CPTC McGavick Conference Center and featured a table for each student. The work on display covered their six quarters in the program and served as the culminating project as they closed out their final quarter this week.

“This is their capstone. It’s all the work they’ve done for 18 months, and then they have this one show,” CPTC Interior Design instructor Michael Bowman said.

Each student chose which pieces to show off, with the instructors providing guidance to ensure the displays reflected their best work. The students also stood with their work to answer any questions and interact with visitors to the exhibition. With many of the attendees representing vendors, designers and others who may be looking for their next employee, the interaction and showcase can help students earn a job offer.

“Mainly it’s for designers who are hiring, architects, builders and people in our trade to come see what the new talent is,” Bowman said. “A couple of the employers were here and interviewed students, and usually we’ll have two or three students get jobs just from this event.”

These exhibitions have closed out the final quarter of the program for the last 10 years, and the program now holds two showcases per year as the spring and fall start cohorts graduate. Tuesday’s event included 15 students just finishing their time in the program, while Bowman mentioned that the next event in the spring will have more than 20 students.

Regardless of the number of students in the cohort, the showcase provides a professional networking opportunity, as well as a chance to share their work with the public. As for the hiring potential, Bowman said it’s going very well.

“It’s very high, especially now in this economy,” Bowman said of the hiring rate. “Our business is booming, and only a couple of our students here don’t already have a job lined up.”