How do I ask my parents to help pay for the Graphic Design Course?
How do I ask my parents to help pay for the Graphic Design Course?
by Sebin Jeon
‘23 Duke University Grad & ilovecreatives Graphic Design Course Student
Maybe you’re reading this as a junior in college. You’re almost done with your degree in Sociology (and you enjoy it!), but after getting through your pre-senior-year crisis (it’s a canon event), you’ve made up your mind: no more ignoring your truest, deepest desires to pursue a creative career. All those years of making content for your student org’s social media really opened your mind to this career path!
So you start exploring the possibility of becoming a graphic designer, and you land on the ilovecreatives Graphic Design Course page. You know the curriculum by heart and feel confident that the course will help you become a graphic designer, but dang, you’re wondering: “How do I ask my parents to help pay for this?”
Whether you’re a current college student making a career pivot or a recent grad on the job hunt, it’s highly likely that you are still financially dependent on your parents and/or guardians. If your parents have already made a generous contribution to help fund your higher education, we totally understand how challenging it might feel to ask for more. Not to mention how conflicting it may feel to still need to lean on your parents for financial support as you’re transitioning out of college — we get it. It can feel daunting!
If you’re finding yourself in this position and your goals really align with our course, we want to support you in navigating this tough conversation. To offer some guidance on how you can prepare yourself before you raise the favor to your parents, we put together this resource so that you can confidently ask for help.
Before we dive in, we want to acknowledge that all families have different dynamics and people may have very valid reasons for hesitating to ask their guardians for financial assistance. Definitely use your intuition! If you feel that it may be within your parents’ capacity and generosity, we encourage you to have the conversation, whether it be for our course or other matters. Chances are, your parents will cherish a glimpse into your aspirations! We’re thinking that they’ll most likely still want to be there to support you.
The Job Market is Tough!
While graphic designers are in high demand, getting that first job can be hard (find more about how to prepare for a graphic design career in our free Job Directory for Graphic Designers). And for current college students and recent grads, we know how stressful it can be when you’re struggling to piece together your next steps. If you’re feeling a little anxious about how you’ll get a creative job after graduating or are currently having a hard time landing an opportunity, you are definitely not alone.
When we asked college students interested in taking our course about how ready they felt to secure a job post-grad, 65% of them shared that they felt unprepared to apply or work a job as a graphic designer. Preparing our students for career readiness is one of our biggest priorities across all of our courses. We know all too well that while attending college is a privilege and an invaluable experience, it doesn’t always seamlessly bridge the gap between education and career. Rest assured that we designed our course with people like you in mind, because trust us—we’ve been there!
Get cozy with the course landing page — do your research!
We hear you — $2,400 is not a small sum of money! We explain our prices more on the course FAQ page. We recognize that this could be a huge favor to request. To convince your parents that our course is the one to help you kick off your creative career, you have to feel fully confident yourself! We suggest you get super familiar with the Graphic Design Course Curriculum to pitch to your parents what we have to offer.
The good news is, again, you’re not alone at these crossroads. Many of our students find us when they consider pivoting 5+ years into their professional lives or are feeling unprepared by their design programs to enter the workforce. When you sit down to talk with your parents, pull from the Student Testimonials to bring voices into the convo that can back you up! Here are some things our previous students shared about the course:
And if you inherited those visual thinker genes from your parents, you should definitely show them the awesome Student Work created by our student community. From original logos created in Illustrator to realistic mock-ups showcasing their branded designs, our students come out of the Graphic Design Course with portfolio-worthy gems.
Make a solid list of reasons why our course appeals to you
Okay, so now you did your research. What personally stuck out to you? Make sure you hone in on the aspects of our course that meet you where you need us to. Maybe you’re really drawn to the forever access you would get to our Discord Channel community, where networking opportunities arise every day, or our curriculum section that breaks down what it logistically means to set up your own freelancing business.
Among other key aspects, students have shared with us that they loved getting 1:1 feedback from instructors, which is something you can’t receive from YouTube Photoshop tutorials. And beyond learning the design tools, others have really valued being able to implement the course lessons on designing ‘real life’ brand identities into creating spec work for their portfolios (which is so important for getting new clients!).
So if you’ve never had experience with Figma or Adobe Illustrator, which are industry-standard tools, lead with that! Or if building a portfolio was something you’ve always been meaning to do but always struggled to start, definitely highlight this in your talk. We hope that our course supplements and nourishes your specific journey, so don’t forget to make these personal it-factors super clear to your parents!
If you need some help putting together a list of reasons to take this course, we’ve created our own list of 20 talking points for this conversation that you can copy and put your own spin on it. Here’s a preview below:
The ilovecreatives Graphic Design Course is 100% beginner-friendly and was created to prepare students to learn all essential steps of the design process, build an attractive portfolio, and confidently freelance for clients upon course graduation.
Completely self-paced, the Graphic Design Course is meant to be taken at your own schedule. Whether you want to take it over the course of 6 months while you work a part-time job or pack it into one summer is all up to you! You choose the timeline, and our instructors will always be available to support you in the Discord community.
The course curriculum was intentionally designed by Mindy, Sarah, and Puno, who have all personally been in a similar place as you—feeling underprepared to work as graphic designers in the real world. This course is shaped by their many years of combined experience and industry knowledge so that you can secure the work you’re envisioning for yourself.
Not only does the course come with 1:1 feedback from the instructors, but it also grants you forever access to the Discord community, where you can learn alongside fellow creatives of all backgrounds and experience levels!
While there are many YouTube graphic design tutorials out there, it’s definitely more difficult to self-learn design thinking! We have an entire section in our curriculum dedicated to the design process, where we teach how to conduct design research and ultimately build a robust brand design system for potential clients. These skills are the backbone for creating well-rounded portfolios, which we also cover in the course.
Join the Graphic Design Course waitlist to see the full list of 20 talking points
Sometimes we don’t thank our parents enough—show them that you care too!
When you’re exploring all the financial options for affording the course, consider offering to pay your parents back—this can show your appreciation for all they’ve invested in you so far! And If we’re talking money, they’ll definitely get a return on their investment. When you start offering design services, you can charge from $1,000 to $20k and even $60k+ for brand identities (don’t worry, we teach you how to rate your prices in the course).
If you’ve just graduated and are actively looking for full-time positions, you could also think about picking up a part-time job in the meantime to earn your own pocket money while taking the course. And if you’re currently living at your family home, maybe you could volunteer to help with more chores—it does make a difference!
For many of us, our parents’ sacrifices and hard work have paved the way for our life opportunities (and we know this can make asking for help so much harder!). Sometimes we don’t thank our parents enough, but we don’t want to give them the impression that we take their contributions for granted—so don’t forget to give them their flowers <3
Are you newly employed? Ask your employer to pay for the course!
To all the fresh graduates who recently started a full-time job (congrats!), consider making this elevator pitch to your employer instead! You might be able to get Employer Tuition Assistance for this course by connecting with your manager or HR (we made a sample letter template for you here). You can find more information on our “How to get your employer to pay for a course” resource.
P.S. This Summer 2024, ilovecreatives is running a six-week boot camp of the Graphic Design Course exclusively for current college students and recent post-grads (SP/FA 2023) that starts June 10th. So be sure to enroll in the Graphic Design Course College Program by May 30th, 11:59 PM PT to save your spot. What’s in the program?
✹ Forever access to class materials
✹ Exclusive weekly talks by industry leaders
✹ Flexibility to take concurrently with internships & summer classes
✹ Private Discord Channel for students only
✹ We’re only doing this ONCE. Maybe next year, but maybe not?
