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Do You Dream of Working in Interior Design? How to Start Your Journey

How do you find the courage to turn your passion into your career? Jennie Oxlade has been on that journey herself, and here she offers inspiration on how you can take the leap.

Have you ever decorated a friend’s room, your own home, been allowed to play around with the living room in your childhood home – or perhaps played The Sims (because let’s be honest, we’ve all been there) and thought: “I wish I could do this for a living… but how do I get started?”

If so, you are exactly the kind of person Jennie Oxlade meets again and again. She is an interior designer, an instructor at Nordic Online Academy, and one of those people who actually knows what it takes to transition from a hobbyist decorator to a professional.

The feeling of wanting more from your creativity but not quite knowing how to achieve it is exactly where Jennie’s own journey began. That is why her experiences resonate with anyone dreaming of a career in interior design.

This article is for you if you’re considering whether a future in interior design might be the right path. Here, you’ll find inspiration, concrete insights, and a realistic picture of what the profession demands of you.

You Don’t Need a Straight Path into the Field – You Just Need Passion

Jennie is living proof. She started at a business college, thought she was going to be a hairdresser, and ended up by chance in the school’s decoration room, where a teacher spotted her talent.

The point? You don’t need “the perfect background.” You just need the desire to develop—and the courage to take the next step. Most people who take an online interior design course at Nordic Online Academy actually come from widely different backgrounds:

• High school graduates or gap year students
• Retail and service industries
• Nursing, office work, or education
• Creative fields

So, whether you’re coming straight from high school or have taken a completely different path, there is a place for you in the program. The common denominator is passion and the dream of working with interior design. However, it’s not something that happens overnight.

Interior Design Isn’t Just Pretty – It’s Psychology, Function, and Emotion

Working with interior design isn’t just about choosing a vase and placing a coffee table book; interior design is hard work in many ways. As Jennie says:

“Fluffing the pillows and placing the vases is the smallest part of the job. It’s all the groundwork and preparation that takes up the most time.”

But that is also exactly what makes the profession exciting. When you work professionally, you don’t just create beautiful rooms—you create moods, directions, and experiences that matter to other people.

And yes, there is a lot to learn. But the good news is: you can learn it. All the technical, practical, and mental aspects become much more manageable when you get a professional toolbox and someone to show you the way.

Professional Interior Design Requires More Than Just Good Taste

The profession requires you to carry professional weight, making you conscious of your choices so you can stand by them when facing clients. This involves, among other things, being able to:

• Understand color psychology

• Advise based on professional expertise, not just gut feeling

• Know materials, wear and tear, lighting, fire safety, and spacing requirements

• Handle technical drawings, mood boards, and project management

• Take responsibility for the client’s decisions

• Perform hard physical work

This is all part of what you learn through an interior design education at Nordic Online Academy.

Get Real Cases, Real Tools, and Real Experience

As an instructor, Jennie guides you through every step of the process. Here, you don’t just get creative inspiration—you get a concrete path into the industry. Through the interior design programs Jennie teaches, you learn everything you need to get a great start on your adventure in the design world.

You learn the basics like style, color, materials, and lighting, but Jennie also takes you a step deeper. You’ll receive guidance on how to create a floor plan, how to craft a mood board, how to read a color code, and much more.

Furthermore, Jennie places great emphasis on sharing her own experiences. This includes using real-world cases and assignments, and she even involves her own private partners in the teaching to help students move forward as effectively as possible. As Jennie summarizes: “You get a little piece of me.”

Once you’ve completed the training, you’ll have both the tools and the direction. And before you take the next step, Jennie offers her most important advice—the advice she would have loved to hear when she was in your shoes.

Jennie’s Top Advice:

• Soak it all in! Fill your “backpack” well before you set out on your journey. Choose to invest in an education and walk away with the knowledge and tools that give you the best foundation for living out your interior design dream.
• Accept that you will make mistakes, because mistakes aren’t dangerous—they are the key to getting better. Mistakes are part of the process, and we all make them. The most important thing is that you learn from them, so the experience makes you stronger for your next task.
• Stay true to yourself and the person you want to be within the profession. Don’t let yourself be governed by trends; work with them, be inspired by them, but hold onto your own voice along the way.
• It’s okay to say no to a client if you don’t feel the chemistry is there.
• We only live once, so live out your dreams. If you have a passion for interior design and have even the smallest thought that it could be exciting to work in the field, then do it—take the leap.

Do You Have the Dream? Now is the Time to Listen to Yourself

If you can feel even a small spark, you owe it to yourself to investigate it. At Nordic Online Academy, you can take interior design courses online—flexible, practical, and with instructors like Jennie who work in the field every day.