A cluttered environment has been shown to deplete energy and have a detrimental impact on our overall mood and self-image. However, numerous interior design techniques and approaches have been found to relieve stress levels. But, what’s more to it? How do the elements of interior design improve our health?

 

Studio Institute Denver Founder and Professor MaDonna Collingwood explores how interior design impacts our physical, and mental health and well-being. Studio Institute Denver offers accelerated programs in interior design and construction management.  She helps individuals who are pursuing a career change while still working to keep daily expenses. 

 

Professor MaDonna Collingwood teaches students everything they need to know to begin a career in the building trades without the need for expensive college tuition.

 

To know more about what they do, listen to this podcast on Actions Antidote.
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Listen to the podcast here:

Interior Design and Its Impact On Our Well-Being with Prof. MaDonna Collingwood
Welcome to Action’s Antidotes, your antidote to the mindset that keeps you settling for less. Today, I’d like to once again talk to you about career change. Now, a lot of people find themselves in a place in life where they need to make some sort of a career change because whatever you’re doing right now isn’t working, and one of the prospects that a lot of people run into is this idea that, to make a new career, you have to go back to school and get a whole new degree, which is not only really time consuming but also consuming a lot of money. And I think one of the best phrases I’ve heard from people looking at that option and says, “Okay, that’s great. Now, who’s gonna pay my mortgage? Who’s gonna pay my rent during this whole four-year period when I’m going back to school and pursuing something completely different?” Today, my guest is Professor MaDonna Collingwood and she started an organization called the Studio Institute Denver and what makes this one a little bit different than the ones that I had previously engaged with is it’s not tech focused, it actually helps people who want to move away from technology and build a career in the trades.

 
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Professor MaDonna, welcome to the program. 

 

Thank you. 

 

Thank you so much for joining today. Now, let’s start off by telling my audience a little something about the Studio Institute Denver. What is it all about and how does the programming work?

 

It’s a 6- to 12-month accelerated trade school. I have two programs, one in interior design and one in construction management. We do mostly night classes hybrid so some are online, some are in person, some are both, and then we do a little bit of daytime on Fridays. So, most of my students work full time and then they go to class at night.

 

So your core audience, your core crowd are people who are pursuing a career change while still working full time and so they don’t have to really deal with some of those issues of, “How am I gonna keep the lights on? How am I gonna pay my rent?” and stuff?

 

Right, and I record every class and every lecture and then I send out a virtual link as well so they can always join and I’ll share my screen and they can watch the whole class from home so if they have to work late or they can’t make it in for whatever reason, they can still attend.

 

You probably have a lot of people who have interesting schedules that can be variant. Do you end up having a lot of students who also have childcare duties, like taking care of kids and stuff like that, that can make it even more challenging to make any kind of a career change?

 

I do. It’s a trade school so the ages of my students really varies a lot. It goes from 18 to like mid 50s right now. Yeah, a few of my students are parents so they’ve got to pick their kids up from school and everything so they can only attend at certain times or on certain days.

 

Not bad.