Alright so today I actually sat down to figure out Istituto Marangoni’s online classes because honestly, their website makes my head spin. Wanted something clear, simple, maybe just one solid class, not the whole confusing mess.
First off, grabbed my laptop, coffee cold already, obviously. Went straight to their main course page. Big mistake. Massive dropdown menus, pages within pages – felt like clicking through digital spaghetti. Tried searching for ‘online courses’. Boom. Like twenty different options popped up. Fashion Design? Or Fashion Styling? Marketing? Sustainability? Even short workshops! Didn’t expect so many paths.
The Real Grind Begins
Started opening tabs. One for each course. Got like ten tabs open, fan whining. Each course page screams ‘BEST THING EVER’ with fancy pictures, models looking moody, fabric shots. But what actually matters? Like, what do you DO in these classes? Scrolled down, down, down. Found module lists sometimes buried below heavy text. Okay.
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Fashion Design course modules:
- Sketching basics (still life? figures? vague!)
- Pattern making intro (digital or paper? who knows!)
- Fabrics overview (great… overview.)
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Styling course stuff:
- Trend analysis (sounds flashy, means staring at magazines online probably)
- Personal styling concepts (cool term, but what techniques?)
- Photoshoot planning basics (virtual sets?)
No real breakdown, like week-by-week. Just buzzwords stacked up. How many live sessions? Recorded lectures? Homework type? Zero details. Annoying.
Cost Catastrophe
Saw the price. Heart skipped. Seriously. Threw numbers into a rough spreadsheet later. You’d think higher price = longer course = more teaching. Nope! No logic! Short specialized workshop sometimes cost nearly as much as a long certificate program. Found one certificate in fashion marketing, €3000ish. Okay. Next tab: shorter styling workshop, €2500? For half the length? Explain that! Felt like paying for the brand name, not the minutes.
Format Frustrations
Tried finding tech details. What platform? How interactive? Answers: buried, vague, inconsistent. Saw mentions like ‘Live Sessions’ (weekly? monthly?) mixed with ‘On-Demand Content’. Is that recorded lectures? Reading PDFs? Both? Who knows! Course duration listed… sometimes. Like ’12 months’. Actual weekly time commitment? Nothing solid. Saw things like “Approx 10 hours per week”. Approx?! Trying to schedule my life around guesswork? No way.
Deep sigh time. Closed half the tabs. Felt stuck. Couldn’t compare properly because everyone told a different story. One program emphasized project work, another mentioned guest talks. No side-by-side feature chart. Had to make my own messy notes, switching tabs, losing track. Headache city.
Registration Rabbit Hole
Got brave. Clicked ‘Apply’ on one course to peek. Form popped up demanding name, email, country. Basic stuff. Then… ‘Request Course Info’ button. Clicked. Another pop-up promising they’ll email me a ‘Detailed Program Overview’. Right. Let’s see how long that takes. Still waiting. Probably gonna get flooded with marketing emails instead of hard facts.
Final Thoughts? Exhausted. Learned that comparing their online courses is mostly detective work mixed with frustration. Wish they just had ONE comparison table showing clearly: length, hours/week, exact topics covered, cost, delivery format (live, recorded, reading), workload type (projects, essays, tests). Instead? Glossy images and confusing words. Maybe I picked wrong? Maybe my perfect class doesn’t exist? Or maybe I just need more coffee and a nap.
For now? Giving up. Practice record ends here. Good luck if you try!
