Textile Science

What Textile Science Majors Need to Know

People with careers related to textile science were asked what knowledge areas, skills, and abilities were important for their jobs. They weighted these areas on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest.

Knowledge Areas for Textile Science Majors

Textile Science majors often go into careers in which the following knowledge areas are important:

• Design - Knowledge of design techniques, tools, and principles involved in production of precision technical plans, blueprints, drawings, and models.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Sales and Marketing - Knowledge of principles and methods for showing, promoting, and selling products or services. This includes marketing strategy and tactics, product demonstration, sales techniques, and sales control systems.

Skills for Textile Science Majors

textile science majors are found most commonly in careers in which the following skills are important:

• Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
• Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
• Speaking - Talking to others to convey information effectively.
• Reading Comprehension - Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.
• Social Perceptiveness - Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.

Abilities for Textile Science Majors

Textile Science majors often go into careers where the following abilities are vital:

• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Originality - The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
• Fluency of Ideas - The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).

What Can You Do With a Textile Science Major?

Below is a list of occupations associated with textile science:

Job Title	Job Growth Rate	Median Salary
Fashion Designers	2.5%	$72,720
Interior Designers	4.5%	$53,370

Amount of Education Required for Careers Related to Textile Science

Some careers associated with textile science require an advanced degree while some may not even require a bachelor’s. Whatever the case may be, pursuing more education usually means that more career options will be available to you.

How much schooling do you really need to compete in today’s job market? People currently working in careers related to textile science have obtained the following education levels.

Education Level	Percentage of Workers
Less than a High School Diploma	0.6%
High School Diploma - or the equivalent (for example, GED)	1.8%
Post-Secondary Certificate - awarded for training completed after high school (for example, in agriculture or natural resources, computer services, personal or culinary services, engineering technologies, healthcare, construction trades, mechanic and repair technologies, or precision production)	0.5%
Some College Courses	13.4%
Associate’s Degree (or other 2-year degree)	23.7%
Bachelor’s Degree	54.0%
Post-Baccalaureate Certificate - awarded for completion of an organized program of study; designed for people who have completed a Baccalaureate degree but do not meet the requirements of academic degrees carrying the title of Master.	2.3%
First Professional Degree - awarded for completion of a program that: requires at least 2 years of college work before entrance into the program, includes a total of at least 6 academic years of work to complete, and provides all remaining academic requirements to begin practice in a profession.	4.7%

Online Textile Science Programs

The following table lists the number of programs by degree level, along with how many schools offered online courses in the field.

Degree Level	Colleges Offering Programs	Colleges Offering Online Classes
Certificate (Less Than 1 Year)	0	0
Certificate (1-2 years)	0	0
Certificate (2-4 Years)	0	0
Associate’s Degree	0	0
Bachelor’s Degree	0	0
Post-Baccalaureate	0	0
Master’s Degree	0	0
Post-Master’s	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Research)	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Professional Practice)	0	0
Doctor’s Degree (Other)	0	0

Majors Related to Textile Science

You may also be interested in one of the following majors related to textile science.

Major	Number of Grads
General Apparel & Textiles	1,873
Apparel & Textile Marketing Management	707
Apparel & Textile Manufacture	303
Fashion & Fabric Consultant	39
Other Apparel & Textiles	35

References

*The racial-ethnic minorities count is calculated by taking the total number of students and subtracting white students, international students, and students whose race/ethnicity was unknown. This number is then divided by the total number of students at the school to obtain the racial-ethnic minorities percentage.

• College Factual
• College Scorecard
• National Center for Education Statistics
• O*NET Online
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers First Quarter 2020
• Image Credit: By Elisa.rolle under License

More about our data sources and methodologies.