Monday, September 14, 2009

Chris's world: disturbingly similar to mine...

Although I work in a totally different industry, I could very much relate to Chris's comments about his job and how distant it is from the design world. I am also not a designer by trade. I've worked as a teacher and as an editor, and currently work in curriculum development, which sounds more exciting than it is. I left my previous position in part because I thought I'd have more of a voice in decisions and more opportunities for creativity here, but that's... not quite what it turned out to be. A lot of what I do is cutting and pasting and spreadsheets. Such glamour! I'm not complaining, and yes, I'm glad to be employed, period, in this economy--but I am not exactly creatively fulfilled, nor am I fully convinced that my role is actually contributing in any meaningful way to the educational betterment of America's youth. 

So the pub design program is really important as a creative outlet for me, both the writing and the design side of the program. It's not just a creative outlet; I entered the program to get a better understanding of the design piece of publishing, and I want to be able to use what I learn here to create better products. Of course, I work in educational publishing, so when I say "better products," that means "better products that nevertheless avoid any content that could even remotely be considered edgy or unconventional." Still, there's a lot of room for improvement within those constraints. 

I do understand why people get intimidated by the tougher courses in the program. I'm reasonably confident as a writer but very much a beginner as a designer, and have no plans to become a full-time designer, so yeah, I'm slightly intimidated by all you designers out there. But hey, if you're not challenged, you don't grow. Words & Images was a huge challenge to me as a writer and as a designer, but I got so much out of it. If this semester is similar, it will be a success as far as I'm concerned. (And will also involve massive sleep deprivation, but I can live with that.)
Posted by Tess at 5:50 AM

2 comments:

Bobby G said...

re: Intimidated student

They aren't intimidated, they are lazy. Those are the people who will not get a job and complain that the program sucked. They don't work hard, they take the easy route every time, make excuses a blame everyone but themselves. Don't waste your time worrying about them, they keep our tuition manageable. I only have a problem with them when they bog down the class with stupid BS.

September 14, 2009 at 10:15 AM
Tess said...

Oh, there are people like that in all walks of life and all academic disciplines, and sure, they're annoying. Very annoying. Excruciatingly annoying, at times.

But there are also people who are legitimately intimidated, and that's fine. Doesn't mean they won't get anything out of the class. The key is (a) not letting a little fear make you shut down and refuse to push yourself and (b) being honest in crit and willing to push your classmates without denigrating them.

September 14, 2009 at 5:18 PM

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