6 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Design School Experience
In our collaborative, creative problem-solving-driven workplace, design school is arguably one of the most relevant kinds of higher…
In our collaborative, creative problem-solving-driven workplace, design school is arguably one of the most relevant kinds of higher education you can get today. That said, it’s typically very expensive with limited financial aid options. When you or your parents are making that kind of investment, how can you make sure you’re getting the most out of it? Here are some suggestions.
Take risks — try anything and everything.
Don’t just stick with what you know you’re good at. This is a unique chance to explore every corner you’re curious about. Don’t just disappear into your major. Here’s why:
First, you might discover something totally new about yourself that you never imagined. Something that takes you in a completely new direction.
Secondly, the real world does not conform to the silos of academic disciplines. Being a well-rounded individual gives you a better chance of success in a world that hasn’t been sitting around waiting for you to arrive — a world where you may have to design your own role. When you find that you need to learn something entirely new to embrace your next opportunity, you’ll be much more comfortable working with uncertainty and taking risks.
Success comes through trying. Over time, I’ve observed that the most successful alumni weren’t necessarily the most talented (some were quite terrible, in fact), but they did actively pursue opportunities.
School is a unique laboratory for experimentation where taking risks won’t impact whether or not you have a roof over your head or whether your kids will have food to eat. You’ll have the intellectual and social support of a like-minded community. This is why you’re going to a design school instead of self-teaching out in the woods somewhere.
2. Take jobs that develop useful skills.
Look for meaningful work and extracurriculars that will develop you as a person. You’ll be doing lots of creative work in your classes, so consider developing those other super-critical skills to success: listening, communication, leadership, networking, and organization.
Particularly with regards to design, much of what will determine your happiness and professional success is your ability to create, communicate, and generate consensus around a vision. It’s extremely rare to work alone with total creative and fiscal autonomy.
Talent alone will not carry the day. I know some incredibly talented people from school that I neither hire nor recommend to others precisely because they lack these skills. Who cares how brilliant someone is if you can’t communicate with them, they’re difficult to work with, and they aren’t organized enough to deliver on time? Would you be willing to stake your reputation (or your paycheck) on a person like that?
3. Negotiate to build a personalized curriculum
You’re paying for your education (or your parents are). Inasmuch as it’s valuable to have the humility and open-mindedness of being a student, do also think of yourself as the customer or client paying for a service. Make sure you get your time and money’s worth.
To do that, you’ll need to create some goals for what you want to learn through the school experience. You don’t need to stick to the same goals the whole time — just start somewhere and keep checking in with yourself about what you want. Don’t make the mistake of relying on existing school curriculum to give you purpose or direction. Those are just tools to get you started somewhere.
If your professor isn’t giving your enough feedback, actively seek it out. No matter what people tell you, nearly everything is negotiable. In spite of what people say, grades do matter, so instead of blowing off that project, negotiate with your professors to modify your assignments to serve your needs and your interests.
Most professors are thrilled to see someone who’s engaged with their own learning. Do they really want to read 20 papers on the same subject? Hardly. Find something you’re excited about, and work it into the themes of your classes. After all, you didn’t choose design school just to do random assignments. Make your education work for you.
4. Be the person you want to attend school with
In as much as you are a part of a larger educational system, you personally create culture by who you are. Professors and administrators, while they are supposed to represent and shape the institution, are just ordinary humans full of the same insecurities, competing motives, etc. Just because they’re probably older or more established than you doesn’t mean that they’re necessarily any wiser in the arena of culture or professionalism. Don’t expect them to solve everything for you.
You have a say in what school is like for yourself and for others. So make a conscientious decision about who you want to be — and be it.
5. Think like a long distance runner — not like a sprinter
Healthy body, healthy mind, and healthy relationships go hand in hand. If you’re coming to design school straight out of high school, you’ve probably never experienced having much autonomy to determine what works best for you personally. You’ll need to track and measure what works best for you.
Design schools, at least the one I attended, have a reputation for having a huge workload. This is not so much a fact as a pervasive myth: that one must work all the time in order to be good at what one does. And there are lots of reasons, right? There’s social pressure, it can be fun, you might be a procrastinator or a hyper-perfectionist. There are plenty of explanations for how you might end up living from critique to critique.
However, that’s thinking like a sprinter. Over the long term, neglecting the need for sleep, exercise, proper nutrition, or friends creates a pathway to diminishing returns as you repeatedly stress out your body and mind without taking the time to recharge them.
You’ll have memory and attention challenges if you’re tired — literally reducing what you can get out of those classes that you’re paying for (and will probably be paying for for years afterwards). And if you’re only interacting with your immediate classmates, you’ll have weaker social support. You might argue that there are weekends and holiday breaks, but if you continually put yourself through a lot of stress, you will burn through your physical and emotional reserves before you’ve had a chance to replenish them from the last sprint. This can lead to adrenal fatigue as well as long-term health problems. Sounds serious? It is.
And while this may be tolerable while you’re young…old habits die hard. When you’re back in the working world, it’s amazing how those restorative breaks seem to evaporate (compare summers off and winter breaks with two weeks of annual paid vacation). Rather than merely needing to survive until the next critique, as a professional, you’ll need to be continuously delivering value for DECADES. This means you need to think like a long-distance runner.
If you want to be a high performer throughout the length of your career (if you’re an architect, that usually means going until you die), think about what you want your life to be like and create a plan for how you’re going to nourish yourself, your creativity, and your relationships. And then start living that way right now while you’re in school, before all of those real-world responsibilities get added to the mix.
Everyone has their own optimum process — find yours. Early bird vs. night owl. Isolation vs. social. Large stretches of focus time vs. a number of short breaks. Whatever you do, don’t just stick to the status quo. The sooner you know what works best for you, the sooner you start performing at your best. That’s a gift you can use for the rest of your life — even if you end up not doing anything design-related later on.
6. Be a professional
Do take internships, residencies, etc. When I was in school, a number of my professors actively discouraged students from taking summer internships. Many voiced concerns that summer internships would burn students out during the time they should have been recharging for the fall semester. Not always the strongest in interpersonal/practical skills themselves(see tip #2), some viewed non-academic work as full of disillusioning compromises and thus to be put off for as long as possible. Several of my fellow classmates also suspected ulterior motives in disciplines with limited job opportunities.
While I believe that most people who teach truly want the best for their students…whatever their reason, please ignore anyone who advises against gaining professional experience. Internships often lead to job offers. If you’ve been responsibly managing yourself like a long-distance runner, you don’t need to worry about burnout.
Seeing your impact in the real world is profoundly important and meaningful as an experience. Get a taste now and you’ll be better prepared for it later. In the meanwhile, it may also help you recognize the benefits of being in design school — so you can truly savor your time there — while you’re still there.