Its been a while...nice to see you again peoples. How have you all been hohohoho.
At work we have had this new mentee come in (mentee as in the mentors student thingi), and they are studying at the same university as I did in graphic design. It made me think and remember about my 4 years there. Memories of how I hated and loved bits of that experience.
The first two years were not that great and only until third year did I feel slightly comfortable. Overall the set out and structure of the subjects/course was not great. There are a lot of technical skills you miss out on...at least the basic skills required to get a noob up and running faster in the real world would be ideal. A lot of focus was on the concept thinking and lateral visions (although the teaching was soso), I think it was too much! They didn't test out speed thinking and real life on job thoughts and production. Also developing your skills was not realised, all they wanted to see was an ideal pretty fancy end product. Same style design bullshit and the usual shit you see over and over again. They didn't promote innovative ideas and/or real world solutions. Both sides to the stories.
I found out later the course convenor or head of the design was a bullshit old fatass lady who had no real experience and skills (even my current boss had her for a class ages ago and thinks the same). She was racist too which made it worse. Also failed me for no real reason because my work was supposedly boring...wtf? It met the brief and although not the best design out there it was at least a pass. Anyway you have to meet her in real life.
Another thing I must mention is that doing industrial design as an elective was surprisingly my best move during studying graphic design. I really respected: the teachers, tutors, fellow students and the work. The whole structure set out is MUCH better than the graphic design one. I really loved it and even would consider studying or changing to industrial design! lol. The teaching, concept thinking methods, atmosphere and sketching is much more effective. I recommend learning or taking industrial design at least as an elective!!! I learnt so much there that I am now using in my graphic design.
Wow, this was a long post. Arms are sore again after a busy week at work.
Talk later!
