I am going to start off right in the beginning and say that I am only talking about people in the design profession. While some of what I think definitely holds true for everyone, I think I could effectively argue either side of this question. To get straight to the answer, in short … I don’t care.

People go to college to learn how to learn and to train their brain to assess problems and determine what possible steps could or should be taken. You go to a technical college to learn how to do a thing or perform a specific job. You want to learn how to work on HVAC equipment – there’s a school for that and we need people to do those jobs – they are important, but it’s not the same set of criteria used to measure the success of college graduate from a typical four-year program (or five-year program in my case … okay, technically it took me six years but is this the time and place to be talking about that?).

What I am really talking about is critical thinking – a skill that requires good logic skills but demands that the thinker employ accuracy, relevance, clarity and significance. I know what you are thinking (I don’t) …

You: Significance, really? You design thingy’s, just how highly do you think of yourself?

Regardless of what I design, however small, there are reasons for the moves I make. It’s not to often that my motivation is solely based on thinking something would look cool. There is an ebb and flow to design, a push here requires a pull there – there is a never-ending series of compromises that get made to achieve a finished product. Some of those compromises aren’t even made by me and are therefore completely out of my control. That’s why doing what I do required critical thinking – it is not a craft. As a result, I don’t count on the graduates that come to me looking for a job to be ready to enter the working world. I can’t get the most valuable piece of information I want off someone’s resume. I can look at it an infer if they are intelligent and that’s what might get them in the door. What I am interested in are finding smart and articulate communicators who have a passion for something. If you are smart, you’ll figure the rest out while learning how to make it your own. That last bit is the most important part because it implies ownership in the work which I can then infer that you will have pride in the final product, you will want it to be good for yourself rather than simply being able to check the done box on the to-do list and everyone knows that we are own harshest critics.

I always wonder what people expect from the recent college graduates they hire. Transitioning between college life and the workforce is a huge process and who among us is great at anything the first time you try it? Performing well in a new job also isn’t just about being able to do work; it’s about working with others and the challenges that group dynamics always present. It’s also about learning how to conduct yourself with integrity and professionalism – you should also consider that these recent grads have to discover the value of learning for the sake of learning. Prior to graduation their lives were based on achieving some sort of resolution to every project – there was a summation line to everything they did. The process of learning how to delegate authority and accept responsibility for things out of their control is a painful one and I expect to help steward people through this transformation – a sort of professional pay-it-forward process.

We do things a particular way in our office and there are particular things that I want done a specific way. I will take the time to teach you those things but the rest … that’s up to you and your big brain. (line forms to the left please). For what it’s worth here are some considerations or tips, whatever, that I think grads entering the workforce should know:

You don’t know as much as you think and we both know it. Don’t pretend to know something you don’t.

College Grads get entry-level jobs and tasks. It is what it is, you aren’t the Big Man on Campus anymore.

College hasn’t prepared you for everything; accept it and be flexible.

Are you looking for a job or a true calling?

Be prepared to discover what personal accountability really means; there are no do-overs, extensions or free-passes for “next time”.

Work on your ability to communicate and actively listen

See your task through to completion. In other words – finish what you start.

These don’t sound too hard do they? They aren’t but they don’t come naturally and most graduates haven’t been asked to be accountable to someone other than themselves at this level before. When I step back and evaluate a new hire or a recent graduate, my criteria is almost always based on their ability to learn new things and their capacity to process information. College is a period of evolution and transition for most people and despite how hard you work or how hard you party, the grades you receive in your English 101 class will never enter my radar screen. I suppose there is something to be said for the student who does study hard and makes really great grades – this speaks to preparation and responsibility which are also desirable traits in a college grad. I am probably speaking from personal experience in that I blossomed late and if you took a look at the grades I got when I was “transitioning” in school, as a possible future employer, you would have missed out on what I feel would have been your best employee. I get to work early, I leave late, I am a self-starter, and like to think I am extremely articulate and I am a good communicator. Uhmm… what school did I attend to hone those skills? That’s right – the School of Life (Ooooooh … I got that line in my post!).

If you are a design professional, you will also know that the different college programs out there have different areas of focus to them. For example, I went to The University of Texas at Austin, where admittance is extremely competitive and it is a demanding and difficult program. They didn’t try to teach us all the things that we would need to know when we graduated – in fact, it’s almost like they went out of their way to avoid that sort of thing. The curriculum they focused on covered the areas that I wouldn’t be exposed to once I graduated. They rightfully made the conclusion that if I was smart enough to get into their program, I could figure out the technical aspects of the finer points of building detailing … and they were right.

Going to College, and therefore graduating from college, isn’t about teaching people how to solve a particular problem or perform a certain task. Going to college is about learning how to learn so you can hopefully solve new problems.

Cheers

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