Thursday, November 12, 2015
Why is so much of design school a waste of time?
Dear Design Student — Medium: So here’s the secret that I didn’t put into practice until after I graduated: you’re a gold miner, not a customer, and if you don’t get good at mining for gold, you will never be a good designer. Especially once you make it past the first year or two of working, you spend less time wrestling with making things and more time listening to people in person, on the phone, in slack, in texts, in email, pretty much everywhere where they can find you. They are redundant, inarticulate, inefficient, vague, and inconsistent, and they are constantly going on and on about something. And god bless them.
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I agree with a good extent of this article, but not all of it. Yes, design school is where we learn how to take criticism and make it productive rather than ignoring it, but it is also a place to learn hands on skills which you can’t learn by yourself using the internet. Let’s take a look at the AutoCad class which freshman DPs are required to take: If someone tried to tell me that I could learn everything that was taught in that class by looking it up on the internet, I would say they were insane. Because we are taught by professionals who have used these tools for years, they know all of the shortcuts and tricks which speed up the learning process exponentially. If I had learned AutoCad the same way I taught myself to use Photoshop, I would still be unable to draft a basic drawing.
This article regrettably makes so really great points. So often here at drama school I find myself wondering what is the point of having another project that is going to stress me out and take away my life for a week when the feedback I get along the way seems to always make my projects that much harder to do because they didn't like it. Except when I look back at the project (sometimes months later) I realize that it was preparing me to take criticism and make my project look better rather than letting me float at average. Every project we did freshman year that Susan expected us to get done in a week from concept to museum quality result helped me to think of a bunch of different ideas really quickly and to asses what the best avenue would be to make the project the best it could be. To bring this back to the article; if you can take the criticism you get on a bad project and use every ounce of it to make your next project nothing like the first one, you can make some amazing things, while realizing that both projects were all you and your ideas and your style, not only something different.
The author takes a simple stance, which is that you are rarely as good as you think that you are, and so your design education is important simply based on the virtue that you are being educated. Sure, the work you're doing might not be the most stimulating, and the teachers might not give you the respect, but you are learning that everybody starts somewhere and the metaskills you learn are just as valuable as the actual design knowhow. A specific point she touches on is learning how to mine for gold, and find the things that truly light your fire and make you excited to go to class or go to work. So many people spend their lives at dead end jobs just trying to make ends meet so they can open a tab at the bar, but just by choosing to go to design school you're setting yourself on a different path. So finding your joy in the work is the best thing school can teach you. The article also ruminates on how to receive feedback, with special attention being paid to letting bad comments affect how you work, not who you are. You can't please everyone, and you are still learning, so embrace the fact that you are a student by asking questions and challenging yourself.
I completely agree with the sentiment in this article. As much as I’d like to think that the art I’m creating is only there to please my aesthetic and mine alone I think its important to remember in the end that just because someone doesn’t “get” your art doesn’t mean it is bad. It could simply mean that they fail to have some experience than your or they could have way more experience and understand an issue or a symbol differently than you. Getting feedback is a gift and one that you can use to make your art more impactful. In the end when we’re working for ourselves making art that only we like can be just fine. However, when we are working for a client, we need to make the most impactful piece possible that also fulfils the customer’s needs. Design school seems to pretty much be one giant exercise in this practice.
The author presents an easy-to-read and easy-to-understand perspective on how, not only is it important to hear criticism, but it is important to sort through that criticism to figure out what you deem important. That is what I believe is fundamental to becoming successful in any industry. People are willing to criticize what you do anywhere, but the important thing is being able to listen to what they say and take from it what you believe is necessary to improve upon your skills, and you hone this skill by repeating it over and over again.
Yes, in school, you learn hard skills, such as computer programs and communication styles and the history of design fundamentals, but the ability to create is innate and is honed through a process of feedback and recreation.
I would also say that part of the reason for doing something ten times over again is too see how much you can handle at once. Part of being in school is learning to prioritize and manage time, and if you are not handled a lot of projects, you will not learn those skills.
I totally agree with what the writers is saying about the importance of learning how to take, process, and grow from criticism, and how much of this is able to happen in school if you allow it to. Even though I’ve only been in “design school” for a few months, I’ve quickly learned how important it is to appreciate criticism just as much, if not much more, than compliments. What I’ve so enjoyed about my experience so far in the school of drama is that everyone is almost always very aware of how lucky they are to be in an educational establishment with so many talented students and so many professors who have worked in the theater world professionally. I feel like this makes it so everyone, instead of being offended or upset by critique like they might have been in high school, very much appreciative and grateful to have their work analyzed and criticized by professors, because that means that they have an opportunity to improve and become a better artist. I think this is especially important for theater design/ management, where it’s such a competitive field and negative audience/ professional reviews are rampant.
I get the author's point of view. Looking at the work we do in education we are only setting ourselves up for success in the real world. School is the time to make those mistakes so that we don't hurt anyone or lose money. But I've made some pretty great things in my opinion that i think i will cherish for the rest of my life, no matter how cool my other projects will be. To me as a consumer I think there is just as much value in an early work of an artist than a recent piece. In terms of theatre this is different but say a consumer wanted to buy the first piece that Andy Warhol painted in school, did he waste his time painting it or is it one of the most cherished things you own? For this reason I choose to keep many of my pieces because I have no idea who will want it later, my kids, my wife, my decedents, or someone i don't even know. Even if it isn't cherished by anyone maybe it can continue to remind me what i learned while making that. No one is ever done learning, we are always practicing and improving our craft, that is why they call it a practice in many professions.
I think this author did a great job of explaining why people go to design school. Yes, a certain part of it is learning how to do what we do, and that’s certainly a useful part. But so much more of it is about how to work with other people and beyond that how to take criticism and use it well. Compliments are great, but criticism is what lets us learn and become better at what we do. If you’d asked me before I came to here whether or I’d want to get critiqued on my work, I’d have said I didn’t since that would have meant I did something wrong or missed something. Since I got here I’ve come to appreciate and look forwards to those critiques, they’re what help give me other ways of looking at projects and how to go about creating things.
This is one of those articles that you save because the topic its discussing is so reoccurring. It’s hard to take criticism, especially when you become so attached to your work. The most helpful thing I got from this article is the part about leading the conversation to a point where it is helpful to you. Criticism means nothing if you don’t get it, and though that sounds self evident, in design school it’s hard to know what people are trying to say. I think I run into trouble here because most often there is no one thing your professor can tell you to do to take your idea to the next level, or to make it effectively translate, but like this article says, treat it as a conversation. Perhaps I am too intimidated at times to ask for further explanation, but I recognize it is the only way to get the most out of y criticism and out of my education.
Design, and art are hard. In so many other things there is a “right” answer, or at least one that right enough, but so often in design there are just opinions. Sure, there is unquestionable technical skill that can be impressive and sometimes the execution requires its own praise, but that isnt what this article is really about. Whenever a friend of mine asks what I think of something they did, I never really understood before coming to school here that, although sometimes I should just say “it looks great!”, most of the time they want me to tell them what I really see in it. What I should say is the first thing that jumps into my head and give them my honest reaction to it, that is the biggest favor I can do for them if they want to improve. It does feel like we are being trained to give and take criticism in a productive manner, and that’s a good thing, it is so obviously valuable in life, but not something we like to make ourselves do.
I see that about ten people have already commented on this article, and having read through it I find people have spoken up with good reason. The author tells the straight truth about the goal of being a design student in the entertainment industry: the reason why she didn't progress and her best friend/mortal enemy did was because he was more willing to be of the 'tell me more' mindset. Having a willingness to be a sponge and soak up the ideas of others, to filter through the information to decide what is bullshit and what is valuable, is perhaps the most important skill our teachers are trying to shove at us over our four years here. It doesn't necessarily matter how good your product is at the end of the day, or if you have the coolest or most innovative designs in the class. What matters is your reaction to the feedback you've been given, and how you can take your product (good or bad as it is) and keep improving upon it with the suggestions you've taken from the people who do, in fact, know more than you. Designing is a personal, personal medium, but there are certain aspects of it, like clarity and story-telling, that other people can help you craft and specify so that your designs reach a wider audience. All you have to do, as the author says, is to always ask to be told more.
For the purposes of commenting on this article I’m going broaden design school to also include the management side of the drama school world as that is the world that I am currently living in. I totally disagree with everyone that says that art school is the biggest waste of time and that students are not learning anything which is truly just a whole of bunch of cold raw slim baloney. I have learned so much in two and half years at the carneige mellon school of drama than I think I would have if I was just a regularly college student. I think this is because all of my classes are practical classes. Other than my electives everything that I am learning in the classroom transfers to my production work which is modeled off of the real world, so I am actually learning my craft for what it actually it is. If that is not preparing students for after college life I don’t know what is.
I personally struggle with constructively taking criticism a lot, so i found this article to be extremely helpful and informative. In terms of my own use of criticism I think I too often want to know that I'm on the right path and am at least working towards a better product than necessarily hearing all of the particulars about why my design is less successful or completely unsuccessful all together. In a certain sense sometimes I'd prefer to just hear that something was off and that I should redesign a project than listen to all of the particulars because pointing out all ones flaws can make them feel like they are failing more then they are succeeding, which can have a significant impact on their view of themselves. While I feel like I'm becoming much better at taking criticism, largely because I'm paying more attention to how I receive it, I think this article does a great job of reminding us that the only way you can really fail is by not growing. I found the the metaphor used of a gold miner pretty compelling as the real job of a designer is to distinguish the cream from the crap and use that useful 10% of information to create something that stands out. This perspective is one I hope to use moving forward.
Art is hard to place a grade on. Everyone will interpret something in a different way and get something different out of a piece. However, there are certain rules and aspects of art and design that can make one's work a lot better. Though everyone will have different design ideas, there are ways to execute those ideas effectively, which is the point of going to school for design. As a freshman, I'm coming into Carnegie Mellon with next to no artistic experience, apart from basic arts and crafts in middle school. Over the past few months, I have learned so much, but not just from lessons in class. The constructive criticism I have received from my professors has been enormously helpful in my learning experience. I love how this article really puts a focus on the importance of criticism from others on art, since that is the best way to improve art.
I do not think design school is a total waste of time. I did not come into this school as a designer or artist, but now I can consider myself a designer because of all the things I have learned in class and the projects I have made. It can be frustrating sometimes when we are given feedback on our designs, especially when it is from multiple teachers. A lot of the time I want to know what the teachers want in order to get a good grade. I know that that is not the goal of school, but that is how we have been trained our whole lives since school is so focused on the grades you receive. It is important to listen to criticism and take parts of it to help improve your product. If you do exactly what the person critiquing your work is saying then it will not be completely your work and you may not be happy with it. It is important to go with your gut, but also listen to what others have to say in order for you to grow.
Being able to really take and grow from criticism is the biggest skill students are supposed to gain from going to school. The mentality that school is full of people who hate every idea you come up with and is a complete waste of you time and energy only meant to cause you to have a psychological breakdown, is the false type that needs to not be in the design program. School is meant to expose you to new ways of thinking, break the bad habits you developed early on when you were in the unconscious incompetence level of learning. And to think that learning stops when you leave school is also a false idea. School is just the beginning of a life long journey of being more open minded in design and discovering new things about the world we all live in. The greatest part about being open minded and using school as the foundation to learn to grow from criticism means that as a designer you will always only get better and you will never peak.
This article reminds me of the art class I took this past summer. The teacher was very similar to the one mentioned in the article. He criticized everyone’s work thoroughly each class. This being my first formal art class, I didn’t know what to make of it. I started to wonder if I chose the wrong course to take and if I should just drop it. Then I had to miss a week. My art teacher later gave me the assignment to bring home and do there, but told me that I wouldn’t have to bring it back to him to critique. Thinking this as a blessing, (I could finally just make art without telling me that what I was doing was wrong!) I went back home very happy. But when sitting down, I came across a realization. I didn’t have as much motivation to do this art piece with knowing that I wouldn’t get feedback on it. I could only think “what’s the point?” and “how can I learn what is trying to be taught without the teacher’s advice?” For the other projects in the class, I tried to listen more closely to the advise and criticisms the teacher gave, which I hope has made me into a better artist. So yes, sometimes I wish that teachers could be a bit nicer about people’s artwork, but then I remember that the purpose of being in any sort of creative class or school is to learn, which is really the same as getting critiques on our work.
Honestly, the title of this article is total clickbait. This article is not about design school being a waste of time. It is about the constant struggle that every artist has in order grow. We all need to get over our own egos, sit down, and make it happen. I am as guilty about this as anyone, because I hold my work close to me, and put so much into it that I find myself personally attacked if people don't like it. This needs to be put aside. Most of design school is teachers looking at your work and saying "And?" It can be and often is disheartening. I am not saying that this is a practice good for self esteem or self confidence, but as much as it pains me to admit, it does force us to be more creative people. It is not a teacher's job to be nice or to be your friend. It is their job to keep us from settling. It is a tough slog to get through, but I have the conviction that ultimately, the struggle is all for the best.
I am sure this has found resonance with many people within the School of Drama community. On any given day I hear upward of five people ask "Why am I here? What the (insert expletive of choice) am I doing?", colored by various tones and intensities of frustration. For the most part, the askers are joking, but at 4 am in a design studio, the question is more beseeching, more serious.
I do not have a fully-baked answer, but more often than not I tend to operate under the notion that we are here so we can mess up in an environment that will not truly let us fail. Just as the author recommends soaking up feedback, the School of Drama provides almost infinite instances in which one may not only fail, but to learn how to fail, and learn from a failure. In the sciences, it is hard to criticize an absolute answer. I did not have to learn how to take criticism the same way I am learning now. It's humbling. But the process is rewarding.
This. This is important. I hate to sound like an old fogey but some youngsters at this school want to be babied and think of the faculty as the enemy. The only reason they tend to think this is because the faculty don’t tell them they are great all the time. The students here tend to be coming from a big fish in a little pond situation in which they were the best at design, managing and whatnot. The danger with that kind of situation is that they only person you can measure your progress against is yourself and that is not an accurate way to measure. Take the mature route and accept the critics that are offered you at the end of the semester. At least the faculty is taking the time to do that. I went to an undergrad where actors were never given accurate critics and then were left floundering for four years because they never got cast in a show and nobody would tell them why. Buck up buttercup and use their feed back to get better instead of throwing it to the side.
The subject of this article, the ability to take criticism and use it to further your design, is something that I both struggled with and learned so much from in Amy Needs a Name this year. We did a project where we had to tell the story of a novel we read, Station Eleven, through the lens of a word. My group's word was "art." We worked for hours to come up with a strong idea that would tell the story through art, and finally decided on one, rehearsed it endlessly, and performed it in class. At the end of class that day, our teachers stood in front of us and said, "Not good enough. You came up with your ideas and you stopped. Do it again for next week." I was furious. I could not believe that they would have the nerve to tell us that we did not follow through with our idea. I could not get past the thought that they were only doing this to make us angry. And then I realized what the point of the class was: it was to get us to push ourselves further, even when we thought we'd done everything we could. It was to install a nagging voice in our head that said, "Are you really finished? Is this really what you want? Are you really telling this story as successfully as possible?" And now it is a voice that stays with me. So yes, I am a manager in design school, and design school is worth it.
I know that we, as a freshman class, joke about how we'll be cut or ask why we came here. When we really all came here for the same reason: to grow. Back in highs school I received almost no criticism, and the little I got was not very detailed. One if the reasons I chose to come the Carnegie was because I knew the professors would tear me apart, and push me to being a better artist and overall person. The ability to accept and use criticism is vital in our world. Being stubborn and hardheaded will get you nowhere. Really, in my opinion, the purpose if our freshman year is to teach us that we are no longer the best. We are no longer in charge. And we definitely don't know everything we thought we knew. This is a great thing, and I'm excited to grow.
Wow, that was really real. I’m not much of a designer, but I’ve certainly had to start when I got to CMU. And now that I’m just starting to create and design, I’m also starting to realize how frustrating criticism is. Because you either feel like you’re getting too much or not enough. And that’s really rough. But this article said it in a really great way; you have to know what you’re looking for. It’s not the clients job to be clear for you. And while you want to focus on you the whole time, sometimes collaboration is what needs to happen in order to be successful. I think a large part of it is respect. In the case of theatre, it’s the director respecting that the designer also has a creative vision they would like to execute, but it’s also the designer respecting that a director has to create a cohesive production that doesn’t just cater to one person’s vision. This mutual respect is so important in creating a successful show, and it’s something we are just beginning to explore in our design classes here at CMU.
I think this article is so great in what it is trying to teach, and I think it does a great job of pointing out that people have a hard time accepting criticism, and that most of what they are saying really is easier said than done. What they don't acknowledge is the feeling of putting your soul into something for days, weeks, or months and then having someone look at it for 5 minutes and tell you there is XYZ wrong with it. While these people are normally right, and the rational Sarah who has gotten 10 hours of sleep, would agree whole heartedly with them. The Sarah that probably hadn't gotten a lot of sleep that week, and really loves her end result is probably not going to be as graceful. this isn't to say that Sarah #2 is right in her reaction, she isn't but taking criticism well is a huge challenge, for everyone. When I think about learning how to take criticism my mind drifts to a recent Molly McCarter quote that I loved. When asked how to make it through the daunting enormity of Monet Molly responded "just suck it up and do it". So simple, and so true, except I had never really thought about it that way. What I realized after thinking about it for a little bit was that challenges are just a state of mind. Things are only has hard as you convince yourself that they are. So when it comes to criticism I think that we need to just suck it up and do it, because we know that it will help us in the long run.
Criticism is what got me to CMU and I know that criticism will push me forward into a career in the arts. Yes people tend to get attached to their work and question every opposing force it has, but it isn't healthy for you or your art to refuse the reviews you get. Something I am quickly learning here is that not everyone is going to be a fan of your work, or understand your concepts behind your designs. You just have to deal with it and with each criticism, open up your mind more and more to endless possibilities. That is something I wouldn't have really learned if I just went out into the world. I'm so thankful for "design school" because it's helping me grow as a person and as an artist, pushing me to learn new things and apply them to the unorthodox. No it is not a waste of time. I wouldn't pay this much money for something I didn't think would pay off. This will pay off.
Other than the clickbait article title, this article really resounded with me. Everybody handles criticism differently, and it certainly is important to note that how you handle criticism is a significant part of your job, especially so if you are a student. At least it school, it would seem to me to be be rather presumptuous to think that your work is automatically superior to everyone else's around you and that you are not deserving of any criticism. Perhaps a lot of this article is simply talking about people with different personalities that cannot be changed. I feel like it is so hard to train "being open minded" or "having a tough skin." These traits are definitely hard to instill into people. I mean, there are certainly days at school where I am like.. hey, I thought that was pretty good! Why are you criticizing it so much! But I usually realize the feedback is for my own edification, and that it is likely valuable, even if I don't understand it at the minute.
Design school is such a quandary for some, as it raises the question, can you really lean how to creative? The answer is primarily a negative--you can learn various tools to make you successful, but it's ultimately how you utilize these tools that will determine your success. Unlike concrete fields where there are clear yes and no answers, design is ever fluctuating, making it all the more important that one learns to accept that change is a necessary and vital part of the process, and learning to "let go" of the work can be one of the best things that you can do. Especially in design school, people feel that if they can't learn a new technique or a new method of doing something, then its worthless. But the art of taking criticism and drive to constantly improve one's work will be a trait essential to a successful career.
This article speaks so closely to so much of the teaching here at CMU, and at every design school, in some regard.
I really enjoyed the part of this article speaking to sifting through what was being said, and taking away what was useful to you.
So much of the time I get caught up in understanding the big picture, or remembering all that a teacher said in class. In metaskills we just learned how to take efficient effective notes. To be completely honest I think I found this most recent lesson more difficult than most. I find it hard to sift through information, deciding what is useful and what is fluff. What if I sift through the information and let an important piece of content slip through the cracks?
That's why I like this article... It reassures me that what I am learning here, and what is being preached at CMU is valid. Many people take this approach. For that I am thankful.
According to this article, there is a clear argument against design schools being education or not and if they are just a waste of time. From my own experience as a Design and Production student in the School of Drama at Carnegie Mellon University, I can see both sides. Design schools are very educational because they pull you from the bottom-up. You are put through classes that help with your understanding of your focus, gain techniques for future projections and how to work in a collaborative environment. Before I came into this program I felt that I had a good grasp of what I wanted to do and I knew I loved working with a team. To this day, I feel like I've been through an intense process that has allowed my to properly advance artistic ability and be able to used that ability during a production project for a future show. However, in a design school, every student gets a different experience. It depends on what you get out of a program and how interested you were during the process. Because of the lack of papers and homework, design school could be misunderstood as a waste of time because it doesn't follow the typical college curriculum.
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