Looking Forward

By Sarah-Jean Murray

This semester I am enrolled in a “Professional Practice” class (with one of my favorite professors) which meets once a week and discusses resumes, portfolios and how to get a job after graduation. In our first meeting this past Tuesday, the professor went around the class and asked each of us where we wanted to work after graduation. Many of our answers were vague and generally boiled down to, “Wherever I get a job”. Clearly, as a class of 29 seniors, we are clueless! He showed us that we are completely unprepared for the challenges of the real world. We have gone through college and our design classes completely focused on projects and portfolios but have neglected to do our research on what comes after graduation. Of course we have applied to jobs, updated our resumes and researched for interviews but generally we have not thought about the specifics.

Thankfully this class will be helping us with the process of finding out which companies we want to work for and who works at these companies. Who is the art director? What have they done previously? What kind of work do they do? Knowing these specifics will help us once we get those interviews and are asked questions about why we want to work for the company. Having that knowledge, being prepared and being able to answer those kinds of questions will be far more impressive than having nothing to say or making up something on the fly.

I’m excited to continue my journey towards graduation and even more excited to eventually enter the professional design world!