Come design with me was a night that our graphics pathway had put on to invite graduates that had been through the same degree as me at Stockport College graduated and are now in the big bad world.
We decided to invite them to our college at around 6pm until 8pm on the 07.10.2010. We all gave £3 in the kitty to get a couple of bottles of wine and some nibbles. Then anyone who wanted to afterwards could head over to the pub the Nelson to have a couple of drinks to end a good night.
We had discussed as a group during the day what we were going to ask the ex graduates and how we were going to ask them questions. We understood that the people that were willing to come and talk to us would have to literally most of them just finish work and set off to our college , so we wanted to give them a nice relaxed environment so that they didn't feel under any pressure.
We decided to go with the idea of having a tombola with sweets in it. We were going to sit in two circles and bring the couches in so that it didn't feel as awkward for them as well as us. During the day we all wrote down as many questions that we could think of on little pieces of paper for the tombola so that when we span it we all had different questions to ask everybody.
This worked really well and we did this for about an hour and a half. The only criticism I would have about this is that the graduates didn't swap half way through so we didn't get a chance to speak to everybody.
This night really did help me to understand what it's like and what to expect upon leaving University. We got lots and lots of answers that all seemed to be pretty similar... word hard, and never give up. One big factor that they brought up is that they stressed that it was better to make contacts now whilst we are still in college so that when we leave we are not going out there with having no engagement with the graphic industry. I didn't realise how important this was really but I have started E-mailing different companies not necessarily for a portfolio visit but just to ask a few questions so that they become familiarised with who I am. Even though I would say that portfolio visits are a real help in making contacts as you are meeting them face to face, they get to know a little bit about you as a person and likewise and they can give you good critical feedback. It also builds confidence to actually go out there be confident about your own work and to be able to talk about it. I thought it was good to meet these graduates as again it adds to the list of contacts and it was nice to see what kinds of graphics they went in to. Some went in to product design working for big companies Adidas, some went in to advertising, some have even collaborated and made their own company for example last years students that worked with Thoughtful have now created their own group called Lost in The Forest, which to me is very impressive.
Some parts of the talks were quite tedious and scary though because a lot of them had a lot of bad luck with actually getting a job or getting anywhere or having to move on because the job that they liked wasn't for them and that they had to work until early hours of the morning to meet deadlines for not a highly impressive wage. This really has opened my eyes to this course. Since the graduates came the workload has seemed to pile on but it is a challenge. I have to get my head down and work solidly through it and be prepared as some of the ex grads said "to not have a life for a while". I do love what I do and I am prepared to make this happen. I'm just glad now that this has made me realise that everything is not so rosy and it is definitely not going to come to me, I have to grab the bull by the horns and really go for this if I want to be noticed.
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