declare a more specialized major.
There are very few academic programs in the U.S. that offer a broad
“design” degree; instead, students
select a focus. At art and design
schools they may attend a majors
fair where the professors attempt to
“sell” the students on a given specialization. I’ve seen freshman students select design specializations
because it was rumored they would
encounter less homework, because
they were told they would make a
large salary, because their friends
were doing it, and for all sorts of
other fairly arbitrary reasons.
That specialization selection
then determines the beginning of
what seems, to a naive 18-year-
old, to be “the rest of your life,” as
schools increasingly emphasize
job placement and the need to be
employable. This focus on employment seems to come directly from
the need to offer metrics and statistics to parents, who in turn are
concerned about the six-figure
investment they are making (often
entirely through one or more loans).
The pressure for placement in a
career that has roots in arts and
crafts can seem strange, and in
my various teaching roles I’ve had
dozens of conversations with skeptical parents who are chagrined that
their child is going deeply into debt
in order to make pretty things.
But the promise of a safe nine-to-five job may be a thing of the
past—not just for designers, but for
everyone. Between advances in telecommunications tools, changes in
lifestyle, and the increasing distrust
among the young of the idealistic
views of the old, we may be training
the first generation that can choose
to extract themselves from the rat
race of “jobs.” Doug Rushkoff argues
that “[w]e’re living in an economy
where productivity is no longer the
goal, employment is. That’s because,
March + April 2012