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