Design and Education

As it is known, higher education in Ukraine leaves much to be desired. Design education, unfortunately, is not an exception.

I can't say if I'm lucky or not, but I received a degree in art. My student years were fun and specific to some extent (we were artists) but horrible at the same time. A lot can be written on the outdated teaching methods, stupid incomprehensible and useless curricula and subjects, inadequate funding, indifferent lecturers, enormous expenses on materials and studying that couldn't be covered by any scholarship (you have to be lucky to get it). Anyway, sooner or later everything comes to an end, and finally, you receive a diploma! Feeling proud and holding the diploma in the hands to go the job interview. And what disappointment grips you when you realize and your abilities are of much greater importance, but the only thing you can do is make a poster with guelder-rose and bandura (Ukrainian folk instrument). This is when a breaking point comes and you begin to realize that without self-education you will fail in changing the world and eliminating Comic Sans with logos designed in MS Word...

It's crucial to understand that you have to learn and move on all the time. Time flies, tendencies are changing, as well as the needs and requirements, but our curricula were probably compiled by dinosaurs. So if you want to be a good designer, you need to your finger on the pulse, keep in touch other designers, read professional books and regularly work on yourself and your projects.

At the same time, you shouldn't think that years in university were spent in vain. You learned the bases of composition, drawing, painting, history of art, color science, designing, etc. All this knowledge will be highly useful for the future. You simply need to filter the received information and take the most valuable pieces. These are by no means only A students who succeed in their career.

So the moral is of the fable is: professional training is good, it gives basic knowledge and skill, but a good result can be achieved only with constant self-development, improving the skills and cultivating the taste. Education provides us with fertile soil, but it's up to us what to do with it further. The options are either to plant a seed into it and reap a rich harvest or to be left with dry and useless academic weed.