About The Student Life From 2001-2004, I was the author of a monthly column, The Student Life, for Core77.com. The Student Life chronicled the trials and tribulations that every design student goes through. You know, such things as dealing with Prismacolors, Alias, and the law. After graduation, I decided it was kinda pointless to continue writing about being a student, so I called it a day. The last column can be seen below. The others can be found if you click here. I continue to blog for Core77's homepage under the nickname "mastadon". Ahhhhh..... That is the sound of me relaxing after four years. That's right, I GRADUATED. Dreams do come true. Looking back on my college experience started reminding me of lists from other designers telling all of the things that they didn’t learn in school. Chris Lenart (from newdealdesign) had a really good one at Thought at Work and Michael Beirut blogged a good one by Michael McDonough at the very cool Design Observer website. I generally agree that I will learn more in a year of work that I did in four years at school. That said, I did learn an awful lot so I decided to make up my own list. MOVE OUT. This is probably just a personal preference sort of thing, but also semi based on a self patched together quasi-scientific fact. Any friend I knew from high school that lived at home generally didn’t do too well in college or dropped out. Anyone I know that moved out of home and within a few miles of campus generally did OK to pretty good in college. Obviously there are numerous exceptions to my theory, which makes it pretty bad as far as theories go, but I still firmly believe that if you can swing it, get out of your parents house. (I still love you mom and dad.) DON’T GO TO SLEEP. At some point you will have to pull an all-nighter. OK, at several points. Around 3-4am you will look at the clock and think that if you can get in just three hours of sleep then wake up at 6am you will be in good shape to finish strong for your project due at 2pm. This is wrong. Instead, you will wake up at 6am hating your life, and use the next 45 minutes to wake up to doing steady work again. Then it will be a mad dash to the finish and you will feel like your heart is going to explode. The moral is keep pushing on through. If at 4:30am you start slowing down, your adrenaline will pick back up again in a half an hour and you will finish with time to get some food before your crit. KEEP A JOURNAL. I have found it really helpful to sort through all the random thoughts in my brain by writing them down. After a half an hour or so I am usually able to make sense of what I thought were complex problems. When I talk about that topic later on, I sound slightly more intelligent then if I haven’t given it much thought. Also, girls dig guys that write journals. You have to keep quiet about it though. It’s supposed to be a secret that makes you dark, mysterious, and give her a “new perspective into that soft side under that rough exterior” sort of thing. If you tell everyone like I just did, you’re a dork. SAVE EVERYTHING YOU DO. This seems somewhat obvious, but save everything you do. I mean everything. The random doodles you do in your liberal arts classes, quick 3D sketches, even stuff you hate at the time. It usually comes back that you will need it for your portfolio or some inspiration down the road. DOCUMENT IMMEDIATELY. As soon as you finish with a project, document it so you can show it to someone as a portfolio piece. It’s fresher in your mind, you remember where all the files and photos related to it are, and you won’t have to worry about making a mad dash to throw something together before you meet with someone. That being said, this rarely happens. BACKUP YOUR WORK. A few weeks ago, my friends and I were talking about how the past four years of our lives were tied to our computers and what a shame it would be if something were to happen to said computers. Not three days later, my hard drive started freakin’ out on me. Luckily, I was able to back up most of (but not all L) of my data before I reinstalled everything. I am begging all of you to stop what you are doing right now and burn all of your important work to CD. JUST SHOW UP. Many of the great opportunities I have had in school came from simply showing up to a meeting or asking someone if I could do something. I have found that most of the time just showing up with a commitment to follow through on whatever it is you want to do is 60% of the battle. Maybe 75%. I don’t know, I’m not good with the “percentage-of-stuff” game. Trust me, it’s a big percentage. KEEP YOUR EARS TO THE GROUND. If you are looking for design opportunities outside of class, you usually don’t have to look far. If you go to a school with an engineering program, you are already up to your waist in student engineering projects that could use a designer to help them out. Engineering programs have the funding, the resources, and know how to actually get your designs realized. Another good source for projects is local communities and schools. They usually are dying for some volunteer to come by and design some park benches or signage. Also there are lots of freelance opportunities out there from small companies that can’t afford a design firm to come in. If you do have problems finding this stuff on your own, ask a professor if they have heard of anyone looking for some help. They get a ton of emails from people soliciting their design help. PUT A RESUME TOGETHER FRESHMAN YEAR It seems kinda pointless at the time because no one really hires freshman design students, but at least have one good to go. By the time you get to senior year, it is polished beyond belief, from all the additions and revisions you make. DON’T BE AFRAID TO SHOW YOUR WORK. Even if you think it sucks. Even if all you have is sketches in a brown paper bag. Even if it does in fact suck. Don’t be afraid to show it to a potential employer. You could still possibly get hired if you show your work. You will not get hired if you don’t show anything. BEING A STUDENT RULES. Believe it or not you have tremendous power being a student. You are young. You make your own schedule. You have a studio full of friends you can rely on. Besides all that, design professionals like talking to students. In fact, they really like talking to students. Imagine you are a professional. You get a call or an email from a design student who really likes your work and they want to ask you a few questions or maybe even see about you coming to their school to talk. That makes your day right there. When you do manage to sneak some time away from their busy schedules be professional, respectful, and thank them profusely. It really is a big help to you. (Again, many thanks to all the designers who have spent the time just to talk with me over the past four years. To return the favor and keep the cycle going, any student that wants to get in touch with me to ask questions, please feel free to email at: don@donald-lehman.com. Of course, anyone interested in hiring me may use the same email.)