Designing a career

Being in the internship-search mode brings a lot of complicated decisions and choices that draw upon our basic personality and character. Most of us want to stay in our place of comfort and keep doing what we know best and what we are used to working with as opposed to what is possible. To a lot of people it becomes a question of prestige and telling their friends where they are working.

It becomes harder to decide what direction to take as the semester draws to a close and your feelings go from anxiety to panic if you don't have a placement for a co-op lined up. So many people keep wondering if they should apply to places where they don't want their career to go, just for the sake of completing the required co-op hours. For many it becomes more about being able to afford an unpaid co-op.

To a lot of people a career is a goal like 'working in one of the best retail design firm' or 'want to become a residential designer' or a lot of people say 'my own design firm'. What I've realized is that a career doesn't have to be a place where you reach and feel: I'm there. A career can also be a journey of discovery, you constantly come into contact with various areas of design and learn something from all of them. Each area of design has its own value (there's that word again) and what we learn from all the bits and pieces of information we come across will eventually add up to a rich database of knowledge. A designer who understands many areas and aspects of design will have a unique approach and will have a vision that will keep growing and expanding.

One of the wonderful characteristics of design is its adaptability to time and conditions. It won't be a very good relationship between design and a designer who is afraid of change.