On Being a Professional

I often ponder the motivations for students choosing to stay in education long after the legal requirement has passed.

For many in Higher Education the motivation is to prepare for employment. But what does that really mean? And do my students really understand what that entails?

In a former life (before I entered the educational world as a lecturer) I was responsible for monitoring and coaching a new and very junior design trainee. Sadly, this particular trainee never quite got beyond the idea that he was doing a job, because at 4:50pm he was already getting his coat on and preparing to leave (most days I would be there beyond 6pm). He failed to understand that having a "job" was one thing, but becoming a professional was something totally different. Needless to say, he did not stay in employment, or in the design industry. Last I heard he worked in a warehouse for a company that has since gone bust.

I share this sorry tale because, at present, I can see a massive proportion of my design students ending up with pretty much the same outcome. They want to be a designer in word only, but their actions speak otherwise. I speak of the ones who never feel stress. For whom missing a deadline is something to shrug off. For whom a sense of urgency is something their teacher has, but who never quite understand why.

One of these students, on hearing when the deadline was, actually said "well that ain't gonna happen".

I compare this to my own response when faced with lots of work but not much time. I immediately begin mentally checking off the non-essential appointments, the things I can cancel or postpone. Then I mentally log the other things that must be done. Then I work out how long I need for the task at hand. Then I work out when I need to go to bed and when I need to get up, to make sure it is done. Even if I lost sleep, even if I had to change plans. In other words, I immediately begin finding a way to get it done, on time, to a good enough standard - and make sacrifices to make it happen.

Then I put in the work.

And that is what it means to be professional. That is what your employer will require of you.

Sadly, when students stay in education in order to prepare for employment, they usually don't have this aspect of their development at the fore-front of their minds. They imagine (if they even have a clear idea of what the future holds at all) that the qualification alone will be enough to get a job, they imagine that somehow magically the fact that they did the course will be enough. But most will fail to become professional, because they resist the very attributes that define professionalism - hard work, sacrifice, commitment, focus, correct priorities, maturity.

These students sometimes exclaim almost incredulously about the shortness of some deadlines, as if such a thing would never happen in real life. Perhaps for them it won't happen, because unless they deal with it, they will never be in a position to get a short deadline, or any deadline at all.

Their lack of professional development will be evident when the course is over. It will show in how they present themselves, it will show in the thin-ness of their portfolio, it will show in their inability to talk intelligently about their work, it will show in the mediocrity and ordinariness of their college work, it will show in the slowness of pace in which they work and their inability to produce quality work at the speed their potential employer requires.

All this because they imagine that professionalism is something they can suddenly switch on when a job interview comes along. But they are mistaken, professionalism is not merely a set of behaviours (like good manners), professionalism is a state of mind, a state of character. Professional is what you are not how you act.

By delaying the decision to become professional until later, my students are delaying the impact a professional approach can have on their grades, and their work, right now.

It is a false move, and one that will cost them dearly and allow more clued up competitors to sweep in and take the prize. I fear that many of my students will literally watch themselves being used as floor rags by the competition while they are only just waking up and thinking it's about time they became professional.

Do the work now. Make the sacrifices now. Be professional now.

To fail to become a professional as a student, is to fail to become a professional designer after graduation.