March is for Teaching
It's a total coincidence (or maybe not?) that my word of this month is "teach" and last month's was "learn". As many of you know, January started my additional career as a university professor. And not just any professor, but a Design Professor (yes, I will capitalise that D and P) at my alma mater, Syracuse University, on their London campus for their study abroad students. I'm teaching one of the exact design classes I took for my major – to students who are currently in my former major (talk about full-circle!).
But enough reminiscing and back to the teaching part of this newsletter. I began with few expectations and knowledge of what I was getting into as a professor aside from what my own professors had reminded me (yes, I set up calls with a couple of them after I accepted the position) and what I had remembered about the class from those many moons ago. Although teaching is literally in my blood (my father was a teacher his entire career) and is all around my family (aunts and cousins' are teachers at all levels from elementary to university) AND my in-laws' are deep in the teaching world as well (both my mother AND father-in-law were teachers, as is my sister-in-law) this was never something I thought I'd ever do. But when life hands you an opportunity via a meeting on LinkedIn, you take it!
Nearly Done
So now, here I am nearly two-thirds through the semester of my very first class and I can say it is something I never thought I would ever be doing but something I am absolutely loving. The students are total gems – all very different personalities, of course, but their ideas are brilliant and they are kind to each other and are (mostly) hard-workers (you have to be in this major at this uni otherwise you're not going to graduate). I have realised that there will be places in the world for all of them, whether top notch creative directors one day or production artists or anything else in between. I have also come to realise that they are in charge of their own lives and I cannot make them "do the work" – they have to want to do it themselves.
I've also found myself doling out design and London life advice every Monday (remember, these are students who up until this point were living on campus in upstate New York – now they are in the urban playground that is London! So many random pieces of advice about everything from going to Boots pharmacists for over-the-counter meds to where to find Method hand soap to telling them when the clocks move forward and a hundred other things).
Design Advice
I'm also taking some of the design advice I give them and using it myself. And vice versa – because I'm still working as a professional designer and working on client projects simultaneously, I am sometimes running into the same challenges as my students. It's at these times when I'm at my desk in my studio that I try to take my own advice I've just given to a student in class – whether it's about exploring further with fonts or stepping outside and having a look at real life (I am always hammering away at that one to them! "You now live in a city of inspiration everywhere – go out and be inspired!"). Or because I've had this challenge at my desk, I can then advise a student the next week in class on an idea that might help them because I've just gone through it.
I could write so much more about my new Mondays where I spend four and a half hours with thirteen 21 year olds and how they have totally changed my week (in a good but also new sort of challenging way!), but alas, I must end it here. All this to say, if you are presented with a new challenge that seems way out of left field, I recommend you take it – you just never know!
