A Brief Tirade on Degrees and Barriers to Entry

I was talking to a friend of mine today about college and the like, and I actually got a little worked up about something that I will now allow to spill onto the pages of my unsuspecting blog.

I've been told I can get long winded, so if you wanna get to the point, it's at the bottom in bold.

When I first started going to college as an industrial design major, I was 19 years-old, and I had figured out that in my 5-year program I would be 23 by the time I could graduate and become a fully-functional human being. It freaked me out a little, but I didn't sweat it because that's what I had to do. Now I'm 23, and what I didn't take into consideration is that by the time I actually graduate and become financially independent, with a job, I will be turning 24.

Now, this may not be a big deal to some, and I'm probably being a little too dramatic about it, but to someone who has never turned 24 before, it's a little weird.

So then I started to think about the fact that I will have spent almost 24 years in 'preparation.' 24 years! Populations in the past might have been fortunate enough to merely live this long. If I were one of many people who had to pay their entire tuition, I would have several more years of indentured servitude just to pay off the damn loans, either that or I just would not have been able to go into the program I did.

What pisses me off are the standards we've set up for ourselves. The degree is a pre-requisite, and not having it is just an opportunity for discrimination. The attitude is "show me the degree, and then we'll talk." Sometimes it doesn't even matter so much the grades you've recieved, as if potential employers just want to see that you threw a lot of money away to prove you are responsible (what?).

Seriously, the past two, if not three years of my own education have been a joke. I'm not only saying that because the work experience has has given me a different perspective, but simply because we haven't learned a god-damn thing, and if I were supposed to, it certainly didn't make any difference in the outcome of the class. When we return from internships and co-ops, we essentially are made to do the same thing, designing something as students for a real client, except now we're not getting paid for it. Returning to college from working is like going back to high school from college. It all seems so narrowly-scoped and petty.

The first two years? Yeah, totally worth it, virtually no complaints. The last two? Utter bullshit.

So what happened to these guys like Raymond Loewy who come over on a boat with change in their pockets and become one of the most (deservedly) famous designers in the world? Well, now we've got fifteen layers of bullshit and bureacracy built up (and not just in my profession), to where there's no precedent for getting by on sheer skill and hard work anymore. Not, of course, that companies can hire on sheer skill anyways. The experience gained and the pace of things learned at work is out of necessity, and GREATLY overshadows that which can be learned in school.

You might say, like my college (DAAP at University of Cincinnati) alludes to, that in structuring the industry like this, we're ensuring the best, brightest, and most capable become the designers of tomorrow. If I were a mindless leftist drone, I would piss my pants and just start shouting about unfairness. Since I'm not though, I'm going to reasonably suggest why this really is unfair bullshit.

It's like opening a business. Do massive taxes, restrictive zoning laws and convoluted rules and regulations ensure better businesses? I would argue that it ensures more mediocre businesses. For the most part, anyone really willing to make a risk has to already be wealthy enough to be able to fail, which means they won't necessarily work as hard, and all the guys with great ideas that can't scale the giant barriers to entry are totally screwed. Just like the structure of many other instututions of society, risk, ingenuity, passion and conviction take a back seat to bureacratic nonsense. Likewise, giant tuition fees, compulsory dorm residence, stubborn professors, and in some schools an inability to practice in the profession until graduation, screws over all the people who could be great designers, but will never get the chance because the professor is always right, apprenticeship is dead, and working hard toward such a goal is at odds with making enough money to eat.

I'm not trying to say that I'm one of the people with potential getting screwed, I'm saying I think it's bullshit and it makes me sad that if someone thinks they can work hard to break into the industry without a degree, they're going to get laughed out of their next interview. But then, what do I know.