In communications design our professors like to tell us that our sophomore year should equal up to an entire bachelors degree worth of work. Sounds scary, right? Kinda was, but it turned me into an awesome design NINJA with crazy amazing skills, ready to tackle the next year of even more work. Junior year the professors start treating you like grad students. This means that they give us general ideas of what kind of projects we need to tackle (branding, packaging, interiors, publication, etc.) and how much work each category needs to merit a credit (a whole lot). We are pushed to come up with our own unique "big ideas." Therefore our projects really reflect ourselves and our portfolios are each unique as snowflakes.
The coolest part of our program, though is the way the classes are set up. All these projects are presented weekly for critiques, and the classes are always made up of both juniors and seniors. The seniors do twice the amount of work as the younger kids, but they also get to be role models and mentors to them. It's amazing.
Last year I was a junior and I was the kid trying to find my footing and my process, frantically asking seniors for tips and advice, and now I'm the big guy. I finally know what I'm doing and that is a gooooood feeling.
So. First couple of weeks have been easing into the CommDesign craziness. It's about to get real, with me working on two full fledged projects simultaneously, but I am so pleased with the familiarity I have earned to the creative process. I can see this being my best year yet. I'll keep you as up-to-date as I can. Lots to do. One more year. I'm all about that.
