WOMEN IN DESIGN: Self-Educated Designers
Happy Tuesday! Or maybe a not-as-sleepy-as-it-could-be Tuesday. It’s just about that time of year. But hey, wake up and get excited. You can read about technology and all sorts of good stuff.
I can’t speak for everyone, but I have a love-hate relationship with technology. When it’s not trying to sabotage my projects, it can do amazing things. The first time I opened Photoshop was one of the scariest, most exciting moments of my life. (It was almost as exciting as messing around with AutoCAD at a middle school summer camp.) I had no idea what any of the buttons did, and I definitely had no idea how to do pretty much anything.
But, like most of us when we’re first learning, I clicked my mouse around a lot. I pressed every button to see what it did, absolutely butchering a few pictures along the way. I asked my friends too many questions, looked up videos on YouTube, and spied on my working classmates to see what they were doing. And, despite technology’s blatant loathing of my attempts to use it, I learned how to operate Photoshop…okay, maybe not operate it like a pro, but I can definitely use it to serve my purposes.
I did this with Indesign. And Illustrator. And Sketchup. And, to a more limited extent, Rhino and AutoCAD. In fact, nearly all of my experience with computer programs is self-taught. The interesting thing about this is I’m not the only one. Odds are, nearly everyone in our generation probably learned many computer programs this way.
There’s something intriguing about this. The self-teaching phenomenon is not a new one, but applying it to technology is certainly a change. Our generation is not that far removed from dusty newspapers and cassette players. It wasn’t that long ago when a single computing device filled an entire room. Now we head straight to online tutorials if we feel like we need them for a project, and we carry as much power in our backpacks as the first computer did. Probably more. We rely on this power for nearly everything, and would find it difficult to function if our technological devices got damaged. It’s no wonder we can and must be such quick learners.
The strange thing about this is our preference for independence. When we cannot solve something in a computer program, we go straight to our friends, the internet, anyone we spy using that program, and the list goes on. When we need help on things outside of our computer programs, we tend to do the same things.
But this raises the question, is that something we should do? After all, if we’re seeking advice about, say, an internship in a particular type of firm, do we have to go straight to the internet? It’s certainly a great resources, but odds are you know someone who’s worked in this particular type of firm and has advice you can’t get anywhere else. Advice that’s tailed specifically to you because this person knows you pretty well (hint, hint, I’m talking about your professors, mentors, employers, and so on). And if you have questions about, say, being a women working in a field that was once dominated by men, these are people you should go to. Not only do they have personal experience to offer, but they can pick and choose which information is most important based on what they know about you.
We spend so much time being self-reliant, and that’s awesome. But we have to remember not to sacrifice the time we spend around others, listening to and learning from them. The personal experiences and wisdom gained from a life of learning are things we should not waste.
So put down your phone. Close your laptop. Go talk to people who are eager to share their wisdom. You’ll learn even more than if you did a google search or watched a youtube video. Go have a conversation. The internet will still be there, I promise.
Image info: A weird (and photoshopped) view of one of my first Rhino models. Learning both programs was certainly an adventure.