Photo from Pixabay.
The path of a designer is pretty straightforward if you are in advertising.
Junior designer > Senior designer > Junior Art Director > Senior Art Director > Creative Director
To be honest, I couldn’t progress. Maybe I didn’t try hard enough or maybe I was the square peg going into the round hole. I knew that my path of being a designer will differ from my friends.
I chose to do a postgraduate because I knew that I would never stay in advertising for a long time and my heart was not in it. Also I wanted to have more job options and if I want to be a lecturer one day and the requirements from the Ministry of Education requires lecturer to have the minimum masters to teach.
Just thought of sharing some thoughts of postgraduate on a surface level.
Why don’t take a postgraduate?
One: Better status
Never take a postgraduate due to better status. Postgrad is a journey of discovery, but it is a journey of maintaining sanity and frustration. Often we asked ourselves why we even get into postgrad in the first place. At some days, I feel working life is easier than doing complex thinking.
On a very personal level, I never took postgrad for status. As a designer, most people would not have decent views about us compared to doctors, lawyers, and engineers. I have accepted the fact that some people (especially senior citizens) will treat me like fluff with no substance. What I can’t accept is people treat me like shitty fluff and when they find out that I am doing a postgrad, suddenly they start respecting me.
That is what I call insincerity. If you don’t like me and want to treat me like shitty fluff as long as I live, then go ahead. But to treat me better because now I am capable of entering your “rich” and “intellectual” circles is just insincere and disrespectful. Well, it’s ok. I’ll just tell myself that I can earn respect from people who can better appreciate me.
Two: Only to escape work
It is true that circumstances shapes our decisions but don’t let extreme bad circumstances in work influence that decision. If your only reason that you resign solely just to escape work, then it is very hard for you to stay in postgrad because it is tough.
It is normal that we don’t know we are going in for and there is an element of risk but if you have already set your mind to it, then go ahead. But never do it to escape a bad experience. That is because doing masters is a ‘bad’ experience itself.
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Talking about ‘bad’ experience, not many people understand that writing a 35k words essay within a year is an easy task as you can’t just copy and paste or just rephrase certain words so the similiarity index on Turnitin will be 0. It takes a lot of mindmaps, drawings, analytical skills, people skills to conduct interviews, project management skills, criticism etc. My friends even asked me how can masters be worse than working, since when you work, you have to face clients. Well, I am a writer, a project manager, salesperson… well, basically one leg kick. My supervisor will be the one I have to ‘sell’ my dissertation to.
My friends think that since I am working on a freelance basis and doing masters, means I have more time to cook and clean. In fact, just because I am married and decided to quit my full time job, they thought I have become a housewife. I wish lah… I want to claim that I am a full time housewife also cannot. Most of the time I am just writing, sketching and mindmapping to the point that sometimes I cook mediocre food for myself and my husband. My floor is dusty and grimey and my books are all over the place. Sometimes I have to give a disclaimer to my husband if the mess is beyond the acceptable level.
My friends even asked me, how hard is it to write 35k words essay. My husband told them, “After she reads 10 books, she can only formulate one decent paragraph.” My dissertation is not a blog post, but I always be in the blogging mindset because it is a quicker way for me to write even when I don’t feel like it. Editing and refinements will come along but the important thing is to write and create the flow.
Sometimes I rather work than to do masters because it is a lonely journey. While working alone is good for my introverted soul, but sometimes I feel isolated from the world. I have to take an effort to message my friends even if I feel bad messaging them.
Despite of me writing of my struggles, you don’t have to live the same way I do, and I know you will survive.