First thing is for the students to watch our YouTube video introduction to Lead Graffiti.

The main thing we would like to talk about in these every-other-week talks is “WHAT WOULD A GOOD STUDENT DO? RIGHT HERE. RIGHT NOW.”

. . . Q U E S T I O N S O N E T H R U T H R E E

Please write a comment to this blog post and ask us 3 questions (you don’t have to have them in 1 comment). We need you to contribute to controlling the conversation. Two of them should flow from the YouTube video and our work at the end. The third should be a separate “I’m-a-DCAD-student and have a DCAD-student question.”

Additionally, we would like you to answer a few questions just for yourself and have your answers with you when you get to the interactive gathering with Lead Graffiti. Don’t write the answers in your comment to this blog post.

. . . Q U E S T I O N S F O U R T H R U S E V E N

Keep in mind the guy who is writing this, taught at 2 different universities and for 3 decades was head of the Visual Communications program at the University of Delaware. I had hundreds of students, many of whom have gone on to distinguished careers in the field. I’ve attended a hundred portfolio reviews, which included graduates from other schools with serious reputations. I’ve had an enormous library of design books. I gave close to 800 books and magazines to the DCAD library, most of which I have scoured for years. You can’t see into my head, but figure that if I talked with you for an hour and you showed me 10 of your best pieces of work, I would get an impression of how good you are.

. . . Q U E S T I O N 4 : SO, HOW GOOD DO YOU THINK I WOULD THINK YOU ARE?

Considering approximately 50 students in DCAD’s 1st-year class in 2020, where would I rank you? Write down the number like this. “Your rank as a number” out of 50 (25 out of 50 would put you in the middle). HOW GOOD ARE YOU? The point is to get you to the top 5 AT LEAST. Maybe even top 3. After that it doesn’t matter.

. . . Q U E S T I O N 5 : HOW GOOD DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

You’ve got to guess how good the other 1st-year students at DCAD this year, but where do you think you would rank yourself? Write down the number like this. “Your rank as a number” out of 50.

It would be interesting to take the average of everyone’s writing.

. . . Q U E S T I O N 6 : WHERE DO YOU WANT TO BE IN 5 YEARS?

You are going to be involved with DCAD for 2 years. At that point, some of you will go to another school to complete their undergraduate career. Some of you will go on to graduate school. After finishing DCAD, some of you will go directly to a job, hopefully doing the type of work or be supported by an art gallery in what you will study at DCAD. DESCRIBE WHERE THAT IS IN 50 WORDS OR LESS. Where geographically? Where professionally? What kind of people are there?

Not an assignment, but I think here are a couple of good things for you to think about doing.

In your answer to question #6 above, find the names of 10 people who are good at what you want to be in 5 years. Start to find out how they got there (profiles on LinkedIn and Facebook, Instagram (look way back and come forward). I’m a person that doesn’t believe much in the value of talent. I think we are all born with an amount of it and then you cannot get more of it. End of discussion. You have some talent, and you are stuck with it. The big question is, what can you do to strengthen it or make up for it.

. . . Q U E S T I O N 7 : HOW DO YOU GET BEYOND WHERE YOUR TALENT ALONE WILL TAKE YOU?

The answer is to know a bunch of answers to this question : WHAT WOULD A GOOD STUDENT DO? RIGHT HERE? RIGHT NOW?

We’d love to talk with any of you about this. Feel free to keep in touch. Show us your work. Ask a hundred more questions.