Graduation 2007!

It&rsqo;s funny just a year ago this day I was graduating and getting ready to begin my personal journey in life and my career. I had a set plan like most students on what I wanted to do and thought my portfolio and credentials could get me there. One thing college doesn&rsqo;t teach you are the hurt, the grind and the hustle of getting your first solid gig in any field. I have seen other people in my field get permanent jobs so easily. They did not have the experience and training I did. Then I got a dose of reality of how the second part of getting the job is networking with the right people and getting hired based on knowing those people.

For me I don&rsqo;t think I would have been happy being hired because I know the person and etc. I realized one of my true rules towards my true happiness in my work field would be to get hired based on someone loving and respecting my work. It was never the money first it was just the respect and admiration for my design that I wanted. I realized how confident and full of assurance a degree gives a person and how they never think it would be a hustle to get something they want to do. Seeing my friends graduating reminded me of myself at that time full of optimism and dreams. Don&rsqo;t get me wrong they all can be accomplished, but I advise every single one of you 2007 graduates to please research your field to the fullest ASAP and search for your jobs. No there should be no breaks, no vacations nothing until you get that job. If you are having a problem landing a job due to your lack of experience look hard for a paid internship and do as much probono work as you can just to build your portfolio and resume as much as possible. Don&rsqo;t do all free work but, just make sure your constantly working on your skills as you look for that dream job. Also, don&rsqo;t be surprised that you will end up doing something totally different than what you planned.

I mainly trained in print production and design for most of my college years and only my senior year is when I took a web design class and so on. I took my senior project very seriously and really wanted to do a t-shirt design company and brought it up to my professor. He said he wanted to see more than the t-shirt designs and wanted to see an online website/store. I did the original design and basically taught myself so much about the web in that one month that I just started to love it. I got so interested I kept on researching and reading about it and stumbled upon blogs cameron moll and mike davidson and never stopped since. Now I am a Junior Web Designer at Situation Marketing and I couldn&rsqo;t be happier and happy I am doing what I really want to do. End of the story is don&rsqo;t settle and get on that search to develop your career now because the longer you wait the longer it is going to take to get there.