Grad school, the kick in the ass we all need

QUT's motto: "University for the real world."

To put it simply, the point of this education is to get me a job. I'm expanding on my skills to make myself a better candidate when applying for jobs when I get home.

I'm really starting to like my he/she teacher. She is absolutely real and gives it straight. For the past few classes I wrote down some quotes from her.

When describing our job as advertisers, she said "We're creative prostitutes."

In one class she showed us an ad with a lot of writing and said "Long copy like this is a creative's wet dream."

My point is she's funny. And she's realistic. On Friday she pretty much chewed out our class and asked us what we were doing. For a little background, our class doesn't speak, AT ALL. It's mostly foreign students and our teacher makes a huge effort to include us in discussion, but no one participates. However, I talk a lot in class. But I'm not trying to be that student that annoys everyone by always speaking up, so sometimes I say nothing to give others a chance, even if I have an opinion. The other day she was talking about how this is Grad school and we should be here because we're interested in the subject and the industry and we should have an opinion. When everyone remained quiet she said "If you're not interested in being in the industry, what the fuck are you doing here?" (Pardon her french) Somewhat blunt, but a wake up call for people in the class. She then asked the class who wanted to be in the industry. A few people, including me, raised their hands. She then asked those who didn't raise their hands what they were doing here. Response? Absolute silence.

I finally raised my hand and said I could tell her why I wanted to be in the industry. Here's my answer.

"My background is in graphic design, but when I was working I realized I don't want to spend my entire life in front of a computer. I thought that by getting into advertising I would get to work with clients and work on projects from start to finish so I wouldn't just sit behind a computer all day. Also, there are absolutely no jobs in America right now so I figured it couldn't hurt to go back to school"

She said that was a good answer. She also told us that to do well in this industry you have to love, breathe and live it. You have to watch commercials and read magazines and analyze them. You have to keep up to date on what is out there so that you can come up with the next big thing. She said there are a few people in class that she can tell love the industry and will do well . . . I'm hoping that includes me. I knew coming to Australia would be fun, but I'm really starting to think that this University is a perfect fit for me. I have no idea what it's gonna be like when I start applying for jobs in a few weeks, or where I'll end up but I know I'm not going to settle. If I have to waitress for a while to get by, that's fine with me. But I'm not gonna settle until I find a fabulous job I love in a city that I want to live in.

I watched Oprah today and it was all about visualizing what you want for the future and you'll get it. This lady showed her board she made years earlier about her life plans which included getting married and it even had a picture of some guy from a magazine that ended up looking like the man she actually married. Don't know if I'll be making a visualization board . . . but I have big hopes for the future and I won't settle until I get there. :)