One thing people haven't mentioned yet is this. Although our allied professions are still pretty young---for better and worse---we're now moving beyond the early, unstructured, anything-goes, invent-on-the-fly, "entrepreneurial" phase.
Just 10 years ago, our communications, connections, networks, learning, sharing were largely informal -- and free. *Fundamental* group values emerged re: ourselves and our shiny Y2K and 2.0 world --- i.e., self-organizing, nonhierarchical, everyone-is-an-expert, inclusive, non-elite, nonlinear, open-source, embracing complexity ambiguity risk, highly collaborative -- owing much to hackers and anarchists. Remember all the tattoos, piercings, dreads, weird hats, truly funky glasses (not merely expensive designer specs)? That wasn't just silly young "students" or superficial fashion --- but a reflection of the values of many who showed up and contributed. And who, in their "professional" environments, were as credible (often more so, in our area of knowledge) as the guy in khakis and a polo. Which was radical, and *unprecedented, *in the world of commerce and work. A total paradigm shifter. Get-togethers happened -- virtually, locally, nationally, globally -- discussion forums, conferences sprang up. A sense of loose group self-identity formed. Models, processes, toolkits, bodies of knowledge emerged and were shared, improved upon, embellished, debated, discussed, tossed when not useful. Then -- as happens in bodies and systems -- thought leaders and then commerce leaders codified and trademarked their approaches, published, positioned as "experts" quite separate from their audiences, developed "followings," established their own schools of thought. And then....literally schools. Part of it is a matter of scale. It's tempting to say the original "non-model" was unsustainable in perpetuity -- i.e., if it were sustainable it would still be as open-ended as it was. But more, it's the natural progression and lifecycle of self-forming groups------> formalized institutions. Also, it reflects the reality of what happens when profit is to be made by cleaving off parts of a body of knowledge and owning and selling them. And nothing like a mortgage and children to shift an individual's priorities from a freeform, nonpredictable professional and personal life to security, management positions, and tenure. When those life changes happen to people who've been positioned -- and positioned themselves -- to be leaders in a new profession, it can shift the direction and priorities for the entire profession. The up-side of course is now theer are schools that anyone -- anyone who's priveleged to afford it -- can be exposed to these experts, and to the body of knowledge that has been determined to reflect "best thinking." The upside is that really smart people can be accessed in a formal deliberate manner. You can actually have regular conversations with them or be their research assistant. You can spend 2 years with other people passionate about this stuff really digging and diving into it, exploring, learning, contributing, creating. ** Maybe it used to be that our "grad school experience" was sort of our lives and informal connections -- and maybe it's just not practicable for many of us to attend both to mundane realities of time and multiple conflicting priorities AND to be learning, sharing, experimenting, at the level of intensity, etc. But part of grad school is not the skills/tactics conveyed (it's grad school --- not voc/tech) -- but enculturation and socialization into a profession. In a way that's UNIQUE to each institution and each profession. Each school develops and markets its unique niches and approaches. That's what attracts funding -- and of course grad schools are partly in the business of perpetuating the institution itself -- not nefariously, but schools only exist if funded. Graduates of these schools wave their school's flags (I do mine...it's not a new degree but I still believe it's one of the most kick-assed programs I could've gone to). What it also means is the same people who graduate from these programs will have a set idea of what is the "right" way to do things -- and will have preference for hiring and listening to others who went to their grad school or other similarly respected grad schools (or where their friends and respected colleagues went/teach). What that means possibly on the downside, to the marketplace of ideas, is....ironically many of the same people who passionately decried institutionalization of knowledge and "expertise" as being hierarchical, exclusionary, and elite....is greater difficulty in introducing new and unvetted ideas on equal footing if you're a "nobody" without grad school, people quoting professors and thought leading authors, speaking in citations instead of inventing on the fly. The emergence of new conventional wisdom (which I know many of you who're teaching might find offensive or inaccurate, but it's not) What it also means is students with a 1- or 2-year degree will emerge with a recognizable uniform skillset, and portfolio. This becomes the standard bearer. If an existing professional's portfolio does not reflect that same tactical thinking and output, it will become (is becoming) increasingly difficult for their value to be measured. So, grad school is not just about skills acquisition. And not just about "alumni." It reflects and excelerates our allied professions' maturation. As with any creative brilliant frontier-exploring barricade-pushing profession of the past. Anecdote: my great great grandfather was an attorney, constitutional scholar (stuff still taught in law schools), abolitionist, and judge. He didn't go to law school, as it was optional back then -- you just had to pass the bar exam. One generation later that wasn't the case. As Dan and others have suggested: think about your life in 5-10 years. The reality is hundreds(?) of people are emerging into the employment marketplace with graduate degrees. This is a shortcut for employers to know someone knows their stuff. Because if you get a grad degree it will truly be intellectually and creatively challenging -- and you will be more current in terms of market expectations. - Susan On Tue, Jan 19, 2010 at 12:59 PM, Dan Saffer <d...@odannyboy.com> wrote: > > On Jan 19, 2010, at 9:19 AM, Hugh Griffith wrote: > > > Don't get me wrong, school is great. But, school usually means debt (for > > most of us), and debt can really mess up your life and limit your career > > options. Especially in this economy! > > School does mean debt, but it also, in study after study, equates to higher > earnings. Just for one example, see last year's Coroflot survey: > > <http://www.coroflot.com/designersalary/images/education_x_field.gif> > > Granted, the difference there seems to be slight, but even a 5 or 10k > difference means that graduate school would pay for itself after ten years. > And some companies won't even look at you without one. But your career path > is your career path. Weigh the pros and cons and decide where you want to be > in five or ten years, and then figure out how to get the skills you'll need > to get there (or once you're there). > > Dan > > > > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... disc...@ixda.org > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Susan Doran 55 Morning Street Portland ME 04101 207-774-4963 (land) 202-296-4849 (cell) /susandoran (facebook) @susandoran (twitter) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! 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