Expert: Peter Gabany - 12/20/2004

Question
Dear Peter,
I am in a graphic design vocational school. I went here only because i wanted to speed up the process. Towards the end of the school, there is not much learned, only practicing design...Do u think it is important for me to finish only to get my diploma? Does a diploma matter in this industry or is it all your products? I have work experience, and lots of great design, just not sure how valuable it is to waste my time in school just for a piece of paper. I would like you opinion about this. thank you!
mickey

Answer
Mickey,

I thought that I answered this yesterday but obviously it seems as though I did not press send or something. Anyway here it goes. Stay the course - finish your education. It will haunt you later - I know - if you don't. It isn't much longer and trust me the years you have left to work will only speak to you later while you wish that you remained in school.

There are great hiring reasons for the schoolong and in the Province of Ontario Canada and some European Countries there are now professional designations - like that of an architect - that you require 3 or 4 years of school and the additional time for practical to come up with a total of 7 years prior to writing a qualification exam for your certification. Mine happens to be RGD or Registered Graphic Designer. And this too carries weight.

I can go on and on as to the reasons to stay in school but I will leave you with one final thought. If you have a chance to enroll in business courses - do so now. If you have electives open, please take business management, business planning, sales, marketing and anything to do with entrepreneurship. Those designers with this additional education will be blessed with bigger, better paying clients. And here is why. By the way - this only took me 14 years of my 20 + year career to figure out and the rest of the design industry is just figuring it out now. Your clients typically are trained with business degrees, they know little or nothing about design - even though they may think that they do and we don't want or need them to know our business. But it is an incredible advantage to know their business and language they use to operate same.

I know that if you take the extra time to read the E-Myth - found in most libraries, it will help you to appreciate the reasons why any of this is important.

Pete