Monday is the start of my third semester teaching my version of a User Experience and Interface Design (UX & UI) elective at the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD). It’s the fifth time the course has was offered, but I won’t get into those times that students didn’t sign up and fucked with my self-esteem. Ya know what, maybe they were busy!
In the past, my course has largely been comprised of a diverse cross-section of Illustrators, Industrial Designers, and Communication Designers all in their Junior/Senior year. Many had worked an internship already, or were getting experience via freelancing, so I felt pretty confident that I could speed ahead and they’d keep their heads above water… but this time around, (maybe due to it being a Spring elective), the class is full of CD students in their sophomore year.
This has me worried. Very worried.
After checking the class roster several times over the holiday, my panic went fully into overdrive and I began reworking the class and its projects. I rebuilt all my keynote presentations, wrote more concise lectures, and totally reworked the schedule and syllabus… all in anticipation of a younger audience with less experience and (probably) zero patience for my monotone-ish voice and old-man mannerisms.
For anyone unaware of how art school works (or at least how MIAD works), the entire freshman year is made up of a program called “Foundantions.” It’s a sampling of the different majors to get students to dabble in things outside their comfort zone before picking which major to pursue.
That means that Sophomore’s are basically Freshman level designers. They’ve taken one semester of design courses, and are jumping right into my 301 level elective.
On the sunny side, this means I can catch and correct bad habits and wrong-headed digital design decisions early! A lot of the program (and professors) are focused on, let’s say “more traditional” forms of graphic design… trying to wind back the clock and teach them the right way to design a website in 2020 can be difficult after 3 years and an internship of learning the wrong things. So I’m hoping that, although they will be significantly younger, I can find some upsides.
But the fear that’s really stuck in my head is that I’m probably closer in age to their parents than I am to sophomores (aged 19-20).
I’m not used to that, even as the oldest of my friend-group, because at most jobs, I’ve been the youngest person on the team. Even now, at the glowing age of 35, I’m the youngest of the group. So going from work where I’m the baby, to school where I’m ancient, will be a whiplash experience like no other.
But I’m up to date on TikTok memes, and I scroll Twitter endlessly, so I’ll probably be okay. If not, well, I guess its about time to get used to it.
Mostly I just hope they speak up in class. I really can’t deal with another semester of quiet kids who want to leave as early as possible and refuse to join class discussions or critique each others work. I can deal with being old, but being the only speaking person in a room for 6 hours a week is painful.
Wish me luck.
