I Finished My Course…Finally

Friends, family members, and even people at my former workplace will be pleased to hear I've finished my course…and they'll quite possibly be surprised to hear I was still doing it!! I've been nearly finished for so long now that it became a bit of a joke, albeit a slightly depressing one. But I made it.

I navigated the much-harder-than-expected waters of doing a course at the same time as working, and the much-harder-than-that experience of doing a course during a period of several loved ones overseas getting sick and passing away. I overcame the paralysing fear (belief even) of "I will never be good enough as a designer" and "I can't do this", to co-exist reasonably with the slightly-nagging-in-the-back-of-my-mind aforementioned fear/belief. I produced some work I was proud of, achieving good results and positive feedback. I received my certificate in the post and felt a mixture of sadness and relief not to be a student anymore.

I'm happy that I chose to pivot mid-life to a different career, one which I had in fact been thinking about since I first considered subjects for university. It's a good fit for me. I do wish I'd done it earlier, but since the time machine hasn't (to the best of my knowledge) been invented yet, now is the best time for me to have actually done it.

I enjoyed the course, despite what my partner would have you believe. I do struggle with the creative process, the self-doubt and frustration that can come with a blank open-ended brief like "create a campaign", but once I'm on the road with some ideas and a few decent first sketches I feel better. I enjoy refining things once I've committed to an idea, and I like seeing things come together. I valued being able to ask qualified and experienced graphic designers on the course forum for their opinions and suggestions. It wasn't all plain sailing, but I had a broadly good time with it.

I really enjoyed looking into the history of design (history was, after all, the subject I eventually picked for my first degrees); learning about the Bauhaus, the development of branding, typography, photography and so on. I was daunted using Adobe products for the first goodness-knows-how-many times, but eventually I grew to appreciate the things that a computer can help you do for a design. I grew in confidence with, and appreciation for, the art of design. I went from thinking "there's no way I can do this" to "ok, I can do these things".

The prospect of creating a portfolio that would be looked at by other designers seemed utterly terrifying at first, but by the end I was happy with what I produced. I learned many foundational skills throughout, but I think the most important thing I learned was how to create something from nothing, and then how to make that something into something decent.

A dear friend gave me some lovely arty pencils as a congratulations for finishing my course, and what better way to celebrate the milestone?