Where Has The Professionalism Gone?

                I am a senior interior design student at a design college. My school is pretty lax. I remember when I first started school; everyone got dressed up for presentations, everything was prepared and ready, and it felt like a career environment. But as the time has gone on I’ve noticed the professionalism begin to fade. Students stopped dressing up, people attack others work, they come in with their projects unfinished, and an overall catty behavior.

            I remember during my second quarter, Florida fought and won to keep interior design regulated. IIDA and ASID had a regulation celebration on my campus. There were senators, presidents from IIDA and ASID chapters, professional interior designers and architects, and students from around the area were invited. With all these influential people around most students were dressed up and on their best behavior. But there was one girl who looked like she just walked off the set of a rap video. Although she had no shame, she was representing interior design students everywhere in the most embarrassing way. She fed into the whole if-your-a-women-lacking-skills-be-an-interior-decorator stereotype that I and my fellow students fight against.

            When it comes to behavior, instead of encouraging one another to do their best, they tear each other down.  I used to see my school like a haven for interior design education but it seems along the way we forgot what we are really there for and just focus on what others are doing. Students have lost sight of the fact that we are here to better ourselves not make ourselves look better by bringing others down. 

I, too, have been guilty of not finishing a project on time. We have 11 weeks and life happens. But to show up to finals with absolutely nothing is just disrespectful. It shows how much they really value their education and the time of their instructors and fellow students. In the real world, they would be fired but in the safety of a for-profit school, as long as they have the money they can keep coming back. 

I believe we need a refresher on professionalism in design education. We need to better prepare ourselves for life after graduation. The students that have graduated before me set the ground work for how employers see fresh-out-of-college graduates. Let’s bring professionalism back to our design schools.