Purpose to Practice

I’ve seen quite literally thousands of portfolios.

The ones that stand out always share a few things: they reflect the full range of a person’s creative practice. They show work that’s self initiated — not solely commissioned or client work. And they always contain a little something unique that helps it stand out from the rest. Maybe an easter egg or unpublished page. Maybe one blog entry that’s quirky. It’s always something fun.

When I started co-teaching this course at CCA with Heather Phillips, it was called Transition to Professional Practice. This implied, aptly, that students had come from prior professional practices and were ready, post grad school, to return to it. But over the years of teaching it to MFA and MDes students, this seemed an unnecessary delimiter.

Embedded in the curriculum were lessons on networking and relationships. I liked that about it. Networking and meeting folks you don’t know is an acquired skill. I thought about other components that could persist — beyond practice area (fine arts, illustration, industrial design, product design), and beyond country of origin, age, or experience level.

I co-taught the second iteration of the course with Rachel Gogel, partially online. That name was Designing Your Career. It expanded from semester into weekend workshop. We offered the principles to the DMBA program.

The third iteration of the course is called Purpose to Practice. It purposely starts with understanding your purpose: what work brings you energy? what kinds of work zap that energy? Are there throughlines in your career when you’ve felt valued? Holding the space for students to ponder and investigate and socialize this was a huge revelation.

One of my favorite updates is a lesson called Work Traits: what are the kinds of roles you’re solving for in your job search? Do you want to be on the management track or stay an individual contributor? Do you favor more startup, zero-to-one, building the plane while flying it types of environments? Or more stood-up, one-to-infinity stability? Important questions and discussion to help students know what to search for, to consider trade-offs, and solve for the conditions that help them feel balanced about creating value at work.

In this competitive, topsy-turvy labor market, having clarity actually serves to create hope.