What will you be after you graduate?
Posted on October 26, 2012 | posted by:
I moved to New York City from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia two months ago. I would say, that was the hardest transition in my life. It all began when I packed my bags, but got worst as it got closer and I had to say goodbye to my mom at the airport. It was not my first time living away from home, but I lived in a little college town in Kansas that I was very familiar with, and it was temporary. I knew I was going back home to my mom in four months! Anyway, it got harder and harder everyday when I got here, for one thing my dad and I arrived on Eid day (Islamic holiday) tired and not surrounded by my whole family. Then came dealing with brokers, apartment hunting, and leases. Let alone being shocked with the sizes of the apartments, a whole apartment here is the same size as my bedroom in Saudi Arabia and my bedroom is small!
August 27, 2012 I started school, I loved everyone I met, I loved the energy and the atmosphere, but I was very lost. I did not understand what I signed up for, I want to be a designer not a researcher is what I kept thinking to myself. So, I cried everyday for the first month! My dad leaving two weeks into our trip made it worst. I was out of my comfort zone in every possible way, but that is when I felt like strengthening my writing, reading, and research skills is something I need. I don’t need a masters degree to strengthen my design skills, I need to learn how to make change in my country, and you cannot make change unless a lot of research is done that will identify the problem that needs a solution.
If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem, and only five minutes finding the solution. ―Albert Einstein
Although I’m still unsure of what I am doing and whether or not I’m doing what I want to do, I always have the same answer when I get “What will you be after you graduate?” from everyone I’m surrounded by in confusion. And my answer is always: anything.
Transdisciplinary Design enabled me to build an active online Saudi community in New York City of Saudi students from all around the city including New Jersey that wanted what I wanted; a little bit of home in this crazy city. I realized that I am capable of doing whatever I want to do if I just set my mind to it. I now more than ever truly understand; when there is a will there is a way.
I do, sometimes wish I was studying graphic design all over again, just because it was much more design and less research, but I always tell myself this is a skill I want to take back to my country. My goal is to teach at the college I graduated from, taking what I learned here, there. So when those students graduate thinking they are the best graphic designers of all time, they aren’t in shock when they travel for their graduate degree and they are taken down their high-horse because they lack an important part of designing: actually researching before designing.