>>> Cameron Tonkinwise
"In a society
dominated by productivism and convenience, uni-
versities are one of the last spaces of what
Ezio Manzini has started to call 'contemplative
time' (Manzini 2003)."
"Whilst mostly entering with vocational ambitions, undergrad students do seem to spend most of their time
at university 'wasting time', with 'extra-
curricular' activities for example. Over the
course of their degrees, they become aware that
their time at university is the last 'free time'
they will ever have."
"We have our entire careers to learn and develop expertise under real-world conditions, we will
learn on the job when we work in offices."
These seem to me to be excuses for not training the students for their chosen vocation. We are approaching the time in Australia when there will more teachers than practitioners. Some teachers have little or no experience and most no recent experience of the practice of industrial design due to the scarcity of jobs in industry. This attitude to vocational instruction will speed up the extinction of the practice of industrial design in Australia. Your graduates will be better equiped to receive unemployment benefits when they graduate than practice industrial design. You should tell your students when they come into the course that you do not intend to teach them the skills that they will need to work when they graduate or at least be brutally honest that there is little likelyhood that they will ever practice industrial design or should think about leaving the country tio study if they would like one day to become working designers.
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R o b C u r e d a l e
Professor, Chair Product Design
College for Creative Studies Detroit
201 East Kirby
Detroit MI 48202-4034
Phone: 313 664 7625
Fax: 313 664 7620
email: [log in to unmask]
http://www.ccscad.edu
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