infinite-hugs

I wonder also if Covid exasperated that for some too.

Hey man,

I hear you, I’m not that much older but I graduated in 2011. I also studied industrial design. At that time the big wave was the transition to an app based everything and UX design suddenly became the most in demand design skill. Most of my friends switched gears and careers to digital design for the money. I stuck to what I was interested in though which was sustainability and design and ultimately I’m very happy with where I ended up (circular economy) but it was an awkward ~10 years as I explored learning all kinds of tools and ways applying my skills. It also was very tough to find the right full time job because product design (which has come to really mean digital product design) supplanted industrial design roles and made it hard to find something of value that resonated with me.

One of the things that guided me and still does is thinking about what types of problems need to be solved? From my perspective everything should ladder up to that if you want to have an impact. Even if you don’t keep learning and exploring until you find something that lights you up on the inside. We are not only one thing we can all wear many hats.

Saying that, we’re living through a paradigm shift of tremendous magnitude that’s altering our whole world. There will always be change though. My two cents is to focus on what draws your attention and energy and give yourself permission to say no to everything else.

AI is an incredible tool, learn how to use it and try to grow with the times. Good luck and stay creative :) Hope something in there helps, but having a positive mindset is critical. If you’re curious about the circular economy happy to share what I know - I think it’s the future.

Do you want the matrix because this is how you get the matrix

Certainly agree that copy pasting isn’t a replacement to teaching but I can say I’ve had success learning coding basics while just asking Claude or gpt to explain the code output line by line.

I’ll add this here for the fake internet points but also as a general PSA. Most people are not aware that “Brainstorming” although popularized as a process since its origins in the 1960s… is actually Step 2. Most people are unaware that Step 1 is called “Questionstorming”. At the heart of the process is leveraging divergent and convergent modes of thinking which is done both to generate questions (and select the most promising ones) and answers… you’re welcome :D

While recycling may not be cost effective in some cases, for what it’s worth there is a thriving remanufacturing market of airplane parts.