Hello,
So I did that thing called graduate from college with a BFA in Advertising & Graphic Design. And now I’m sitting around my house trying to figure out what I want to do with this degree.
Obviously I want to work in Graphic Design, the problem is figuring out what part of design that I want to work in. There’s so many possibilities that I every time I try to narrow it down I end up with more options and more ideas. For now until I find a job, I’ve just decided that I’m gonna blog about it.
The week after graduation I jumped straight into the job search. I left on Sunday from Columbus to Boulder, CO. Monday was a lazy day of trying to grasp the fact that I have no more school to look forward to and that I need to find a job. It involved TV watching and sleeping a lot. Not much excitement there.
Tuesday was a different story. I had added the Meet Ups app to my phone right before bed and was scrolling through all the different events going on. Lo and Behold, Startup Week Boulder. An entire week dedicated to Startups, and right on Tuesday was a job fair. So Tuesday morning I rallied together my portfolio, some resumes, and the little left of my business cards (10 total) and went to the event. I can say that I officially flung myself out of my comfort zone. Seriously met so many amazing people and went to a ton of different events through out the week.
Some highlights were seeing some of the cofounders of Ello, which I didn’t even realize was a Boulder Startup. I’ve been following Berger & Fohr’s website for awhile, but somehow missed that they had started Ello. Guess I wasn’t paying attention. I also went to the Boulder Crawl and met people there. Ran all over the mall and ended up making some new friends along the way.
Wednesday, there were a few events that I went to related to Advertising. I felt like I went to a nicer presentation and condensed version of my Advanced Branding class. Beautiful graphics and an amazing presentation that I wanted to learn more about. After that I went to a presentation on Empowering the Student Entrepreneur. I liked that one ’cause, even though I’ve graduated, I still related to it. It helped remind me to look at the core of what I want to do with my graphic design skills and the idea of empowering myself.
Thursday was a lot of fun. I went down for the Internship panel which was helpful in giving tips. Following that I went to Mondo Robot Design Happy Hour and talked to a few people there. I love going to that place. Everyone is so interesting and I love the work that they do. It’s one of the places that inspired me to go into Graphic Design. From there I went to Hack the Dot. I joined a team and we built a website, or as much of one as we could, in a two hour period. It was so fast and so much fun! It was great to work with Kim & Stuart to create Geeklife.Social as a cool website.
Friday the panels I went to was Technology & Startups. It was very interesting to talk learn about the different websites used to help build these companies. From there I went to Boomtown Demo Day. OMG I WANT TO BE THE DESIGNER FOR ALL THESE STARTUP’S PRESENTATIONS. One of the things I really enjoyed during my time at school was creating presentations. There was something about that which always focused my mind and helped me figure out what I wanted to get done. Seeing the presentations at Boomtown made me so excited and I felt so mesmerized. I know they probably used Indesign & After Effects, but I’m still amazed at everything that goes into it. I want to learn more about that. Seriously, I really do love presentation design and would enjoy getting a job putting information in a more concise and beautiful way. After Boomtown Demo Day I went to the closing party and met some people. Fun music & people to talk with.
That was Boulder Startup Week.
Long recap, so I’m gonna keep the rest of my Life after Graduation Adventures for another post. I’ll be going to some conventions and other meet ups in the next few weeks as I hunt for a job.
Ciao for now,
Kendall
Kendall Hotchkiss 