Fashion [David Bowie]

On Friday I attended Cre8, the new name for the annual fashion show held by the DFW chapter of IIDA. Actually, my boss (the department director) myself and another teacher attended the event, but oddly enough, the other teacher who actually leads the student group (I'm now a co-chair, it seems) couldn't attend for questionable reasons.

So the school has a student chapter of both IIDA and ASID, as well as countless other organizations (RDI, NKBA, etc) it's all rolled into one overall group, but the primary membership is IIDA and ASID students. And when I say that, I mean that of the 6 students that are members, 3 are IIDA and 3 are ASID. Apparently it's really hard to drum up interest, 1.) because these are spoiled brats who don't understand networking at all because they've never had to work for anything on their own, and b.) because this is a commuter school with retarded hours, students don't want to spend their 1 free hour between classes in meetings, or they don't want to drive to a meeting on a day that they don't have class.

So all of our members participated in the Cre8 event, and their outfit was actually pretty good. I don't know who won the event because we actually bailed early - it was still going strong at 9.30 and I think my boss was sticking around cause she thought I wanted to be there still - but what I learned is that it's hard to network for the school when you don't want to be in the area, and even harder when you are embarrassed to be associated with the school (no fault of the fashion show students, just the general student population I've been dealing with)

On Saturday the awesomeness continued, as I was assigned to present during an open house. They hold these things all the time to drum up enrollment, and apparently the faculty rotate through - since I'm new, the decided that I should attend this one. That's all well and good, but they didn't tell me what to do or say, just gave me a slideshow of student work and said "It's easy, you'll do fine." So what I learned is that just like with networking at IIDA events, it's hard to drum up enthusiasm for a school you don't care for. I spoke about the types of things you can do with an Interior Design degree, about the NCIDQ and the professional organizations and such. I tried to answer questions from parents and students as honestly as possible - which is hard when asked "Why would a student come here rather than a 4 year university" and "Why are there no dedicated studios or workspaces - isn't that counterproductive" Well, yes, yes it is, and i see no merits of this school over a 4 year. So I couldn't, in good conscience, tell prospective students to go to this school. I left most of the presentation/salesmanship up the the admissions person who was there with me.

I can pretend to like a lot of things I don't, and I will do a lot for a job, even if I don't like it or want it (I'm looking at you, target) - but apparently I have boundaries, and I found them this weekend. I'm just going to leave the promotion of the school up to someone else, work on being a good teacher for the time being, and do my best to find a new job.