What Grades are Good For in a Perfect World
Last semester of my senior year of high school i had an extra class hour to fill and nothing required left to take.
I understand this situation is typical now, and that courses in bowling and french movies have become the hip choice for senior boys hoping to become men, but it was unusual then, or was to me.
I tried to think what i was good at.
Latin? No. Math? Yikes. Could sing, dance, act or play an instrument?
Nothing.
I wasn't the type to take home economics (still ain't) so I looked at my report cards for the last 3 years of high school to figure out what i was good at.
That's when i noticed i got A's in english.
From there an elective class in "creative writing" was an easy choice.
And, the first day, when i came in and discovered that in this class i was surrounded by all the beautiful girls in the senior class, i believe i took the first steps down the road that turned into the work i do.
I wasn't smart enough to know how to go about the job of finding a job for me.
I was lucky.
Heck, i didn't even know that day in high school that what i was doing would decide what i would do.
It was an instinctual choice to go find those report cards and look at them.
It was not a considered thought to pick what class to take according to what i was good at.
It was the only thought i had.
But it's a step i see some people who come to the school and who come to advertising, missing out on.
They make a choice to be in advertising for some other reason than that they're good at it.
They want to go on tv commercial shoots in LA & drink martinis at the Mondrian.
They see a future full of first class travel, prada suits and coffee brought to their hotel rooms in silver service.
They like the idea of wearing jeans to work and taking three hour lunches at the best Polish restaurant in Detroit.
(sorry, you're stuck with my ideas about fun--that's the place there on the right. it's in hamtramack. click on the photo & you can read the address)
All excellent experiences.
But.
The thrill of them lasts only a few seconds while the hard work of being a copywriter or art director never goes away.
Any performer will tell you--and that's what being an advertising creative is, it's about performance according to schedule and there is no answer to when it's done or good enough except for the one you give-- the job is ever near. It never goes away. In the front of your mind at the office, in the back of your mind at the grocery store, the archery range or in bed.
Look at your grades.
Listen to what they say.
And not just the ones in school.
Look at what you do well.
Look for the calling.
That's where the job you want is.
That's where the job that wants you is.
(what does this long drag of a story mean in practical language to a student, you wonder? it's only winter break, you've still got 5 months of school left if you're 2nd year. This is all i ask: try some new things and see how you do. try the opposite of whatever you've been doing. If you can't think of anything try asking people who know you what you're good at. You won't believe what they say, but they're worth listening to. Mothers. You can trust mothers)
I understand this situation is typical now, and that courses in bowling and french movies have become the hip choice for senior boys hoping to become men, but it was unusual then, or was to me.
I tried to think what i was good at.
Latin? No. Math? Yikes. Could sing, dance, act or play an instrument?
Nothing.
I wasn't the type to take home economics (still ain't) so I looked at my report cards for the last 3 years of high school to figure out what i was good at.
That's when i noticed i got A's in english.
From there an elective class in "creative writing" was an easy choice.
And, the first day, when i came in and discovered that in this class i was surrounded by all the beautiful girls in the senior class, i believe i took the first steps down the road that turned into the work i do.
I wasn't smart enough to know how to go about the job of finding a job for me.
I was lucky.
Heck, i didn't even know that day in high school that what i was doing would decide what i would do.
It was an instinctual choice to go find those report cards and look at them.
It was not a considered thought to pick what class to take according to what i was good at.
It was the only thought i had.
But it's a step i see some people who come to the school and who come to advertising, missing out on.
They make a choice to be in advertising for some other reason than that they're good at it.
They want to go on tv commercial shoots in LA & drink martinis at the Mondrian.
They see a future full of first class travel, prada suits and coffee brought to their hotel rooms in silver service.
They like the idea of wearing jeans to work and taking three hour lunches at the best Polish restaurant in Detroit.
(sorry, you're stuck with my ideas about fun--that's the place there on the right. it's in hamtramack. click on the photo & you can read the address)All excellent experiences.
But.
The thrill of them lasts only a few seconds while the hard work of being a copywriter or art director never goes away.
Any performer will tell you--and that's what being an advertising creative is, it's about performance according to schedule and there is no answer to when it's done or good enough except for the one you give-- the job is ever near. It never goes away. In the front of your mind at the office, in the back of your mind at the grocery store, the archery range or in bed.
Look at your grades.
Listen to what they say.
And not just the ones in school.
Look at what you do well.
Look for the calling.
That's where the job you want is.
That's where the job that wants you is.
(what does this long drag of a story mean in practical language to a student, you wonder? it's only winter break, you've still got 5 months of school left if you're 2nd year. This is all i ask: try some new things and see how you do. try the opposite of whatever you've been doing. If you can't think of anything try asking people who know you what you're good at. You won't believe what they say, but they're worth listening to. Mothers. You can trust mothers)
6 Comments:
awesome.
mark.
now, at a time when brown-nosing can seem inconsequential and unsubstantiated does it seem most appropriate to both applaud and muse about the joy and sadness it is to have had you as a teacher and have lost you as such to w+k.
a rarity among educators of any sort, most especially, you have short thoughts. sweet and to the point ... even through story telling. with wisdom, but not in a way that feels overbearing or in an "i told you so" fashion.
these things i appreciated throughout my first and only semester under a formal (as formal as anything with you ever could be) setting. and will dually miss.
and i felt it most appropriate to comment about it here. though many of your posts have served to probe as this one, this is a thought which not only serves our field well, but any. and particularly the performance ones -- whether arts, sports or otherwise.
thanks.
that's a big matzah ball you left hangin' thomas.
what I wanna know is what kind of high school offers bowling and french movies as an elective?
did you attend a private school? it didn't sound like a public. maybe in alaska, we didn't have nothin' other than field hockey or criminology as electives but i would've relished a shot at a bowling class. i coulda been a contender i tell ya. as it stands now, i love to bowl...but i suck at it.
marks rant kinda goes with a peice of wisdom i picked up from my dad. (he was drafted into the airforce during NAM. the war, not michelle nam the first year copywriter.) anyway, he hated the military, (still do) he had a degree in english wanted to be a writer.
one day he came home really pissed at his job and said to me, "son, in life, do what you like, but like what you do."
that kinda stuck with me. that's why i'm in advertising. i like it. until something else that i like more comes along (gangsta rappin') i'll keep doing it.
It's natural not to like working in advertising and often times down right shameful, but that doesn't effect whether you're good at it or not.
What's more dangerous is requiring yourself to earn a paycheck based on what you enjoy doing. There will come a day when what you once enjoyed has become forced labor.
The freedom to feel ecstacy or decrepit loathsomeness for advertising is what keeps me coming back.
Mark, I had the "pleasure" of being in your first year copywriting class during your first stint at the Adcenter a few years back. Throughout the poetry readings and the overhead projector presentations, I never seemed to learn as much as I did when I walked into your office, sat down and shot the shit with you. Reading your blog is exactly like that. Please, for the sake of people who think they're supposed to be spoon fed everything they learn within the confines of a classroom, keep doing this.
I took typing as my senior elective. I had just read a comment that Truman Capote made about Jack Kerouac's "On The Road" which supposedly had been wrtitten in three weeks: "That's not writing; it's typing."
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