1. “So, what are you studying?” The question might as well be banging from the speakers at every student party. The go-to of small talk. I fell victim to that, too. Among international students, there are two possible ways a conversation can go: “What are you studying?” or “Where are you from?”. While both prove to be kind of important things to know about a person, these questions rarely lead to something beyond dry facts and predictable comments upon first meeting. It’s a simple categorisation, a way to distinguish between “them” and “us”. As if we can’t truly know each other without categorising each other. As if your field of study is the only character trait important enough to know. Finance guys are boring, art kids are weird and business students are full of themselves. We treat study programmes like Hogwarts Houses – which one are you, the smart one, the friendly one, the evil one or the main character?
We long for definition, a category, a group. And we want to belong. University aids us in finding this sense of belonging through groups. Young adults are separated by interests (read: study programmes), and your group becomes a definition of what you are. Stereotypes, expectations and non-existent career choices are the welcome bags of your college life. And yet, for 3 to 5 years of our twenties, we seem sure of who we should be. We wear our academic titles like badges. It gives us security, first of all in our career paths. With a clear definition of the field of study, we feel confident in our future. Our professors tell us what we are, our peers confirm it. We bathe in our shared curiosities and barely feel the need to take a look outside. Why would we? Everything we need to know is presented right in front of us, and everything we need to be is carefully organised in a set of requirements, assignments and hand-ins.
And yet, this doesn’t enable us to feel fully entitled to our category. To feel like we really belong. We walk as impostors, trying to be part of a group, so this group helps us define us. I am what they are. In reality, we are filled with fear and shame to be anybody. Our belonging to a group is only supported by our educational environment. We are not artists, but art students. We are not designers, but only study design. Dip your toe in the broad sea of creative doing, but never go in. How can we ever dare to feel like the real thing when all we’ve ever known is limited by the 4 walls of our classroom and the highly opinionated or barely opinionated professors? We learn to pretend, to “fake it till you make it”. Those brave enough overcome this fear after a year of their bachelor’s, while others might be wary of calling themselves the real thing even with a master’s diploma. The impostor mask lingers, hesitant to let go.
At graduation, one receives a confirmation. A piece of paper that is supposed to be your key to the real world. A key engraved with a prophecy: “You are allowed to be somebody now.” Your definition is written neatly in a serif font on your diploma. Vague academic titles are clear enough to bring peace in one’s life path and abstract enough to fit a myriad of job vacancies. You are now defined not by your group, but by your personal brand, best presented on LinkedIn, of course. And for the first time in your life, there isn’t a curriculum that will tell you who you are and what you should do. The dreadful question changes from “What are you studying?” to “What do you do?”. And what is it that you do? Are you the fancy-sounding cluster of letters on your diploma? Are you the weird entry-level job title that you didn’t really want, but “everyone has to start somewhere, right?” A simple small talk question grows into an existential crisis of self-definition. We must find a category to put ourselves in, we must fill in the blanks of personality characterisations. If you truly are what you eat, I would eat my diploma so I could finally become someone.
2. As creatives, we acquire numerous skills and interests throughout our upbringing and becoming. For many, it starts with a set of colourful markers that your parents bought you at 3 and an A4 book of plain paper (at 13, we know to call it a sketchbook). We pick up hobbies – drawing, painting, glueing, sculpting, writing. This accumulation of artistic passions paints a future – I will do art as my career. At 13, that is enough. At 18, a decision must be made. So we pack our hobbies into one box and call it whatever the chosen study programme calls it. Forced to tremendously narrow down our interests, we focus on one or two directions. “The job market favours specialists, not generalists.” For years, we devote ourselves to a specific craft, only to doubt it in the end. What if I chose the wrong path? What if my calling is writing, but now I will never know because I just spent 5 years studying interior design? Is that why we are so scared to embrace these titles? If one finally admits to being only one thing, one must be that thing forever. No possibility of change, no room to be someone else. The rules of creating a personal brand read “find your niche”. You are only interesting if you are easy to digest. Special enough to catch attention, but simple enough for the masses to want to buy you your product.
For the past 5 years, I have been relentlessly searching for my niche. I was making my passions fit into definitions – contemporary artist, filmmaker, illustrator, graphic designer. If I choose one, the other must be left behind. After graduation, I was left with scraps. Not yet a filmmaker, barely an artist, definitely not a designer. An existential crisis in its purest form. Admitting that I might never be the personality-brand type of a creative was the first step. Finding my niche proved to be nearly impossible, and building an audience on social media sounds straight-up exhausting. So what do I do? Everything. And as I am not one of the brave ones, the only thing I will not be afraid to call myself is an artist. Not because I paint, exhibit in galleries and use complicated language to explain simple things. But because art is all-encompassing. I am an artist in the same way a director is an artist directing their film. I am an artist in the same way an author is an artist writing their story. I am an artist in the same way an illustrator is an artist drawing their book cover. Explaining it to my grandma might be a little challenging, but at least she can be sure I am doing what makes me happy.
Signing off,
An Artist With a Passion for Many Other Things