| | Kimberly Le | If I had to sum up the major things I gained from my time at Tradecraft, it would fall into 3 buckets: 1) The community, 2) getting pushed out of my comfort zone with networking, and 3) access to a physical/virtual space that encourages constant learning throughout your career.
(1) The peers that you start with are one of your biggest assets (but only if you make the effort to invest time and energy into these relationships). I’ve met some amazing people and built friendships and connections with those in my cohort/class and even to this day, we stay in constant touch and share advice, support, and design events with each other. The more you all support each other (either through collaboration, emotional, or mental support) the more you all grow and benefit during your time here.
(2) Networking is scary for some people and for others, it feels contrived. One of the biggest things I gained from my experience at Tradecraft was getting comfortable with reaching out to people completely cold, and a big part of that was reframing what networking meant to me. Everyone approaches it with a different mindset based on their personalities and goals, and while for some it’s about building relationships, for others it can purely be about exchanging knowledge and learning. What really helps is to be surrounded by peers that can empathize with how difficult it is at first, and that in a way makes it easier for you to get out of your comfort zone. Everyone is doing it together.
(3) The skills you gain from Tradecraft are largely based on what you make of the experience there. You have constant access to a virtual community on slack that is always sharing resources related to design/growth/career development/etc, and people ask each other questions and give advice. The physical space also hosts events and bring in speakers nearly every other week or so. You’re always encouraged to come back into the space even after you graduate and take advantage of these learning opportunities. It's a great space that breeds and encourages learning throughout your career, but you gotta take advantage of it.
Tradecraft is by no means a perfect program. Things can feel messy and unstructured, and sometimes it feels like there could be a lot more transparency between staff and students. The lack of structure might be by design and one could argue that working in tech is messy too. People seem to be across the board in how they feel about the structure at Tradecraft. Some have strong expectations of structure and demand it, and some just work around it. I think it’s important to keep yourself in the middle and give feedback where you see room for improvement, but also understand that Tradecraft in a way a startup too and you sometimes just have to work with what you have. Push for improvement, but do your best to manage your frustrations and be constructive with your feedback.
Having graduated from the program about 5 months ago, I will say this. I’m *really* glad I went with Tradecraft instead of the other competing alternatives. I got to practice skills in design yes, but I wouldn’t trade the friendships/connections I made and getting pushed out of my comfort zone for anything. |
