ENDA Episode 21→ The time when the Endless Apprentice learned the importance of listening to critics (Part 2)

Overall my time as an apprentice in many areas, I’ve seen firsthand what could happen when an artist knows how to “listen” to critics and when is just “hearing” them.

I remember the case in a Graphic Design course where some of my classmates were almost anxious when at the end of their expositions, they had to hear the questions and feedback from the rest of us before hearing the teacher’s.

The reason was that they took the existence of questions as a sign that their job was bad or that it was “horrible” and they would get a bad grade. I got to hear that one even ask a recurring critic not to ask questions in order not to put them more on the edge. As far as I know, no one end up failing the course.

This was a case of pure “hearing”, given that instead of taking the questions and the suggestions as an opportunity to be open to improve their designs or explain why those ideas could not be applicable in their case, they only heard that their work was not perfect and that was it.

I do not blame them for this first reaction, college is a place where we can make mistakes in order not to repeat them in the professional world. However, these attitudes if not controlled can turn into problematic behaviors sooner than later.

How extreme can those cases be?

Well, that would be for the next episode.