It's highly likely that the rest of us will work that long – a total career span of about 60 years.

Who knows what the technology will be then? That's a major reason the better programs teach concept and design, not technology. Technology is always ours to keep up with on our own – and generally, design profs are going to be teaching an old version. (I've heard of courses that are still teaching web design with tables.)

But to fuel any creative career for 60 years? That takes ideas, and an idea of where to find those ideas and generate new ones, which is in the world.

And the place we learn about the world is not really in design classes. It's partly in the social experience of school, but it's really in those other courses we take to meet those pesky distribution requirements: literature, history, math, science, a foreign language or two.

Which is why I recommend not just a degree but a degree from a university – one with a great design school.

It's not just learning about the world – it's learning how to understand the world. To learn something about how it's put together – the math and science of it – and the people and ideas who have made it what it is today, in all its forms.

And if there's one thing the social web should be teaching us all, it's that being a designer is no excuse for not being able to write clearly and coherently. (Or if it is – think how you can stand out by writing well!) What I've found is that nothing helps us understand how our language works – all that grammar that sucked in eighth grade – like learning the grammar of a foreign language. Plus, it's the easiest way to get exposed to another culture, even if it's only twice a week at 10 am.

Finally, the images we encounter in those non-design courses are the source images for a lifetime of design projects. Right now none of us – age 18 or 58 – knows who the next client is going to be, or the one a year from now. Will it be hamburgers or biotech? We've all seen the double helix of DNA a thousand times. But a college-level biology course will give that helix meaning and suggest design directions that would never have occurred to you if all you saw were two parallel spirals.

It does seem like any discussion like this always has a few people that will bring up the motivational aspect as a panacea for any challenge or issue in the field. I think it's a good attitude, but it doesn't necessarily represent any kind of 'mechanical' answer to someone that can't find work.

But I don't agree that the question of a degree or not comes down to motivation. It's not illogical for someone who really wants to be some kind of commercial artist to think the best way to achieve that goal is formal education.

Right now it's an easy and understandable time to be a little bit bitter.

It does seem like any discussion like this always has a few people that will bring up the motivational aspect as a panacea for any challenge or issue in the field. I think it's a good attitude, but it doesn't necessarily represent any kind of 'mechanical' answer to someone that can't find work.

But I don't agree that the question of a degree or not comes down to motivation. It's not illogical for someone who really wants to be some kind of commercial artist to think the best way to achieve that goal is formal education.

Right now it's an easy and understandable time to be a little bit bitter.