Education Stories — 02. Jorik Elferink
I’ve come to embrace change, something sorely lacking in our education system. By doing so, I found more purpose and meaning in both life and work. I want to help others reach the same. It’s time to update our education system.
We’re kicking off the #FutureOfEducation project by asking people to tell their personal education stories.
[click here to submit your own Education Story]
Stuck
Little more than a year ago I started a journey that would change my life. And I needed it. After graduating my Bachelor in Advertising & Marketing I had to face the truth I kept from myself. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I started my studies as a naive young boy who just wanted to live in Amsterdam. I thought that working in advertising meant I would have a creative job. Thinking of all those commercials and campaigns requires a creative mind right? So I started my studies expecting to dive into creativity. Of course, that’s not what happened. My education was more about the business side of things, a very commercial view. More about numbers, percentages and targets then I had expected. Stupid really.
I can say I wasn’t all that enthusiastic about my education. But I also didn’t really know what else to do and I don’t like to give up that easy. So I stayed. That meant I had to find my drive somewhere else. This came in the form of student surfing society D.E.R.M. which I joined since the start of my education. After two years of working in different committees I decided to put a hold on my studies for an entire year to become a full-time board member. My first real realisation that I needed a change. After a great year of hard work, lots of learning and great fun, it was time to return my focus to my studies. Luckily I had planned it so that I would only have to do two internships and write my thesis. Piece of cake, no?
Let’s not talk about my first internship. It doesn’t deserve a proper mention anywhere really. All I can say is it was a huge relief when I started my second internship and my thesis. This was at Vandejong Creative Agency. I felt right at home. Mainly working on Foam Magazine, I had the opportunity to work with one of my main interests, photography. My time at Vandejong was such a difference from my first internship. Where I’d first be drained after a days work, I now felt energised. Where I couldn’t bring it up to see my friends and family, I now was right back in the midst of it all. This realisation really came from my buddy Wouter, when he ‘welcomed me back’. He noted what a different person I had become, seemingly over night. And he was right. I didn’t like doing anything really, which in turn made me not a particular fun person to be around. When I started at Vandejong however, I suddenly started calling my friends again. Invited them for dinners at my place, joined them at parties and above all, I was enthusiastic about my work. I felt like I had something to share.
I enjoyed working at Vandejong so much, that I didn’t put the right energy in my thesis. The second time I chose something else over my education. Also it didn’t help that I didn’t agree with the way graduation worked at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam. And I still don’t. In short, my thesis had to be about my internship assignment, as set by the company. But it had to be written in the style and format of my education and Vandejong did not even have any part in grading me. Which did not make sense at all. The industry works so differently from our education system, that I literally had to add aspects that my colleagues deemed unnecessary and old-fashioned. After working there for almost a year, I finally came to the realisation I still had to graduate. So I quit working to focus on my thesis full-time.
Fast forward a couple of months and I finally graduated. Supposedly ready to start my career. But I didn’t feel ready at all. I didn’t even know what I wanted to do. I felt lost. I did have some job interviews, but the moment I walked in I knew I didn’t want to be there. Something was off. I worked at an organic store for over a year, feeling drained again. Slowly but surely I drifted back into the not so fun version of myself. For all the free time I had, I did surprisingly little. Especially my girlfriend at the time suffered from that. I was home when she left and I was home when she got back from work. Her weekends we’re free, mine we’re filled with organic store shifts. And when she tried helping me, I only complained that I didn’t know what to do. Stuck in a loop.
The turning point
Then I came across Hyper Island, as part of the B. Startup School Amsterdam (BSSA). A nine-month Experience Design programme aimed to help graduates land their first job. Reading about the course I felt an energy I hadn’t felt in a long time, enthusiasm. It felt like this course was made for me, so I applied and got accepted. January 2016 we started as the pilot programme. First batch of students. Learning about leadership, the design process, unlocking my creative confidence and tackling problems for society. Quickly I learned why I had difficulty during my previous education and job search. My focus was completely wrong. Marketing and advertising is the end of the design process. There is a product or service ready and it’s time to sell it. But my interest lies in the start of the design process. Thinking of the products and services that serve an actual human need.
My time at Hyper has been the most formative for my future plans. Getting to know this whole new world, with so many great and caring people, I decided to make some changes in my life. But some were forced on me. Right after Hyper my girlfriend and I broke up. Which meant I lost every constant in life. I had no job (yet) and now I lost my longstanding relationship. And with that, my house. Even though it was very hard at the time, I also saw it as a fresh start. Wanting to make some changes in life anyway, why not start from scratch? Now was the time to choose for myself. What do I want? Luckily, I’ve got amazing friends who took me in immediately, so I had a place to stay for a couple of weeks and sort things out. I decided to only put effort into things that give me more energy than they cost me. Even if that would mean making less money. Happiness over profit, as my friends at The Happy Startup School call it. So I got to think about what it is that makes me happy.
Learning
At Hyper Island I found a passion for learning processes. When asked to give an ideation workshop to one of the other classes, I saw it as a learning opportunity. After all, leading others through exercises and methods meant I had to know my stuff. That I’d also enjoy facilitating so much, I wouldn’t have expected. I learned so much from this one experience and felt so energised that I knew I wanted to do this more. So together with Florian, I started facilitating more workshops. Starting with the new Hyper crew. Which brought us to the idea to start a creative consultancy. An idea that lived on for a couple of months, but never really came to life. Mainly because we got sucked into work at our traineeship companies.
Having finished the Experience Design course, it was time for us to start our traineeships. Being the first batch of students, things didn’t go smooth at all for BSSA. They had a great idea and rushed into it. Which, partly, also made it the success it is today. But at the time it was chaos. Three different founding organisations who all seemed to tell a different story. Students and teachers alike were confused. BSSA clearly had to experience design itself. That’s when they asked me to join the team. And so I did for nine months. It was my job to improve the overall experience for everyone involved. Working closely together with all the students, teachers, the founding organisations and the industry we were serving.
During my time at BSSA, I kept delivering workshops here and there. Not always with Florian, since his work at 72andSunny took most of his time and he was involved with a couple of side projects. At the end of summer we discussed our future plans and decided I would go on without him. He simply couldn’t divide his time even more while keeping the quality high. This gave me the opportunity to team up with Tessa & Anneke. Both also from our Hyper Island crew and fantastic human beings. They shared my enthusiasm for spreading creative confidence and to help others reach their full potential. This resulted in us three founding unfold, a design & innovation studio. It is our mission to help people do more meaningful work.
Lessons
Within one year I’ve changed my life completely. From being lost to helping others do more meaningful work is a huge step. I’m not nearly where I want to be, but I’m no longer dreading that idea. I’ve come to embrace the not knowing. Now working as a freelancer and running unfold with Tess & Anneke, things are pretty uncertain still. I don’t know where I’ll be in a month time or whether I’ve got enough money to sustain myself. But none of that can beat the energy and enthusiasm I feel by doing this work. Since starting this journey I’ve met so many wonderful people who inspire me every day. Being able to do meaningful work together with them is my path of happiness.
A personal victory of mine was a couple of weeks ago. During one of my last days at BSSA, I had all my old teachers from Advertising & Marketing over at B. Amsterdam (by coincidence). I gave them a tour and told them about my personal journey since graduating. Some of them remembered my lengthy graduation process and where sceptical at the time. Now, however, they were inspired. After a short and open discussion about the state of education, I was invited over at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam to share my view & ideas for the curriculum and education processes in general.
This whole year has triggered a new motivation in me. I’m getting slightly obsessed with improving our learning processes. Yet I’m wondering how it’s possible that I needed this experience to find it. I see it as a failure of our education system and the performance driven culture we live in. That’s why I’m now looking for the people and projects who aim to change our education system, tell their stories and accelerate the change. Hence #FutureOfEducation.
How might our education system enable us to find our own path to happiness?
We’ve looked to the past and processed our own experiences. Now it’s time to hear other people’s stories, from wildly different perspectives, and use those to try to figure out where, when and who can make the biggest impact on education systems.
[click here to submit your own Education Story]
Be well!
Jorik
