A student recently said to me:

"You are a consultant to us. We are like your clients."

This made me laugh. And then I started thinking:

Are there similarities between teaching design and consulting with clients in industry?

Perhaps one difference—because of how academic institutions work—is many who teach move from undergraduate to graduate programs and then to teaching with little work experience in between. Valuable for advancing fundamental design and visual rules—but not for the messy process of bringing the best possible ideas and strategies you learn from working.

Expertise comes from experience.

But a little observed aspect of top performers is that they "don't think, they just do." What this means is that they think so rapidly and innately that they appear to solve problems without strain. 

In industry, no set of rules will tell you what the right solution is at every step of the process.

Expertise is the ability to move forward while constantly adapting to changes—group dynamics, scope, direction, environment, budget, and obstacles.

To do this you have to master the fundamentals, but thinking like a consultant helps me teach students to:

— quickly zero in on good ideas

— understand how to break down creative problems

— advance ideas and concepts (not techniques)

— adapt to the changing context

— identify and remove creative blocks

— problem solve

Where will designers learn these skills today? I'm hoping my students are starting to learn real-world skills in my classroom.