drinkteaeatbiscuits said:
It seems that one of the biggest criticisms from an 'employers' point of view is a combination of the practical side of things like setting up for print and the knowledge of how to use type.
From a printer's perspective, we find this a lot from students finalising their coursework ready to print that a working knowledge of file types, resolution and some important elements of general setup for print isn't covered on their course to a standard that they can work the most efficiently on their chosen projects. We output work as print, and cut vinyl mainly for their coursework displays and try to help as much as possible with their setup as early in the process as we can. We put flyers about at the local college offering free advice so students can get in touch before the end of their course to gain some practical tips and knowledge and it seems to work quite well as it builds a relationship between us so that when they graduate some of them become clients. We have few ex-students, now clients who we continue to work with a few years down the line, so everyone is happy.
One of the worst issues is when they are creating large format artwork for A0/A1 or bigger prints at 300 dpi, as they've been told to for printing(in general). This is much too high and everything takes longer for them to work with at this resolution, just more stress when they're already burning the midnight oil to get stuff finished. Files saved in RGB etc. simple stuff really.
As for placements, at the last company I worked at we had people for placements and usually found we were too busy to give them the attention they needed and set them to work on labourious tasks to get the work out, and when it was quieter the realisation of things they didn't know about and the few days were they with us made it impossible to give them a proper grounding. Supervision is the key, but nowadays when staff numbers and budgets have been cut, it's not the most attractive idea to have an extra person around needing attention, unless they're good at making tea.
Saying that though, I did a placement at a screen printers and thoroughly benefited from it and enjoyed it. :up: