I slowly reduced my school projects from 2-3 projects to just my thesis project. I have about 5 years of professional experience, when is it ideal to remove school projects.
54angles
Mar 16, 22 6:45 pm
One year out of school. I don't care about school junk nor do I ask anyone else about their stuff from years ago.
natematt
Mar 16, 22 7:13 pm
I'd be very skeptical of someone who's school work is not a much better indicator of their abilities than their first year in the profession.
ArchKid
Mar 17, 22 12:30 am
I mean for me,
ArchKid
Mar 17, 22 12:32 am
I mean for me, I don’t do much of these fancy diagrams to explain my design concepts. I do mostly full construction Drawings from permit to closing documents. And school is the only time I actually did design development.
54angles
Mar 17, 22 1:53 am
I didn't look to switch jobs after a year and by the time I did need something, school work was irrelevant to what I wanted to demonstrate. You can either ask to see outdated school projects or see what I have been doing since then.
Chad Miller
Mar 17, 22 11:54 am
54angles - don't be a douche. This is your only warning.
Your advice isn't helpful and is quite frankly worthless as it only applies to your unique and specific situation. In addition anyone should be interested in what potential team members 'did years ago'.
proto
Mar 16, 22 7:32 pm
tune the portfolio for the jobs you want
remove old projects as you get better ones to replace them
could be 3mos or 3yrs or 10yrs
msparchitect
Mar 16, 22 7:36 pm
After ten years of experience, I still keep a few graduate school projects in my portfolio, but only as talking points to what I was interested in studying in and how the projects went. In my experience, after a few years of experience, the interview is more of a conversation to see how well you and they fit. The portfolio just gives something to talk about. I've also only interviewed with other alumni from my grad school in the past few years, so having something to generate those conversations is usually pretty good.
As a person who has interviewed candidates, a lot of the school work is all the same to be honest. Just talk to me and tell me what you're about, the difficulties you had, and how you overcame them. The pretty pictures help pass the time.
SneakyPete
Mar 16, 22 8:09 pm
School work doesn't get me hired, so it doesn't exist in my portfolio.
monosierra
Mar 17, 22 8:42 am
If you have enough professional work that showcases your professional abilities, then there's likely no need for school work. I'd make an exception if your thesis does showcase something not seen in professional work - and is a damn good project in its own right. I've seen people put in robotics thesis work, for instance, which are frankly quite amazing and entirely applicable to what they're doing professionally. Another exception might be if you're young and applying to a firm known for its design prowess (Often run by active faculty) e.g. SO-Il or H+Y., in which case showing a good thesis project might demonstrate your creativity alongside your ability to execute profesionally.
archanonymous
Mar 17, 22 9:48 am
I have a "big" portfolio that I pull projects from to make the portfolio I apply to jobs and opportunities with. The big document has all my projects in it, including all my school projects. I still sometimes include one or two depending what the portfolio is for. I have 12 years of professional post-grad experience.
Chad Miller
Mar 17, 22 12:00 pm
As others have said - tailor your portfolio to the position you're applying to. This could mean including school work if applicable. As you gain more experience you'll be able to show more of you professional 'built' work.
As a general rule of thumb though I'd say once you've been working for five years you probably don't want to have academic work in your portfolio unless it's for a good reason.
Good luck.
Non Sequitur
Mar 17, 22 12:27 pm
I consider school works as conversation pieces now.
Chad Miller
Mar 17, 22 1:16 pm
To be honest if I were to look at my school work now I'd probably hang my head in shame laugh at myself.
I slowly reduced my school projects from 2-3 projects to just my thesis project. I have about 5 years of professional experience, when is it ideal to remove school projects.
One year out of school. I don't care about school junk nor do I ask anyone else about their stuff from years ago.
I'd be very skeptical of someone who's school work is not a much better indicator of their abilities than their first year in the profession.
I mean for me,
I mean for me, I don’t do much of these fancy diagrams to explain my design concepts. I do mostly full construction Drawings from permit to closing documents. And school is the only time I actually did design development.
I didn't look to switch jobs after a year and by the time I did need something, school work was irrelevant to what I wanted to demonstrate. You can either ask to see outdated school projects or see what I have been doing since then.
54angles - don't be a douche. This is your only warning.
Your advice isn't helpful and is quite frankly worthless as it only applies to your unique and specific situation. In addition anyone should be interested in what potential team members 'did years ago'.
tune the portfolio for the jobs you want
remove old projects as you get better ones to replace them
could be 3mos or 3yrs or 10yrs
After ten years of experience, I still keep a few graduate school projects in my portfolio, but only as talking points to what I was interested in studying in and how the projects went. In my experience, after a few years of experience, the interview is more of a conversation to see how well you and they fit. The portfolio just gives something to talk about. I've also only interviewed with other alumni from my grad school in the past few years, so having something to generate those conversations is usually pretty good.
As a person who has interviewed candidates, a lot of the school work is all the same to be honest. Just talk to me and tell me what you're about, the difficulties you had, and how you overcame them. The pretty pictures help pass the time.
School work doesn't get me hired, so it doesn't exist in my portfolio.
If you have enough professional work that showcases your professional abilities, then there's likely no need for school work. I'd make an exception if your thesis does showcase something not seen in professional work - and is a damn good project in its own right. I've seen people put in robotics thesis work, for instance, which are frankly quite amazing and entirely applicable to what they're doing professionally. Another exception might be if you're young and applying to a firm known for its design prowess (Often run by active faculty) e.g. SO-Il or H+Y., in which case showing a good thesis project might demonstrate your creativity alongside your ability to execute profesionally.
I have a "big" portfolio that I pull projects from to make the portfolio I apply to jobs and opportunities with. The big document has all my projects in it, including all my school projects. I still sometimes include one or two depending what the portfolio is for. I have 12 years of professional post-grad experience.
As others have said - tailor your portfolio to the position you're applying to. This could mean including school work if applicable. As you gain more experience you'll be able to show more of you professional 'built' work.
As a general rule of thumb though I'd say once you've been working for five years you probably don't want to have academic work in your portfolio unless it's for a good reason.
Good luck.
I consider school works as conversation pieces now.
To be honest if I were to look at my school work now I'd probably hang my head in shame laugh at myself.