Credit: Kari Bjorn

“You’re all mediocre.” My lecturer pointed his nostrils at us and heaved a sigh of frustration. Atelier reviews didn’t go according to his plan and weak instruction, so unsurprisingly, he was put in a bad mood that day and decided to take it out on us.

Being called ‘mediocre’; there is no bigger insult you can give to a group of young adults who choose, in our own free right, to pursue design as a craft knowing it’s an underpaid venture in a crippling expensive country such as Singapore.

We didn’t come here to be mediocre. We came here to fight to the death to be the best.

Perhaps it was naivety to think that diploma students could even attempt to be the best designers in Singapore. We weren’t even the #1 in the country, let alone globally. We’re far from being RISD (Rhode Island School of Design).

What arrogance and entitlement youth has bestowed us.

But with that same arrogance and entitlement, I managed to feel shame. I was haunted for many late nights as I pondered about my then future life as a mediocre designer and how small I am in the world of cut-throat, fleeting design philosophies.

That lecturer was an asshole, but he was right.

True to his prediction, half of my classmates didn’t even have a design job after graduation. Almost a decade later, the ones who are still practicing design professionally are even a smaller percentage, let alone having designers who come up top.

“Why do something if you’re not going to be one of the best at it?”, I said to a Type-B friend. As much as I hate to admit it, I do have Type-A personality and I live to excel in life. It wasn’t enough for me to just be present, it was only enough if I am worth something.

“Are you going to give up because you’re not the best?”

A pause. And a raised eyebrow.

“No? If anything it just means I have to work harder in order to be the best.”