Graduation - Kay Schuttel, Jeroen van de Gruiter

Graduation tutors have the role of guiding the students in their graduation process, operating on two levels: First, there’s the coaching level—coaching the work process, but also the personal process, development, and design—then, there’s the skills level—content, concepts related to the design work itself. Within the graduation process, the students’ contact moments to the academy are meetings with the guiding tutors and the thesis tutor. During the weekly meeting with the guiding tutor, this one hour per week becomes the students’ primary connection to the academy. 

Not all students choose to work on their graduation projects at the academy. They don’t necessarily even have to be at the academy during the graduation period. Still, most meetings take place at the academy—in the workshops or studios—which helps reinforce the energy of being in that environment. Those weekly meetings place students in the context of graduation within the community of DAE and become important for keeping track of the timeline and process of graduating. Helping the student with timing is an important part of the tutor’s role—keeping track of the student’s development.  

The style of doing this differs from tutor to tutor, and, of course, it also depends on the students. Some students automatically take steps to document and track their process, reflect, and move forward. For others, it’s important to receive more structure—moments throughout the semester, like setting weekly deadlines and deliverables. Personally, I base my approach on what the students identify as their needs. There aren’t many academy-wide deadlines during the graduation period, so I help them mark those moments—midterm, the final exam, and how to structure the steps and phases involved. 

Many students feel disconnected from the academy at the start of the graduation period. Some have done internships abroad—like in Milan—and are returning after a year away. As a tutor, my role is to help bring them back into the academy’s rhythm. There might be practical issues too—like workspace needs. For example, ceramic students need specific spaces and tools. This needs to be planned and facilitated. When we develop and track the timeline together, students generally feel more free to explore in the beginning. For example, if I tell them it’s okay to spend three weeks being completely open—wandering around conceptually—without needing to make something yet, they feel safe in that space. I think the biggest risk for students is the feeling of having to produce something quickly, and creating pressure from the start. If the tutor encourages them to explore and experiment in the beginning, my experience is that projects explore topics and issues more in depth. 

In the bachelor education, students follow their own trajectories as they can choose a studio (module) each semester. In that structure, it makes sense that students choose their own guiding tutor. This aligns well with the Design Academy’s ideology: that students create their own education. That means the student is taking responsibility to reflect on what they need. It teaches them to recognise what they need at different points in their process. That’s a skill they’ll need professionally too—knowing what kind of guidance or peer connection they need in a given moment. 

During midterm and exam moments, the structuring of student groups into clusters—consisting of two or three tutors, and a maximum of eight students—is very valuable. The students are grouped based on similarities—in form, expertise, medium, or conceptual approach. Students receive feedback not only from their own tutor but from the other tutors in the cluster, who are familiar with the student’s work and can offer compatible, insightful feedback. This helps create a sense of community among the students. At the midterm and exam, that community is very clear. Ideally, the cluster would meet more often, even before the midterm. My experience shows that peer reflection is important—seeing each other’s work and getting input from other perspectives. It creates trust and builds on the graduation process as a group process. 

From my perspective, the role of the graduation tutor is mainly a supporting one. Most tutors have active creative practices, and that is a strong point of connection for students as they approach graduation. From start to finish, I motivate and stimulate students by sharing references—in the form of projects, other practices or interesting texts—and offering information based on our own experiences. This helps to tackle some of the naivety that students sometimes have, and prepares them for the time after graduation. 

As a tutor, I give students quite a bit of freedom. At the same time, it’s important for them to understand that graduation is a transition moment between studying and working in a practice—either their own or as part of a team—so skills like timekeeping and planning become crucial—after graduation, they might collaborate and work alongside other people’s agendas as well. 

Students might also need other kinds of support. For instance, a current student works with rotational molding using natural wax as a material. That’s possible of course, but there are factors surrounding that material—economic, social, ecological and historical—that also need consideration before settling on the decision to use it. Sometimes students focus on one part of a subject and don’t consider their work as part of a bigger system, which again is possible, but needs to be clarified. That’s why I make use of the beginning of the graduation process to question their projects in a broader sense, to establish a set of guidelines for what is and what isn’t, which then transitions into sharing references, and supporting students from the sideline as they continue their graduation projects. 

I don’t consider myself a coach nor a mentor. I come from a design and research practice. With this background, I try to stimulate students to reach out, collaborate on a multidisciplinary level and also seek feedback outside of the realm of design. I go into every semester with as much enthusiasm as possible. It’s important to me that students have a critical stance toward their subjects and are self- motivated as that is a moment to create change. I want students to see that they can also help shape the discipline we're in, and understand what their roles can be. 

The meetings with grad students aren’t just about the work. I empathise with their experience. Graduation is intense—it’s a major moment. It helps to understand what they’re after beyond graduation and how they’re feeling in that moment. I don't necessarily follow a strict method and keep the sessions relaxed, because I don’t like hierarchical teaching—I see students more as colleagues and realise that learning goes both ways. Being a graduation tutor feels valuable. It’s fun to work with ambitious people that are actively shaping the context they’re in. We’re lucky to be in these roles—to help students take that final step in their education.