Why I love my teachers

I stumbled across this post on a design blog this morning and loved every word. One of my teachers was responding to some one ranting on and on about problems in the professional design community as far as entry level designers lacking entry level job offers so my typography/packaging teacher chimed in with his two cents.

What happened to grey areas in the world of design?
Why is everyone proposing solutions to this dilemma in a black and white p.o.v?
I teach Communication Design full time at a great institution. (MIAD)
Each year we graduate 30 to 40 CD majors and usually have many great job placement stories within a few months after graduation. A lot of those positions started as design internships.
Sure, there are a few "D" students that make it through the system and get a degree. (like any other industry) But those students, after 4 years of solid critique by their peers and instructors, certainly know what their odds are of getting a "great" design job. As my design professor once told me; " Getting a great job in graphic design is easy. You just have to be really, really good."
Maybe the people that keep complaining about the state of the job market just aren't that good compared to their peers (for a multitude of possible reasons– not all design related). We talk to the "not-so-strong" ones candidly every semester about what they might best be suited for. (ie: Art/photo director vs. designer or perhaps account exec because of excellent verbal communication skills vs. design ability) We even tell some of them that maybe they should think about another Major.
They know that their best odds of getting a job won't be at an award winning agency. I'm here to say that there's room for some designers like this as well.
"Cream of the crop" design students that wind up at small "in-house" set-ups can become extremely frustrated. If I were the owner of such a business, I would want an employee that I could count on for the long run and not worry about that employee chasing after the next creative award at another place.
Is your career a sprint or a long-distance run?
Are you done learning once you graduate or has it just begun? I'm very proud of the excellent designers that we help prepare, but I'm equally proud of the few "not-so-great" ones that have made the biggest leaps and may wind up managing the great ones some day (because of their humility and acceptance of what they can and cannot do).
I'm a huge proponent of excellence in design, but an even bigger supporter of excellence in people development. That is the result that truly defines who you are, certainly carrying over into your design career.