I’m not the only one who decided to endulge in my passions while majoring in a not-so-practical concentration in college. I’m sure half of our reader base did the same thing- English majors, Painters, Classics, I’m looking at you. Some of us are lucky enough to be living our dream and making rent off of our artistic skills. For the rest of plopped out into the career no man’s land of NYC, pursuing our interests fruitlessly, there’s always dog walking, waitressing, and drug peddling. Just kidding. Or am I?

That’s why I decided to take a class at 3rd Ward, Bushwick’s media-based adult education center. A self-taught Photoshop dependent, my futility impulses and minor ADD kick in whenever I try to learn a new program. For the member price of $209, I took a three-week, 9-hour intensive, Intro to Illustrator, and learned how to navigate the software better than I could have in 50 hours on my own.

 Having an artistic eye, creative impulses and working knowledge of Photoshop are great credentials, but let’s face it- in this economy, unless you know the full Adobe suite, you’ll be extremely lucky to find even the most basic job in creative digital media. So, I unbuckled my belt and prepared to get my creative Mojo a-flowing.