Today I listened to a podcast from Gradcast: Real Stories from UAL. The speaker is a graduate of UAL and has started her career journey in the UK creative industries. She found that it is hard to go straight to the creative industry without many experiences as a fresh graduate, which takes her to a long journal to hunt for a job throughout the summer. The speaker of the podcast above comes from a background in fashion design, who is graduated from the London College of Fashion and majoring in Fashion design technology: womenswear. She shared her opinion about how important she thinks of building up her LinkedIn, especially for connecting the big house(big fashion company). In the podcast, she gave advice for the new graduates with her personal experience: “As a black woman, I have something relevant to say, have a perspective I can bring on, just believe in yourself. Keep an eye out for what is inspiring you because you are new to this industry, be a broker and show your identity.”
I noticed the courage from what she said in this podcast, courage is a universally admired virtue and we always need courage to fight with our fear and challenge the uncertainties. And I realize that courage is intimately related to mental and behavioral states when international creative graduates are taking uncertain actions. How can international creative graduates use courage to manage their mindset and challenge the uncertainties?
Aristotle believed that an individual develops courage by doing courageous acts (Aristotle, trans. 1962), and there is current support for the suggestion that courage is a moral habit to be developed by practice (Cavanagh & Moberg, 1999). The view is compatible with Bandura’s concept of self-efficacy in which successful performances (even vicarious ones) strengthen an expectation of further success (Bandura, 1977). Individuals are more likely to face a situation and attempt to cope with it if their previous experience gives them reason to believe they can meet the challenge. -(Ben Dean Ph.D. 2023)
Ben Dean (2023), Courage, https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/newsletters/authentichappinesscoaching/courage