My first weeks at the school were scary. Looking around, I could not find anyone who started as lowly as I did. Many students came from very sophisticated high schools. Some had already semesters of art or design education behind them. I lacked all of their skills. For the first two semesters I was in constant fear that I would be jettisoned. This would have been an extreme problem for me as failure was not anything my father would accept: “What would the neighbors think?”

1
Classes started at 9:00 on the first day, sharply. We got instructions for using ink and pen and feel out the proportions of Futura capital letters, drawing two parallel lines onto brown paper from large roles, and then using the pen to render the shapes of the alphabet. We were told to have absolutely no water glasses or other tools on our desks, especially not on the angled and cantilevered drawing board.

Around 11:00, I took a breather, spending some minutes in contemplating my efforts, when suddenly, I had not seen the director come into the room, my large brown paper flew up in the air and my drawing board with ink and the forbidden water glasses flipped up into the air and crushed to the floor. He had seen that I disobeyed his oder of how to set up my workstation and tipped the drawing board. While I was mortified and tried to clean up the mess, he kicked the utensils and glasses across the floor and room, making the mess even worse.

He then took me by the collar, picked up several of the sheets with my timid lettering from the floor and dragged me into the junior class, hung up my pretty mediocre first tries and had the advanced students critique my results, while he bellowed and screamed, promising me that I would not last till next week.

2
Assignments were usually given out around 3:00 on Fridays with deadline for Monday 9:00 am, taking care of the weekend. Everything had to be properly matted with acetate and cleanly backed. All tape had to be hidden.  There were no further instructions other than: Take a milk bottle – at that time in this region the bottle had a square base and tapered about from the middle into a cylinder, with a round opening at the top – draw it from all sides and make a convincing graphic translation. We were asked to have our work up by 9:00 o’clock, sharp.

I arrived early, hung my translations, made sure they were square, and was ready for the critique. The director came in, and without hesitation, not even a second seemed to have passed, he yelled in a booming voice: “Who is the A.….., who did the Penguin?” Of course it was not me. I had made a graphic translation form a milk bottle. Then I noticed that the sea of colleagues parted around me and my piece. Suddenly I stood alone infant of the director, who ripped down my solution and walked right over it. Again, I got a lecture about my short longevity unless things changed. I was devastated.

3
This was my last humiliation. Same as before, we received the assignment to design a signet with our initials on Friday with the obligatory Monday deadline, and the requirement of ten different solutions, nicely matted. Monday came and I saw all kinds of unfortunate omens, which materialized a s soon as Setzke walked in: “Who is the A……, who designed the toilet seat. The sea parted again. The sermon added little to what I had come to fear.

Well I learned very quickly and swore, I would never be caught again in humiliation. I also got the hang of the processes. The book shelves were loaded with plenty of great examples. The classroom was surrounded by the best graphic posters from all over the world and communicating with upper classmates who always were helpful, even though they would not indulge of coddle me, made the goals of the school very clear.

The trauma between me and the director disappeared in the middle of the second semester, and I began to work in the his design studio completing small design and office assignments. I was on the way.