Professional identity

The professional identity is who you are as a designer.

It is a product of your personality traits, personal history and what drives and inspires you, your interests, norms and values, beliefs and competency profile. It describes the role you typically assume in a design process, and your strengths and weaknesses as a designer.

The professional identity is in constant development as you need to continuously reflect on your desired professional identity.

The desired professional identity describes who you want to be as a designer, and is constructed by placing your current professional identity in the context of your vision on the future role of the designer. As such, the professional identity is built on past experiences, expresses how you currently view yourself, and states who you would like to become.

Learning starts and ends with your professional identity, which consists of personal traits and characteristics. Differences in professional identity will lead to the pursuit of different learning experiences which allows individual students to develop the ability to select, acquire, and use the attitude, skills and knowledge that are required for effective behavior in a specific professional, social, or learning context.