Last week Sam Bradley, an assistant professor of advertising at Texas Tech University, and I met to discuss what copywriting students really need to learn in class to be better prepared to work in an agency.

Hopefully I gave him some good insights based on my own experience. However, my situation is a bit different. I wasn’t an advertising major. I wasn’t even an English major (although it was my minor). I studied Electronic Media & Communications hoping to make it rich in television.

Luckily, I discovered advertising almost by accident. I now love being a copywriter, but I can’t say it was easy catching up. I read everything I could get my hands on. Every book, every article, every blog. Anything that has to do with becoming a copywriter. (By the way, there are many, many great resources out there, but there is also plenty of junk.)

So when Sam asked me what I would suggest students do, reading the works and books of proven successful copywriters were at the top of my list. We talked some more and got some good ideas. I think he’s on a good track, and I almost wish I could go back and learn it all again.

Afterwards, it got me thinking. What do other copywriters (or designers, or accounts, or anything) wish students knew before they graduated? If you could add any one lesson to the syllabus, what would it be? It can be a theory, a lab, a project, anything.

Leave your thoughts in the comments section. I would really love to know.