# 90-Day Plan — 5 points **Due: Week 15 — Friday, December 4** **Submit: PDF in Canvas (2–3 pages)** --- ## What this is A written schedule for your first ninety days after graduation. **A schedule, not intentions.** The difference matters: "I'll apply to jobs and keep working on my portfolio" is an intention and it survives about eleven days. "Tuesdays and Thursdays 7–10pm are portfolio hours; three applications every Monday; one outreach message every Wednesday" is a schedule, and schedules survive contact with December. This course previously ended at the portfolio and said nothing about what happens next. This is that part. --- ## Required sections ### 1. Target, restated Primary and secondary role titles. Geographic constraints — will you relocate, and if so where. Whether you'll take remote, hybrid, on-site, contract, or all of it. ### 2. Weekly cadence — real numbers on real days | | Target | Which days | |---|---|---| | Applications sent | | | | Outreach messages sent (informational, not applications) | | | | Portfolio hours | | | | Community / event time | | | Pick numbers you'll actually hit. Three applications a week you send beats fifteen you don't. ### 3. The next piece What it is, why it fills a real gap, milestone dates, and a completion date **inside the ninety days**. If your newest piece is six months old by March, you read as stalled — whether or not you are. ### 4. Three named events Actual events with actual dates or seasons. IGDA Dallas, Industry Giants, a jam, a screening, a meetup. Named, not "some networking things." ### 5. Income plan, stated honestly What you're living on for ninety days. If that's a job unrelated to art, say so and say how many hours — because that number determines whether your portfolio-hours target above is fiction. This section is for you, not for me, and I'd rather it be blunt. ### 6. **The day-90 branch** *This is the section that makes the document useful rather than aspirational.* What do you do if nothing has landed by day 90? Write the actual decision: - Widen the target — which adjacent roles, specifically? (See the DFW Industry Map: simulation, motion, arch viz, medical/technical, LBE, e-learning all hire more juniors here than AAA does.) - Widen the geography — where, and what would have to be true to move? - Take contract or freelance work — at what rate floor? - Go back for a specific skill — which one, and how are you getting it? - Take an adjacent job and keep building — which kind? **An adjacent first job is a strategy, not a failure.** It buys shipped credits, production discipline learned from someone senior, and rent, while the portfolio keeps maturing. Students who hold out for the dream studio while their newest piece ages past twelve months lose twice. Pick your branch now, while you're calm. Day 90 is not when you want to be making this decision for the first time. ### 7. Rate and salary floor The number below which you'll say no, and where you got it. Sources in descending reliability: postings with stated pay ranges, peers who'll talk, industry salary surveys, aggregator sites treated with heavy skepticism. If you're considering freelance: the rough heuristic that your freelance hourly should be about **double** the equivalent staff hourly is approximately right. The reason matters — self-employment tax, no PTO, no employer insurance, and all the unbilled hours spent finding the next job. ### 8. Maintenance cadence One new or substantially reworked piece per quarter. Network touched on a schedule, not on need. Both on a calendar, with reminders set — not in your head. > **Keep the portfolio current *while employed*.** This is when everyone stops, and it's exactly when the industry's hiring cycles have been least predictable. Keep it current, keep the network warm, and know what your NDA lets you show. Keep permitted personal copies of your work as you go, because access disappears the day access disappears. --- ## Rubric | | Points | |---|---| | Weekly cadence uses real numbers on named days | 1 | | Next piece named, with milestones and a date inside the 90 days | 1 | | Three named events with dates or seasons | 1 | | **Day-90 branch is a real decision, not a hope** | 1 | | Rate floor sourced; maintenance cadence calendared | 1 | Graded on specificity, not optimism. A blunt plan with small numbers scores higher than an ambitious one you obviously won't follow. ## Related - Week 15 page — career navigation session - DFW Industry Map (Reference module) - Glossary: *contract vs. staff vs. freelance, day rate, kill fee, T-shape, at-will*