I agree with most of the comments above, however I was disappointed to see 2 main things…
-don’t “live” in your studio, most of your inspiration is not going to come from staring at the pinholes in the wall of your studio when your sapped of energy and ideas. Go for a beer, leave town for the weekend, go to the art gallery, have a coffee and read popular science. So much more than your studio will playa role in how much you know about the world around you. It sucks spending a couple weeks to develop an idea that you think is revolutionary only to find something identical was done in the 50’s…(not me, but I’ve seen it)
-also, enter competitons as much as possible. almost all competitions open to students are free and you get to compete mostly against only students, you get more portfolio work (probaly the stuff you’ll actually use), hone your skills more, make contacts, and get more text to put on you cv than you would have otherwise had. I entered over a dozen compeitoons in my 4 years of school and ended up with some extra money in my pocket, national and international recognition (big perk for studios to say they have award winning staff) and my entire portfolio (which got me a good job) was composed entirely of competition work with only 1 school project (I graduated with distinction so my work was there). I can’t stress this enough.
jy