Solid advice for recent grads. Most of the list pertains to software engineers, too.
To add to #4 - "You must be able to handle irrelevant criticism": when I was working as a junior developer, my mentors would intentionally throw in a hideous design element if they were going to present a prototype to product management or design.
This would give certain product management types something obvious to point out and fix, and offend designers so much they'd work to get us prettier assets ASAP. The better PMs were able to see through the trick and focus on the real problems.
I thought this was stupid until I saw how well it worked.
Haha, The PM's at my office actually would pull a reverse on that technique. Noting a flaw they would just say something like: "Oh no problem, the engineers at competitor X probably just got lucky when they did it..." the guy in question was very smooth so it was a challenge to your pride without seeming overly jerky.
All great points, I would add "You need to learn to speak the language of engineers, marketers, and managers" This is usually the biggest challenge for designers. Many get stuck speaking a language of aesthetics that fly over the head of most people. I manage a design team and have a rule during reviews not to use the word "Like". This forces everyone to be objective and use terminology that makes sense to many stakeholder groups.
This is sometimes annoying, especially when you think that you can trust the client,
This is such a stupid thing to say. Our society is built on written laws and contracts. They aren't annoying and they're much better than the alternative: having enough firepower to physically threaten someone if they break your verbal agreement :/
To add to #4 - "You must be able to handle irrelevant criticism": when I was working as a junior developer, my mentors would intentionally throw in a hideous design element if they were going to present a prototype to product management or design.
This would give certain product management types something obvious to point out and fix, and offend designers so much they'd work to get us prettier assets ASAP. The better PMs were able to see through the trick and focus on the real problems.
I thought this was stupid until I saw how well it worked.