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Third week's the charm
Aug. 1st, 2006 08:43 pmThree weeks in, I'm starting to notice some recurring observations about the semester.
Communications Entrepreneur: the subject's a mix of everything from psychology (learning patterns, body language, negotiating techniques) to business planning (legal and financial things to know, marketing, maximising your chance of finding work). Virtually all of it is completely new to me, and I think it will end up being one of the most valuable subjects I've ever taken. I think it's likely to be difficult, but rewarding enough to make it worthwhile. I also have a lot of respect for the subject coordinator.
Publishing: I fear that this will be something to glean insight from where I can, and suffer through where I can't. The classes seem entirely based on what another staff member is doing with her off-campus students, and I'm struggling to find a reason why I shouldn't transfer to the online study stream. There's a heavy focus on non-fiction book publishing in the Australian market, and very little of anything else - say, global "niche" markets enabled by internet communities, magazine publishing, or any of the other areas I'm interested in... a few people have voiced concerns that most of the subject matter will be outdated by changing technologies over the next couple of years.
Creative Non-Fiction B: Same lecturer as Publishing. There's a fairly different approach to last semester, as I'll need a single 3,000 word piece instead of several small ones. The rest of the assessment is taken up by an essay comparing and contrasting works by two non-fiction authors. It will force me to become more widely read in the genre, but I haven't written a literature-style essay since 1996. The jury's still out on this one...
Media Design: Online subject. Three weeks in, there's a single powerpoint version of the printed lecture notes (recieved a month ago), a class list, and no other material on the website. The assessment's a grab-bag of essays, powerpoint presentations etc, dealing with everything from colour theory to graphics in arcade and console games. It looks interesting, but there's not much to make a judgement on yet. I get the feeling that most people will do the work in two last-minute dashes, just before the five assessment pieces are due.
I also caught up with Suz (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
suzmic, I presume) and Jonathon over lunch yesterday. I think it's been almost three years since I saw her last... I'm glad that I got to see her, though. I've lost contact with many people over the last 5-6 years... there are a few reasons why that's the case, but I'll write more about those some other time.
Communications Entrepreneur: the subject's a mix of everything from psychology (learning patterns, body language, negotiating techniques) to business planning (legal and financial things to know, marketing, maximising your chance of finding work). Virtually all of it is completely new to me, and I think it will end up being one of the most valuable subjects I've ever taken. I think it's likely to be difficult, but rewarding enough to make it worthwhile. I also have a lot of respect for the subject coordinator.
Publishing: I fear that this will be something to glean insight from where I can, and suffer through where I can't. The classes seem entirely based on what another staff member is doing with her off-campus students, and I'm struggling to find a reason why I shouldn't transfer to the online study stream. There's a heavy focus on non-fiction book publishing in the Australian market, and very little of anything else - say, global "niche" markets enabled by internet communities, magazine publishing, or any of the other areas I'm interested in... a few people have voiced concerns that most of the subject matter will be outdated by changing technologies over the next couple of years.
Creative Non-Fiction B: Same lecturer as Publishing. There's a fairly different approach to last semester, as I'll need a single 3,000 word piece instead of several small ones. The rest of the assessment is taken up by an essay comparing and contrasting works by two non-fiction authors. It will force me to become more widely read in the genre, but I haven't written a literature-style essay since 1996. The jury's still out on this one...
Media Design: Online subject. Three weeks in, there's a single powerpoint version of the printed lecture notes (recieved a month ago), a class list, and no other material on the website. The assessment's a grab-bag of essays, powerpoint presentations etc, dealing with everything from colour theory to graphics in arcade and console games. It looks interesting, but there's not much to make a judgement on yet. I get the feeling that most people will do the work in two last-minute dashes, just before the five assessment pieces are due.
I also caught up with Suz (
suzmic, I presume) and Jonathon over lunch yesterday. I think it's been almost three years since I saw her last... I'm glad that I got to see her, though. I've lost contact with many people over the last 5-6 years... there are a few reasons why that's the case, but I'll write more about those some other time.
