Our Director Writes:
Diary of a Mature Student: Ongoing
Studying this course has the odd effect of producing a sort of bi-polar dissonance, for me at least. On one hand, I have access to a huge library, the best recording kit the university is willing to lend out, and lots of people willing to help out or be involved in filmmaking.
On the other hand... Nobody seems to care about the actual course anymore.
Put it this way. It's now week three. In week one, 20% - on average - of the people signed up to classes didn't turn up for the four classes - over three days - that we have a week. By week two, this was down to 10%. But this is just the classes; three of which have mandatory screenings. My personal favourite so far happened on Monday;
- At 4pm, the stated time the screening started, there was nobody there
- At 4:15, 40% of the class were in attendence
- At 4:45, when the projector temporarily malfunctioned, 25% left, having signed the register, leaving 15% of the 'committed' students feeling silly for staying.
The week before, the last lecture of the week was structured so that the lecture directly preceded the screening, so that people would be on campus anyway for the film. During the fifteen minute break between lecture and screening - taking place in the same room - 75% of the class left. No register was taken.
There are curiously heartening moments to all this; one of the students who did stay for the screening of Citizen Kane went over to the SU shop and bought two cans of Red Bull and a fifth of vodka. I thought this was a sensible reaction to having to watch Citizen Kane again. If I hadn't been driving, I feel I would probably have done the same.
What's also heartening are the large amount of variations for excuses to cover for 'I can't be bothered to go'. One told me that he had emailed the tutors to say he had a job, and that because they had scheduled the screenings in week zero this was too late to re-arrange his work. Work he didn't have at the time of the screenings. It's fun listening to people's self-justifying white lies.
And this is what I mean by the bi-polar, because I hate complaining about the course - in fact, I'm not complaining about the course, just the lack of dedication from some of the student body therein. Which makes me feel like an elitist ass, which is not a natural reaction to actually doing what you're supposed to do. Gotta love being uncool. Then again, it is, apparently, 'hip', so they say, 'to be sqaure'.
Complaining does, of course, nothing. It's just air through the engine, at the end of the day. And there are one or two other students who dedicatedly give a fuck, which is kind of heartening.
Things are going to get better next week, anyway, so that's a plus. Not for any particularly specific reason; I can just tell that they are. For it will be a golden land, with rivers of milk and honey tequila and lime, where the sun shineth on a transfigurated course filled with caring and dedicated students, and...
Well, you have to believe this week that next week will be better, don't you? Because, otherwise, what's the point in even being here?
Next week, on the Eton Crow channel: Things Get Better.
Our Director Writes:
Diary of a Mature Student: Twenty-Two weeks to go
I can tell that the courses this year are much more serious than last year, primarily because of the need. The need is an odd thing I experienced last time on the merry-go-round when suddenly you realise how serious everything is and you either need to step up, run away, or do something stupid.
In most of my life, the latter two have been my usual course of action, much to my disdain. But it's a natural reaction to the sudden fact that you actively need to give a shit in the second year, which I didn't get the first time around, instead trying a variety of jack moves and retreats that achieved absolutely nothing other than avoiding doing the work I needed to do.
I make no bones about the fact that, first time around, I Was A Straight C Student. (Capitals intentional.) I don't have a problem admitting that I peaked at that level of ability, which meant that when I got over the peak in my final year it was too late to change the overall result. It's the kind of thing you make peace with, as time goes on. It also becomes a challenge; something to beat, the whole 'we humans with our human limitations' thing.
It came as a little bit of a surprise when my marks last year average out (just) as a first, including the two marks that actually mattered towards my final grade. Sure, it was just over the tipping point, but even then I get the feeling that the extracurricular work was just about as rewarding as the grades themselves, although in theory I should have been putting the time from that work into the main work. And yet...
So the basic fight-or-flight - or, in this case, study-or-fuck-up - urge arriving at this point is no real surprise. I should have expected it, really, considering the step up in working and assessment practices between last year and this year.
That's not to say I'm not a little disappointed.
I'd kind of hoped for better.
But then there are those that argue that people don't really ever change, and that you should accept that you are who you are and you will always react the way you react, and personal evolution is, functionally, a myth. I don't believe in this - I'm a doe-eyed optimist that believes in the unlimited nature of human potential only being limited by opportunity, despite repeated provision of evidence to the contrary.
This is another interesting thing; in our year, there were a few idiots, the kind who didn't show up for classes week on week and expected to pass, or talked back to the lecturers, or caused generalised trouble of the sort that they would look back on in a few years time and... Probably not really care.
They're gone, now.
Oh, one or two of them have been seen on campus, but I've been signed up to several of the 'alternating compulsory' classes and they've not turned up for them, which means they're either remarkably lazy or they've moved on to do something different.
This is the one thing, really, that I didn't expect to actually happen. I expected to be plagued by these people for two more years. Oh, sure, people have actually dropped out - as I think I said they would at the end of last year - but it's always a surprise when the squeaky wheels disappear instead of getting the most oil.
So now I have to tamp down the ridiculous urge to do something... ridiculous, or to stress out about the courses and screw up, just because it's a part of me. But it's another part of me to believe that this part - stop me if this gets confusing - doesn't rule me. It's just something else to deal with, like my loquacious manner or ridiculously hot body. (My self-delusion, however, is getting along just fine, thank you.)
One handy side of this year is that in this semester I'm forced to group with two other people to make a film. Being handcuffed to other students is something I would normally rail against but that I now actually get - technically, if the tutors want to they can handcuff last year's A student to last year's D student to see if they bring the average grade up, but so far they've managed not to do anything quite so crass. So now I have an incentive not to pull a jack move, because if I do, other people may, if not suffer, be mildly inconvenienced.
And that would be wrong.
