Saturday, September 17, 2011
Straight Edge
This post was entirely going to be about how hard and awkward it was to not drink at a party.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Seminars
So, as a first year at RIT, you have to take Discovery, a one-credit seminar, and, if you're a GDD major, you also have to take GDD Seminar. Both of these seminars try to serve the same purpose, to make your transition from high school to college easier.
As far as I can tell, with Discovery, the effort is mostly too little too late. Now, in case you didn't know, your first week at RIT is spent doing orientation week. This fun little event puts you in an arbitrary group of people that are not of your major, with an orientation assistant that usually knows what they're doing, and tries to get you involved in RIT. Now, this may be your kind of thing. You may enjoy having a group of people that you can hang out with. You may enjoy having your own personal upperclassman to ask questions. You may enjoy all of the activities RIT has planned for you. Personally, all of the ice breakers made me want to cry. I found that spending Wednesday through Sunday doing silly orientation activities didn't do much for me. For one, I'd visited the campus already, so I knew most of this stuff. Two, I don't do well in large groups. I mean, our group had 16 people in it (not counting our OA), so it wasn't that huge, but it wasn't small enough to really get to know anyone. I found the idea of spending 5 days hardcore socializing and then having to dive right into classes exhausting, but it probably just wasn't my thing.
Anyway, the point with Discovery seems to be to extend that orientation week into the rest of the quarter. It seems to want to be an intro to the tools you'll use on campus, etc. The thing is, I still feel like it's not helpful. Orientation week told me things I already knew. Discovery tells me things that I either already can figure out, or are being covered in other classes. In my opinion, the bottom line is this: if you're having trouble, talk your professor. I feel like that would cover everything we're learning in Discovery. Now, it's only week 2 and I could be wrong, but I'm getting a very strong impression. Self-advocate, be able to figure things out on your own.
Now, the GDD seminar on the other hand, is almost entirely different. First off, you're with people of your major, so you know that you have common ground with these people. Second, Andy, if you haven't met him yet, is awesome. I know he teaches a lot of the GDD seminars, and he does teach mine. So far, this course has been about teaching you things you probably didn't know about the campus that would make it more useful. You know, stuff like "Here are the labs where you can print for free," "Here is how you get from this building to that building without ever going outside." It's very specialized and, as far as I can tell, very useful
As far as I can tell, with Discovery, the effort is mostly too little too late. Now, in case you didn't know, your first week at RIT is spent doing orientation week. This fun little event puts you in an arbitrary group of people that are not of your major, with an orientation assistant that usually knows what they're doing, and tries to get you involved in RIT. Now, this may be your kind of thing. You may enjoy having a group of people that you can hang out with. You may enjoy having your own personal upperclassman to ask questions. You may enjoy all of the activities RIT has planned for you. Personally, all of the ice breakers made me want to cry. I found that spending Wednesday through Sunday doing silly orientation activities didn't do much for me. For one, I'd visited the campus already, so I knew most of this stuff. Two, I don't do well in large groups. I mean, our group had 16 people in it (not counting our OA), so it wasn't that huge, but it wasn't small enough to really get to know anyone. I found the idea of spending 5 days hardcore socializing and then having to dive right into classes exhausting, but it probably just wasn't my thing.
Anyway, the point with Discovery seems to be to extend that orientation week into the rest of the quarter. It seems to want to be an intro to the tools you'll use on campus, etc. The thing is, I still feel like it's not helpful. Orientation week told me things I already knew. Discovery tells me things that I either already can figure out, or are being covered in other classes. In my opinion, the bottom line is this: if you're having trouble, talk your professor. I feel like that would cover everything we're learning in Discovery. Now, it's only week 2 and I could be wrong, but I'm getting a very strong impression. Self-advocate, be able to figure things out on your own.
Now, the GDD seminar on the other hand, is almost entirely different. First off, you're with people of your major, so you know that you have common ground with these people. Second, Andy, if you haven't met him yet, is awesome. I know he teaches a lot of the GDD seminars, and he does teach mine. So far, this course has been about teaching you things you probably didn't know about the campus that would make it more useful. You know, stuff like "Here are the labs where you can print for free," "Here is how you get from this building to that building without ever going outside." It's very specialized and, as far as I can tell, very useful
Beginning Japanese I
One thing I can also recommend to first year students at RIT is to change your own schedule. If you're a first year, your schedule is assigned for you, and you can see it through SIS. If you check it as soon as you can, for a while it will just be empty. You can try to sign up for classes, but it will just tell you that first year students will be scheduled by their college. Somewhere around mid-July, your schedule will appear, but you still can't sign up for anything. Eventually, around mid-late-August, SIS will open up for you to edit. If you're in, say, a cultural anthropology class from 6pm to 8pm, and you hate the idea of having a class that late, mess around with the system. Look for an open class at a better time and, once you've found it, drop your cultural anthropology class and sign up for the new one. It's important for you to be in classes that work well for you. It's probably a good idea to check with your academic advisor to make sure your worksheet is up to date though
Due to this sneaky work-around, I was able to take Beginning Japanese I my first quarter. I'm currently the only freshman in my class (though there is a senior in high school who appears to be hanging out with us), but that's okay. The upperclassman don't bite.
Due to this sneaky work-around, I was able to take Beginning Japanese I my first quarter. I'm currently the only freshman in my class (though there is a senior in high school who appears to be hanging out with us), but that's okay. The upperclassman don't bite.
Game Software Development 2
Now, I had AP credit, so I got out of GSD1. This means that for fall quarter, I get to take Game Software Development 2.
At least if you take it fall quarter, GSD2 assumes that you're familiar with Java. The course, however, is taught in C#, so a bit of time is spent switching you from thinking in Java to thinking in C#.
At least if you take it fall quarter, GSD2 assumes that you're familiar with Java. The course, however, is taught in C#, so a bit of time is spent switching you from thinking in Java to thinking in C#.
Intro to Interactive Media: Lecture
It only felt fair at some point to give insight into the classes one might expect to take as a GDD major (for the record, I prefer the term GDD to GD&D because GD&D only evokes strange images of an alternate version of Dungeons and Dragons), so I'll start with Intro to Interactive Media (or IIM).
When I first saw this on my schedule, I thought "Hey! Cool! A Flash course!"
How wrong I was.
This isn't teaching you how to create interactive media (and, in fact, if you were excited about that idea, New Media Development might be more up your alley), but it's more an introduction to the history of interactive media. It shows how media has changed over the past 10, 15 years or so through the development of new technologies.
All in all, it's probably the most interesting history class you'll take, but it is clearly very social sciences-y. The first day, we were assigned a 2000-word paper, due in 3 weeks. No big deal, really, but just not what I was expecting going into the class.
The course has two components, a lecture component, held in a large lecture hall with about 120 students, and a studio component, held in a lab, with maybe 30 or so students. The lecture component is, if you're lucky, an interesting way of learning. I, for instance, am lucky. My professor for this class is Elizabeth Lawley, and she is fantastic. One thing you need for her class is an iClicker (which, thankfully, replaces the book Convergence Culture), which is essentially a little remote with 6 buttons on it. One turns the clicker on and off, and the other 5 represent the choices A, B, C, D, and E. This allows the professor to quickly gauge people's opinions on an issue or how much people understand. Personally, I think it's a fantastic tool that keeps the lectures feel engaging and personal. Lawley is also just a really chill professor.
I've only had one class of the studio component, so I think I'll leave that for another day.
When I first saw this on my schedule, I thought "Hey! Cool! A Flash course!"
How wrong I was.
This isn't teaching you how to create interactive media (and, in fact, if you were excited about that idea, New Media Development might be more up your alley), but it's more an introduction to the history of interactive media. It shows how media has changed over the past 10, 15 years or so through the development of new technologies.
All in all, it's probably the most interesting history class you'll take, but it is clearly very social sciences-y. The first day, we were assigned a 2000-word paper, due in 3 weeks. No big deal, really, but just not what I was expecting going into the class.
The course has two components, a lecture component, held in a large lecture hall with about 120 students, and a studio component, held in a lab, with maybe 30 or so students. The lecture component is, if you're lucky, an interesting way of learning. I, for instance, am lucky. My professor for this class is Elizabeth Lawley, and she is fantastic. One thing you need for her class is an iClicker (which, thankfully, replaces the book Convergence Culture), which is essentially a little remote with 6 buttons on it. One turns the clicker on and off, and the other 5 represent the choices A, B, C, D, and E. This allows the professor to quickly gauge people's opinions on an issue or how much people understand. Personally, I think it's a fantastic tool that keeps the lectures feel engaging and personal. Lawley is also just a really chill professor.
I've only had one class of the studio component, so I think I'll leave that for another day.
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