SECOND YEAR

SECOND YEAR, TERMINATION OR CONTIUATION?
Ok so end of another year at university and yet again I‘ve found myself in almost the same situation as the end of year one and rushing to get things done. Though I’ve managed to keep on top of more things then previously I believe I’ve realised that I am just not pushing myself or more encouraging myself enough to learn more or do more, inside I want to, like the end of year one my real passion, my real love for the subject really surfaces because I really focus and motivate myself to do it and enjoy it, after all my agreement with myself is to do something I enjoy. So question is I guess what’s happened in the second year to cause a repeat performance of year; after all I am not going to get to do what if I just keep scraping by.

Now don’t get me wrong I’ve learned a lot this year towards making my future but not really as I expected. To my thinking the second year was designed to be a 50/50 learning curve i.e. 50% is your discovering things by yourself, teaching it to yourself and then putting it into practice within your work and then the other 50% be taught by the course and its lectures and to be honest it doesn’t really feel like its met anywhere near that target. Don’t get me wrong Mike’s words of wisdom and intellect are brilliant and really helpful and Chris’s way of thinking when it comes to art is brilliant and brings new grounds of way of doing things compared to what I was traditionally taught in school, however only getting a one hour tutorial from Heather when were scheduled 10 to 5 once a week, when life models don’t show for life drawing and when your only hour a week with the course leader is cancelled due to numerous interviewees you being to wonder why bother, its kind of like ‘well if that’s all they do and get paid for it then I don’t need to much either’ if you understand me. Back in college my lectures would devote themselves to all of us and work really hard to teach us and because of that I felt it only fair that I work just as hard if not harder, I wanted to be them, doing a job and being passionate about it. See to me if your going to plan something on a time slot that’s already taken reschedule one of the two for another time not completely cancel it numerous time. If your original plan session can’t proceed then compromise more, teach us something else we’d find useful or take us out to somewhere interesting and base a lesson round that. And finally I’m not saying do a 7hour tutorial but break up the day with time where you go round the students to see how they’re doing, its always nice to get someone who’s experienced in what your doing to critique what your doing and set you in a good direction and then use the other time for teaching. I know it sounds quiet abrupt but I feel it just disappointed me when I felt like we were missing out on things vital to our future, which in turn seemed to make me lose my passion for what I enjoy doing, at what point I stopped going to life drawing because of the consecutive times we’d not had a life model and not done anything else as a lesson plan instead so I felt like I was wasting my time going.
Year 2 has been a big eye opener though, I’ve finally come to realise all the sacrifices I must make as well as the amount of planning I need to make from the very beginning and stick to succeed and come year 3 things need to change. Even though I’ve just ranted about what I feel was a lack of lectural input I’m looking forward to the independence that is expected of us in year 3, even though I haven’t thus far shown much independence I’ve come to realise that after working in teams this year as well as the previous issues that you can’t always fully rely on others but instead must do extra work yourself and strive to reach your goal. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy working in teams, yes the team I was working in had some major floors but it was my biggest learning curve of the year and I found it interesting what can be produced when people come together with ideas and designs. I also discovered with the project that planning is a major part of time management, ideal and realistic planning that is, taking three weeks to compile an asset between two people whilst the majority of the rest of the team do practically nothing is neither ideal nor realistic. This then has a knock on effect of which was shown with our group where the major time consuming parts of the project had to be condensed and rushed meaning the ‘finished’ pieced was poor and did not meet the brief. Though a downer in respects I don’t let this partial failure deter me from working in teams in the future to come as I still found it an enjoyable experience even if there was stressful times.

The only other thing that has had a negative effect on my university work production is Sainsbury’s. My mum always used to say wait till you’ve got a full-time job karl and see how easy life is then…. Pufffft she should try doing a full-time university course whilst having a job and also trying to fit a social life somewhere in there to, its not easy. This year I tried to arrange a transfer to work in a store a Leicester so that I might still do university work at the weekends after work however with the present economic climate this was not possible and I couldn’t afford to quit as I need the income to afford university so I’ve been stuck in the same circumstances as year 1 leading to a very similar end to unfortunately. Fortunately arrangements have been made so this does not occur for a 3rd.

So sumatively year 2 has essentially been a repeat of year 1 of both positive and negative proportions. Negatively I’ve aloud Sainsbury’s to interfere again with university and aloud myself to depend to much on others which in turn effected my work output. Positively I’ve learned more and hit a big realisation… that I have a true craving passion for this subject, though it does not show in my efforts really so far this will change, this year has been the kick in the ass to get me rolling again and I’ve put into a place a new life plan to majorly accommodate this new key factor in my life.

For starters over summer I plan to learn and develop my skills in 3dmodeling, engine handling, digital painting as well as development of my traditional art by travelling and visiting interesting and inspirational places, I want to become more independent over summer in readiness for third year and to stop myself thinking that I must rely on others including the lectures to get things done, it needs to become more of a natural part of my daily life.
I’ve also already arranged a transfer to a Leicester store for Sainsbury’s so that I don’t lose time over the weekend that could be spent on developing my skills further whilst also not losing my source of income.

Then my final actions to put in place will be at the start of the new year of creating an idealistic and realistic plan of my own for the year and sticking to it no matter what, whilst always continuing to grow my passion and knowledge of the game art course. I’d actually like to look into working alongside the lecturers more as I’ve an interest in teaching and doing so may help me towards this interest.
All that I need to do now is get into third year…..