Learning by Doing

Week nine. That's how they define time in my college, by how many weeks into an academic year we are. By this point, I've been to see one night's worth of short films, one 3D museum experience, and one actual museum; I've read more for a single class than I think I did in my entire final year of my Undergrad; I've baked three times for friends in the course, and been out with them three times; submitted one photography project, and one audio design project, with artist statements for each, and; met some amazing people I am proud to call my friends.

The semester thus far has proven to me once again that I find it easier to learn by doing, by participating in the material, practising with Pro Tools and the Adobe Suite, and implementing suggestions from various and assorted guest speakers.

What has this meant, in reality? That, I think, is something best looked at across three areas: photography, audio design, and professional development.

Photography

For the sake of understanding how my understanding of photography has changed, we need to go back to before I started the course. To eliminate most of the history of my life with cameras, we'll start in July 2014 - when I bought my DSLR camera. Everything before that was with camera phones and standard digital cameras.

From late July to early October, I made one big mistake: I shot everything as JPEGs. They look great - the camera did a lot of the work, I just found things to photograph - but they're practically useless. That was mistake number 1.

The second mistake was in using Auto. Sure, you're guaranteed to use the best settings for the lighting available, but you have a lot less control over an image. In terms of learning how to take a good photograph, that's less than ideal.

The end of week eight - last week - marked the deadline for my first imaging project. Between week's four and eight, my understanding of photography, and ability with a camera and with Camera RAW, were put to the test. Thankfully, I took an approach to learning that my years studying Education suggested was the best option available: learning by doing. Practical work. 

I could read about taking photographs, or I could out with my camera and take and re-take photographs until I found one I actually liked. I could study Camera RAW meticulously, and watch dozens of videos online showing tutorials of how to use the program, or I could just try use it based on a couple of demonstrations to show me where the relevant sliders and editing tools were.

In the end, I had twenty six photographs to choose from, fully-edited to achieve the look I desired for the project. I needed ten. Thankfully, my classmates helped me whittle it down. I had thought maybe one person might help. I ended up with about eight people contributing ideas and thoughts while we waited for the Mac labs to open one Tuesday afternoon. Fundamentally, I feel like I could go out and do the project all over again, different idea, different concepts, and manage to do it in half the time, with less hassle. I understand the process a lot better.

Audio Design

Once upon a time, I took a class in college called Digital Storytelling. The course required us to figure out to use one programme particularly well; Audacity. Now, Audacity is great, but limited. Great in that it works, and it's free, and I have enough experience with it that I would have been extremely comfortable using it in college.

Instead, we were required to do all our sound editing in Pro Tools 10. A new interface to get used to, a whole other arrangement for tracks. New terminology. More complex. Not free - which meant I had to accustom myself to use of the Macs in college. (End result: scrolling in the wrong direction when I returned to my laptop.)

The learning of Pro Tools was just one part of the project I had to put together. I also had to record sound to actually edit, which, for me, lead directly into writing an audio drama. As I mentioned in my 'What's New(s)?' post, I wrote a short play called Love At First Date, which starred two of my former colleagues in the Mater Dei Drama Soc - the leads I had cast in our production of The Playboy of the Western World - Darren Lalor and Aisling Hayes.

Of course, I had problems with it. It wasn't just a script and some actors. It required me figuring out how to use the recording equipment, where to get the sounds I wanted, and then how to actually use them. Part of that included producing my own music.

I'm no expert at music. I listen to a fair amount - often albums on repeat - but I don't have any formal training that could have been useful in any way. In the end, I had to teach myself four chords on my six-string ukulele (that's apparently more difficult to play than a standard four-string, and therefore not suitable for a newbie - thanks Music Shop Guys all those years ago for not helping out with that piece of information!). Those four chords then formed the basis of the small piece of music that played during the drama.

Again, the best way to learn how to actually use Pro Tools was to dive in half-blind. We had done a project on it before, resulting in the reiteration of the word "Gatekeeper" on an almost daily basis. When volume is no concern, it gets even more fun. And that's the thing - the whole project was fun. Difficult at times - especially trying to get rid of wind from my dialogue tracks, or find a way to make the noise blend together well enough with my background noises to be less noticeable - but highly enjoyable all the same.

I feel like I could it again, with more interesting and daring ideas. Hearing everyone else's projects really helped provide inspiration to create more complex and entertaining pieces. Thankfully, people seemed to like my drama, something I was repeatedly surprised about to the point of failing to return the compliment (genuinely, too - some of them were frighteningly good!)

Professional Development

My course has three theoretical modules this semester - Visual Culture, which loans itself to the theory behind my entire Multimedia Imaging module; Communication Theory and New Media, and; Best Practice in Multimedia. The latter pair are vital for professional development in the mass-encompassing field of work that is multimedia. Communication Theory has, thus far, provided a step forward in the field of understanding the field, particularly with regard to any journalistic and creative-entrepreneurial endeavours. Various ethical concerns, concepts in the field, and case studies have been explored.

The end-result: a more involved approach to the content I'm producing. Now, I can't put it all down to this one module. I have wanted to work in this way for a long time. But what's important is that, about a month before my lectures started, I stopped updating this blog. I wasn't producing any content, good or bad. I put the theory into practice, and despite the notion that blogging is killing culture, I've been happier for doing it.

I've also been doing some work on some Brain Things that happened, but for the time being I don't have much to say about them. They exist as concepts, barely fleshed out, but they are the practical implications of a module that had, in its first half, required research and written content on a weekly basis.

When it comes to the Best Practice module, things get a little less consistent. That's no judgement on the lecturer, mind you - the guest speakers are booked according to their availability (and, obvious, field of work within the broader industry). The diversity of work represented by the speakers is astonishing, especially considering that several of them were graduates from the Undergraduate Multimedia course in my college (the students of which we share the module with.)

Each week, a speaker comes in, and we'll be assessed on journals written on reflection of the talks and topics. One very important question asked in the assignment brief is to consider the call-to-action from each session - what can we do to begin working in a particular field? Thus far, we've addressed Television, Videography and E-Learning, with speakers working in multimedia in IT and politics. Most recently, and most immediately implementable, a speaker from LinkedIn.

I've been in my current role as a bookseller for over seven years, so it shouldn't come as a surprise when I say that I've been updating my LinkedIn profile since that session with a mind towards future work. I don't plan on staying in a minimum wage, part-time job for the rest of my life. It doesn't make me happy.

Conversely, actually updating my LinkedIn profile, while not the most obviously enjoyable form of procrastination, has been a pleasurable experience. Taking into consideration a depth of work I've done, and my involvement across a broad spectrum of work, going into detail on teaching placements, too, I feel like I've actually done something with my life. What was once a relatively empty page is now a more vibrant history of my professional work. I wasn't entirely sure I knew how to begin, but eventually it all started falling into place.

Moving On

I feel like I've set a standard for myself for the future. For a long time, I've been a cram-as-study sort of person. That works for exams, but not so much for the long-term commitment of knowledge. So, I'm going to work out a self-learning methodology. I'm going to teach myself to study. This isn't just for college - I don't have exams as part of this course. This is for future learning, and for future work.

The inevitable conclusion to this is that the classes I undertake that have the least amount of student interaction are the classes I least enjoy. While we've had a couple of passive, take-notes-only sort of classes for some modules, there's a a greater balance of work and in-class theory in many of them than in others, and it's been in those classes that I've felt my learning has been improved.

We'll see where all of this takes me in the future. For now, I'm hoping the 'learn by doing' approach will get me through the rest of the semester, learning outcomes achieved.

What I Studied At College

Anyone who knows me can pretty much skip this post entirely. It'll be of no interest to you to read about my college studies.

I won't go through a year-by-year analysis of modules and courses, but I can break it down into three major categories: Religion, English, and Education.

The Religion aspect of my Undergrad degree covers:
- Church history,
- Liturgy,
- Scripture,
- Philosophy,
- Ethics, and
- World religions.

What that meant was trying to balance my strengths and weaknesses across several completely different fields in an effort to attain the best possible grade for Religion overall. As it happens, the history and scripture modules were always my worst in terms of grades. I put it down to (a) the amount of material and (b) the marking style of the lecturers. It's a known fact that grades at third level vary according to the student doing the writing, and the lecturer doing the correcting.

All in all, it was interesting. I loved the Religion and Science module we had in third year, and surprised myself with a high grade in one of the scripture exams in first year. And, it's safe to say, I'll never want to be examined in Religion as a field of study - like that, anyway - ever again.

The English aspect of the degree was split into:
- Fiction,
- Poetry,
- Theatre, and
- Film.

Yes, we got to watch movies as part of our lectures. Yes, it was fun. And, if you did the same course as I did, it was all scarring. Blue Velvet is just one of the prescribed texts that will forever haunt me.

The English lectures were my favourites by far, because they focused on my longest-standing interest. While I came to enjoy Religion and Education lectures, I had always been excited about what we were studying in English, whether it was Shakespeare, Tragedy, Epic and Romantic Poetry, or Adaptations - even if I had no interest in reading the text, I loved learning about them.

The Education aspect of the degree was split more dramatically than anything else into two sub-categories: theory, and practice. The theory consisted of learning about the history of education, child psychology, methodology, and other such things that are Department-prescribed. The practical aspect of it... well... did I ever tell you the story about someone throwing a table at me in the middle of class?

I won't name names, but it happened. It's my horror story. It was a one-off event, in a heated situation, and I had to learn on the spot how to handle that - because no amount of theory of education can prepare you for the real thing!

Teaching practice was, and will probably always be, the most difficult and formative experience of my life as a student. I couldn't just talk to the students blankly about the topics - which usually covered someone I might have studied myself in college. I had to figure out how to make it interesting and engaging and relevant to them - even if that meant asking them, openly, what was the first thing they thought of when they thought of Muslims? (I won't lie, 9/11 and terrorism were offered as answers most of the time, a fact of which they were ashamed. Don't worry, I set them straight during my time as their teacher - they really didn't know any better.)

Of course, that was just my Undergrad degree. From September onwards, I'll be entering the world of the Masters, with war stories from the classroom to share with people when we're introducing ourselves to one another!

A Professional Focus

I have a theory: I'm much more likely to get my Dream Job if I'm already working in the field in some respect. As far as theories go, that's not awful, right?

For me, it's publishing. I'll always be a writer, but there's only so much help I can offer to the writers who are looking for it from a desk in my small bedroom. I want to be able to help writers complete their books, publish their books, see their books for something more than a vague idea in their head.

However, since I have the whole "Do a Masters" thing to consider, I can't do either of two things at the moment: get a full-time job (period) or start my own business. With that in mind, I decided I would re-evaluate my plans for some books. Specifically, I would take the books that looked like I was just piecing them together and turn them into something more useful.

Seriously, though: I literally had a book that consisted of vaguely related ideas. Not. Any. More.

I'm taking what I call a "professional focus" on this. Yes, I've been treating my books professionally from day one, but to the end of being a writer. I've decided that my books should also be related to what I want to get from life.

I've already got Planning Before Writing and 25 Ways to Beat Writer's Block. To them, I'll be adding a few other titles, covering various areas of life as an author. The focus will be split between the craft of writing, the business side of things, and the lifestyle side of things - the three areas I had originally wanted to focus upon in my vaguely-connected books.

I don't plan on bombarding the market with them all in one go, of course. I want to take the time to write the properly, and to mix things up a bit so the books don't focus on one single aspect of writing. Today, while on my break in work, I put together short plans for four books, two of which I've wanted to write for a while regardless. It'll be an interesting project, and it fits into the general aim I set myself at the start of the year: establish myself as an "expert" in the field of writing.

To make a long story short, I want to be able to say to a publisher - either one I'm applying to, or one I'm submitting to - that I know a thing or two (or ten...) about what it means to be a writer, and I know how to make the process of writing and publishing a book so much easier than a lot of people make it for themselves. It helps to be able to prove it with more than a CV.

This is where the "professional focus" comes into play. I'll be working as a publisher, and working around the field of publishing, for pretty much the entire duration of my Masters. The entire time, I'll be preparing myself for the opportunity to say "This is what I can do; this is what others have said about it, and these are the pieces of paper from an established university that say I can do other things too."

I have to believe that I'm on the right track here. As it stands, I've already been told my experience is impressive. (It just didn't help that the company wasn't in a position to hire, because that's the publishing world for you.) I have a plan for myself, as difficult as that may seem for some people to believe. It's not so specific that outside variables can completely derail things within the next two years, and it's not so vague that when it comes to implementing the Grand Finale I'll be left without options.

I know what I want to do with my life, I have an idea about how to do it, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let myself get away with not even trying. I have a theory, and it needs to be proven.

And, just to make it specific about what I'm going to do now: I need to compile the plans for every book on writing I'll be writing and publishing over the next 18-24 months. I'll be typing them up, colour-coding them as Craft, Business or Lifestyle books, and placing them in a folder in the planned order of publication. On Monday, I'll begin the process of writing the next book.

***

It's worth mentioning, at the moment I'm offering friends a helping hand with their writing as a sort of free coaching service. (Sort of a coaching service, not sort of free.) Feel free to contact me with any sort of writing-related questions you might have. If I feel like it could benefit more from a direct conversation rather than an email reply, I'll put out the offer to you. This is all time-and-energy based, so if I don't reply right away, or I can't arrange a conversation (through Skype or Google+), don't be offended.

Writing Guilt

With exams getting so close, I'm beginning to experience that same writing guilt I often get at this time of the year. It takes time to write something, to put some thought into it, to make the words matter and spread a message. That's in blog posts and books and poetry and every single bit of it adds to the guilt that I should be doing something else (namely: studying for the Dreaded Exams).

But then, I know what once exams start I'll need to write, to keep myself at a level of sanity that's possible to work in. I did the same thing during my last teaching placement, got a book out of it, and kept my stress levels down. I know what writing is what I need.

So why do I feel guilty about putting in some time to write instead of studying?

I think partly it's because I know how important all of this is. But that ignores the fact that I do get stressed out over exams and essays and teaching placement, and I need something to help alleviate that stress before I snap. Of all the options open to me to de-stress, writing is the only one that I'm any good at that will produce something of any real value.

And yet...

I can't shake the feeling. I try to, but I can't. Even writing this, I know I'm only doing it now because I need a break from Walt Whitman and the various critics we've studied this year. I know that I'll have time to finish my journal before I go to bed (because I type quite quickly and I have my plan all set out). So I have an excuse today. It's every other day that's a problem (damn every other day...). I have ten exams to study for. It works out at over twenty questions.

I could do what I did previously, and write about what I'm studying, so I can at least focus my thoughts on something. That's always a possibility. But I have to actually study first. I mean, today I did some work. A lot of it, actually, though I'm not done, but there's a whole lot more to go. It's not going to be as much fun as Whitman, that's for sure.

I suppose, in a way, I'm trying to explain away the guilt. I do my work. I don't always do it early enough to not have to worry about it, but I get it done. And I have plenty of time and very few plans in place that will stop me studying until my brain's melting out my ears.

Am I the only one this happens to? I know some people completely drop their hobbies when it comes to exams, but I can't. It's too much a part of me (plus, New Year's Resolution aimed towards making a good habit out of writing every day) to just give up for a month or two. I don't think I've ever gone that long without writing, not since I started writing properly. Certainly not in the past few years.

What do you think? Do I have anything to feel guilty about, or is this just me thinking I should be doing more?

Can You Plan For Exams?

So I'm sure you know (because I don't shut up about it) that I wrote Planning Before Writing. It was a fun little book to write, which kind of surprised me, and helped me to de-stress during my teaching placement in January. People still wonder how I wrote a book during that time. All I'll say is, if I didn't I might not have finished with a smile on my face.

Anyway, writing a book about planning and seeing people buying it (again, surprises me) has gotten me thinking: can the techniques I discuss in the book be used to prepare for exams?

I have three days of lectures left. Three. Then it's study time. It would be really helpful if I could figure this out in a stress-free environment, but I'm not sure that sort of thing really exists when you're a final year student with ten exams in less than a month. (Yay!)

However, it's pretty easy for me to consider how I might study. I've been preparing essays and seminar work all semester using the same techniques in the book, and I knew them all before I actually started writing, thanks to the eight years' practice and learning I've had in the craft of writing. (That makes me feel old... let's pretend I didn't just say that.)

The sort of things that make writing a book and preparing for an exam different, though, are quite complicated. For a start, I don't get to decide what's on the exam, or what shape the questions will take. That pretty much means there's one less creative way to tackle exams that would exist for a book, which makes it so much more difficult to prepare for. Even Non-Fiction books are creative works, and require that the writer have some understanding of how to write something creatively and differently to distinguish it from every other book in the market.

In the case of someone who writes their own books, there's one less creative exercise for exams: someone else decides what you should write about.

Ultimately, that's what exams are in my college: exercises in writing in a short period of time. It's also necessary to remember an obscene amount of information, and to think about topics ourselves in an engaging way.

Our game of Spot the Difference can clearly illustrate that for books you don't have to memorise everything to write them. When I'm writing essays, and even when I'm writing stories based on or inspired by Irish myths, I keep a tab open with info online about the topic, and some notes beside me. That option doesn't exist for exams.

So what needs to be done for exams that's different, then? Since we can't control the topics or the questions, and we can't bring in notes to help formulate our thoughts, what are we supposed to do?

One way we might be helped is if the lecturer gives us some tips. These have, historically speaking, been guidelines for study, directing us to explore particular topics in the course individually for questions, so we're not attempting to memorise everything about ten modules. That's an unrealistic expectation of anybody, and it's the biggest problem I have with the Leaving Cert. But let's not moan about that dragon right now; it has been slain.

So, if we receive some tips (and we have, from some lecturers, though they wouldn't call them tips - that implies they're giving us the questions), we're left with two things to worry about: the question, and the memorising.

Now, the question is actually easier dealt with last. The way I see it, if I can find a way to actually remember things (historically speaking, I struggle with this in exams due to pressure, exhaustion, and a general inability to sit in an exam hall and remember the things I need to know before it's time for pens to go down) to write down, dealing with the question is easy.

I don't believe in using someone else's study notes, so that's that out the window. But what about the planning techniques? Can they be used to study more effectively? I know Mind Maps have often been used for study. I don't know yet if they'll work for me in that way, but I'll see.

Normally, I get some flash cards. I write down everything I need to know about a topic onto an A4 piece of paper, and then transfer it neatly onto a flash card - preferably on one side only - underlining key words. With five different planning methods in my book, can any of them improve upon this method? My grades have been good, on average, the past three years, mind you. Not all top marks, but good. (I'm not going to get in to that at the moment, partially because it's private, partially because I can't remember my grades.)

So, five methods. I'll see how they fare, in the early stages. If I can't remember what I study on a given morning by the time that evening comes around, I haven't done a good job. I'm desperate to make these exams easier on myself, anyway. That's the point of Planning Before Writing, to make planning easier so writing can be more enjoyable. Now, exams are never meant to be easy or enjoyable, but they can be less stressful. That's all I'm asking for. And better grades. That would be nice, too, since I plan on being a bum for a while (while actually doing things that people won't know I'm doing).

There you have it. Final year. Final exams. And I'm choosing now to experiment. I'll know after a couple of days if the planning techniques can be used to help me remember material for exams. Remembering it is the important part, because then I just need to apply it to the question. That's the creative part of the exam, thinking on your feet (or in your seat...) about how to imaginatively and intelligently engage with the question, supply the information that's being asked for, and provide enough original thought to drag your grade up.

This is not going to be fun, is it?

The Affliction of Study

There comes a time in every student's life when they must sit exams. At least, I hope so! I'm three exams into a series of ten, and I can't say it's the best thing ever. Far from it.

I've posted about exams before, mainly about how I avoid study. One of my favourites was being part of a syndicate of people on Omegle.com. We were mostly innocent, except in our abuse of strangers who were using their time to use the site as pornography. Know how many girls we saw there? Maybe four. And one of them was with us. The others were fully clothed. So I have no idea what the guys were doing "downstairs", only that they were extremely disappointed when the "girl" they saw in a bra on our end turned out to be a guy.

Yes, we're evil, but that's the point.

Exams are so horrendous, that it is necessary for us to get away from the experiences, and to purge ourselves of the evil that has infected our system.

I may be exaggerating, but the point still applies that studying is much less than fun and I wouldn't encourage it in anyone. While it may be of some benefit regarding results, that very system is cruel and unusual. So unusual, everyone's doing it. The whole world of academia is just that weird.

Then again, maybe it's just me.

With an exam tomorrow morning - that's how lucky I am - and a bit of sickness to get me through the day, I've been studying. The topic for today was sexual ethics, and the oh-so-fun topics of homosexuality and contraception. I think at some point I died of boredom, and only for the people on Google+ and the blog post I saw with a cat trained to fetch did I come back. Not in a 3-days-later-like-Jesus kind of way, but more, you know, Irish.

Yes, I made tea and got on with it.

The study bug has bitten. And I think it was carrying traces of the common cold. Only it's been a bit nastier than just the sniffles, and I really don't like it. Not when it's coupled with having to look over study notes and suffer through the material all over again, but without the guidance of a qualified professional. And distracted by the Internet. You know, because it's shiny.

I've been dying to write this post. In the Irish way, whereby all my organs still function properly. Or, at least as properly as usual. It took what willpower I had left after the beating I received from reading notes about sex but not getting any all day, just to stop myself writing it when I shouldn't have been. Do you know how hard that is? Writing's an addiction (I'm sure they could test me for that...) and I didn't get my fix all day.

But I did get tea, and that helped, since I'm probably also addicted to that. Possibly alcohol, but I've been good about that. (And just in case you can't tell, that was a joke. I think. I hope. I don't even drink that often.)

After tomorrow, I'm done to six exams. But with Milton out of the way, I'm no long sure where hell lies. It would be rude to say with the Muslims (World Religions exam), but I think that'll be the next big challenge to prepare for. Sorry everything religion that isn't Christianity, I think for the next couple of weeks I might hate you. It's not you, it's me. Actually, it's not even me, it's the Dreaded Exam.

I told you they were evil.