Back to Media
Today (Thursday, 4 August) wasn’t the best of days. I couldn’t bear the prospect of reading another 20+ novels this semester so I decided to take a Media module entitled Strategic Corporate Communication. I figured it would look better on my CV and be more useful than Modern and Post-modern Literature.
So I pitched up for the lecture today to discover a pretty boring, largely theory-based course. Granted my severe anxiety didn’t help things (don’t worry, I’ll devote a whole post to my nervous tension soon), but the whole situation was off-putting.
For one thing, there was something like 40 students in the lecture venue. And the vast majority are horribly obnoxious, loud, layabout Media students 4 years my junior. I can’t believe how different they are to the Media students of my undergraduate years. Or, that I was once one of those know-it-alls.
I don’t deal well with change, and I was just beginning to grow comfortable, after the first semester, with the English department, where there are a lot less of us, and we tend to be older. I’ve made friends among the English post-grad students, or, at least, we know each other’s names and are willing to help each other out – loaning hard-to-find books, sharing seminar notes, bitching about how behind we are with work, and gossiping about lecturers’ love lives. That’s cool. I like that.
I don’t see that connection forming with anyone in the Media class.
As a result, I’m thinking my English course this semester, Gender and Writing will be a much needed refuge.
So, for anyone coming to do something Arts or Social Science-y at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, come to the English Department. The lecturers are friendly, dynamic and respected figures within SA and international academic circles. They’re also most accommodating to students’ needs and wishes. The classes are also small, the exams are open book and the Reading Room, with its PCs and couches, is comfortable. Or, if you must study Media, head to the Pietermaritzburg campus, with its better organisation and superb lecturers.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that the media lecturer is a complete ditz. She couldn’t even work an overhead projector – she placed every OHP sheet upside down and back to front. And she couldn’t fathom why the projected image was so small when the OHP was literally 60cm away from the wall. *sigh* It demands too much energy dealing with people like that.
Still, I’ll see the course out. The work doesn’t seem too difficult to grasp. It’s just not at all inspiring. I don’t think it’s worth too much effort.
And in other annoyances, I learnt today that for English 102, which I’ll be tutoring, I need to actually BUY the 2 novels. The English Department doesn’t supply them to tutors. So, there goes (I’m expecting) R80 of my first pay cheque.
And on the way back from campus, I sat in traffic for 45 minutes, trying not to be sideswiped by taxis and trucks as I tried to get out from behind a broken down truck at the end of a turning lane that I needed to be in.
So it’s been an evening of TV, gaming and typing these epistles to purge my stress…
So I pitched up for the lecture today to discover a pretty boring, largely theory-based course. Granted my severe anxiety didn’t help things (don’t worry, I’ll devote a whole post to my nervous tension soon), but the whole situation was off-putting.
For one thing, there was something like 40 students in the lecture venue. And the vast majority are horribly obnoxious, loud, layabout Media students 4 years my junior. I can’t believe how different they are to the Media students of my undergraduate years. Or, that I was once one of those know-it-alls.
I don’t deal well with change, and I was just beginning to grow comfortable, after the first semester, with the English department, where there are a lot less of us, and we tend to be older. I’ve made friends among the English post-grad students, or, at least, we know each other’s names and are willing to help each other out – loaning hard-to-find books, sharing seminar notes, bitching about how behind we are with work, and gossiping about lecturers’ love lives. That’s cool. I like that.
I don’t see that connection forming with anyone in the Media class.
As a result, I’m thinking my English course this semester, Gender and Writing will be a much needed refuge.
So, for anyone coming to do something Arts or Social Science-y at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, come to the English Department. The lecturers are friendly, dynamic and respected figures within SA and international academic circles. They’re also most accommodating to students’ needs and wishes. The classes are also small, the exams are open book and the Reading Room, with its PCs and couches, is comfortable. Or, if you must study Media, head to the Pietermaritzburg campus, with its better organisation and superb lecturers.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that the media lecturer is a complete ditz. She couldn’t even work an overhead projector – she placed every OHP sheet upside down and back to front. And she couldn’t fathom why the projected image was so small when the OHP was literally 60cm away from the wall. *sigh* It demands too much energy dealing with people like that.
Still, I’ll see the course out. The work doesn’t seem too difficult to grasp. It’s just not at all inspiring. I don’t think it’s worth too much effort.
And in other annoyances, I learnt today that for English 102, which I’ll be tutoring, I need to actually BUY the 2 novels. The English Department doesn’t supply them to tutors. So, there goes (I’m expecting) R80 of my first pay cheque.
And on the way back from campus, I sat in traffic for 45 minutes, trying not to be sideswiped by taxis and trucks as I tried to get out from behind a broken down truck at the end of a turning lane that I needed to be in.
So it’s been an evening of TV, gaming and typing these epistles to purge my stress…
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