Classes

Well, it’s been a little while since I updated my blog with the rest of the goings-on with my upcoming trip to Australia.  I meant to update sooner with the rest of the background information, but I got busy with doing other things.  Mainly, a whole lot of nothing.  But I promise that when I’m down under, I’ll update more often.

            Since I’m going there for school, I might as well talk more about the university I’m going to.  University of New South Wales, or UNSW, (according to Wikipedia) is a research focused university based in Kensington, a suburb of Sydney.  It is also a member of the Australian “Group of Eight”, which is supposedly the Australian equivalent of the American Ivy Leagues.  So, what up Ivy League?

            UNSW is a very large university with about 46,000 students in 600 different undergraduate degree programs.  The main campus is located in Kensington, where I’ll be spending most of my time.

            When I was originally looking at UNSW, I had to pick a few classes on my application.  The reason I chose the school was because of their excellent School of Media Arts, and film classes.  I found that they had a class in Cinematography, and another class in Lighting.  Since my eventual career goal is to be a Cinematographer/Director of Photography, I thought these would be awesome classes for me to take.

            However, once I was accepted into the school, they told me that these two classes weren’t available and I couldn’t take them.  Great, so the two classes I really wanted to take aren’t available.  After all, they were the reason I chose that school!  Oh well, I’m sure I can find other classes.

            Well, that turned out to be a much harder endeavor than I had expected.  It seemed like every class I wanted to take wasn’t available, or was already full.  After finding this very frustrating, in came Mom to the rescue.  She sat at the computer while I had the laptop open where we each about 15 tabs open on our internet browsers.  She made a spreadsheet with the classes I narrowed it down to in order to see if there were time conflicts.  Which of course there were.  Many of them.

            Also, their credits are all different than ours.  A lot of their classes are 6 credits, but that only equates to 4 credits here.  Their 3 credit classes count as 2 credits.  It’s an odd system, so that made it a little tough at first to figure out how many classes I needed to take to be a full time student.

            After at least an hour of searching and agonizing, we worked out a schedule that worked.  I emailed the study abroad people from UNSW with my choices and received an email pretty quickly with my schedule. 

            I couldn’t get the classes I had originally wanted, but I’m very happy with the ones I chose.  Here’s the courses I’m taking with course descriptions for anyone who’d like to see them.

MSCI0501 – The Marine Environment – This course covers aspects of both the physical and biological environments of the sea and their inter-relationships. It depicts marine science as a body of knowledge and a process of continual enquiry and testing of ideas. It considers human impacts on the marine environments and how the principles and methods of science in general are used to predict and to solve the problems created by human activities.

The course includes discussion of: i) the marine environment, its physical, geological, chemical and biological characteristics and their interactions; ii) the sea as a source of human food. Attention is given to aspects of marine productivity, fisheries and mariculture and how science can assist in management for a sustainable yield; and iii) the effects of development, especially industrial development on the marine environment and how science can contribute to providing solutions to these problems created by development.

Throughout the course emphasis is placed on case studies. Field excursions are used to supplement the lectures and to encourage further discussion of the problems created by human interference in the environment and their possible solutions.

I’m liking the part about field excursions.  I’m hoping they take us to the Great Barrier Reef, maybe some scuba diving.

ARTS2065 – Working With Image and Sound – This course provides students with a practical understanding of film language, narrative and pre-production processes. By exploring the construction and use of images and sounds through workshop exercises and case studies of specific film practices, students will gain an understanding of the technical, aesthetic and sensory workings of screen production. Students will develop a basic understanding of how film language works and in so doing will develop an understanding of the creative potential of the medium. In this course you will explore ways of preparing narrative outlines and storyboards, learn how to capture and generate images and sounds, experiment with existing images and sounds and the editing process. The course will explore the creative potential of audio-visual media and deal with a range of practical and conceptual problems in developing group projects.

ARTS3064 – Issues in Film Styles and Aesthetics – Examines elements of film style, form, and aesthetics through the study of particular film practices. Explores the relationships between film history and film styles and addresses the relations between cultural and aesthetic histories and film practices. Develops advanced skills in film analysis and provides an understanding of some of the critical frameworks and methodologies used for examining questions of film style.

ARTS3093 – Media Power – This course explores the history and contemporary nature and extent of media power, with particular examination of media industries and institutions. Students will explore media powers in their relationship to changing techno-social contexts. The media's influence within political contexts will be examined, along with the new powers or capabilities made available to general populations via media technologies and events. Various social and theoretical explanations are given for media powers. Students are encouraged to develop a critical perspective on the issues together with an appreciation of the way in which media powers develop and function in society.

            Overall I’m really excited about my classes.  They are all things that really interest me and want to learn more about.  I’ll keep everyone, (I know there’s a lot of you out there reading this), up to date on my classes when I’m there.

            I’ll be writing more before I leave about all the preparation and my plans, but that’s enough for right now.  Stay tuned for the next entry, whenever that may be.

Study Abroad

Traveling has always been one of those things that I’ve always wanted to do more of.  Starting a blog is also one of those things I’ve wanted to do.  I never knew what I could blog about, after all, reading a blog about going to class every day can’t be super interesting.  But, finally, I have something worthwhile to write about, my upcoming semester abroad in Australia.

For those of who don’t already know, I’m going to be studying for a semester at University of New South Wales in Australia.  The campus is located in New South Wales, go figure, right outside Sydney.

The A is where the campus is.  Here's a nice view from the campus towards the water, just to make you jealous.

About a year ago, the study abroad coordinator from Oneonta came to one of my classes to talk about studying abroad.  I had always wanted to study abroad, but never really thought about it seriously.  After his presentation I was hooked and immediately emailed him to set up an appointment to go over my options.  Originally I was considering a program in Finland, but soon added Australia to my list.  After looking over the materials, I quickly decided that Australia would be the place to go.  No offense to Finland, but a Nordic Winter doesn’t sound nearly as good as an Australian “Winter”.

Then came the long process of deciding which schools to apply to, finishing applications, getting letters of recommendation, gathering transcripts from the long list of Universities I’ve attended.  I finally narrowed my choices down to two schools in Australia, UNSW and Bond University which is located on the Gold Coast.

 Both schools were in excellent locations and offered many courses in my desired field.  After looking more extensively into the two schools, I came to a decision that UNSW would be my first choice.  I decided that since the two schools essentially had the same choices in classes, I went with the location that I felt I would more enjoy.  I just couldn’t turn down the chance to live in Sydney for a few months.  (On my parent’s dime, no less)

Sydney had always been very high on my list of places to visit and I knew this would be the perfect opportunity.  I was looking for a place with lots of culture, especially a unique one.  I liked the idea of being in a big city with lots to do.  And the fact that Sydney is right next to the water made it even more inviting.

About two weeks after getting the applications in, (mailed off on the day they were due, I might add), I heard back from UNSW that I had been accepted into the Study Abroad Program.  I quickly sent in my letter of intent and got the ball rolling.  All I had left to do were pages and pages of paperwork, of course with a little (read: a lot) help from my mom.