Student Doesn’t Know Best
Note: The following was originally posted on January 16th, 2005. I wasn’t very good about maintaining my blog back then and lost the 3-4 posts from this era, but thankfully the Internet Wayback Machine saved them for me.
One of the disadvantages of going to a small school is that you get to know everyone on campus. Anonymity, a luxury at many large universities, is a danger for the ‘at-risk’ student (as it was for me when I went to Moo-U), but at times it was nice to be able to blend into the crowd.
This is my third full-time semster at this school, and I’ve gotten to know the students in my department rather well. One of the biggest annoyances during this week has been listening to students say, “I won’t need this class in the real world,” or “I won’t need this class to be a ____.” Apparently these know-it-all students are not only smarter and more talented than their peers, but smarter than the faculty as well. Granted, some of the requirements for animation students at my school are a bit off the wall, because they shoved us in with the Graphic Design students. Yet the principles of traditional design and art are necessary to be a good animator, even in Maya.
Many students at my school try to get out of classes with certain ‘tough’ professors, and they try to only take classes from professors who employ soft love instead of tough love. Both approaches to teaching are valid-at first, positive reinforcement will help the student explore their potential, and they will grow. But at some point, the student must make the transition into the real world, and students need to know what expectations will be like in the real world. Students should also realize that they shouldn’t be obligated to work themselves to death like a med student in residency or your average EA employee.