Today marks the end of formal classes for term 1 of my 2nd year in SMU. Had a MA presentation in the morning, my very last presentation of the semester. Our group sort of overdressed for the fun of it with all the guys wearing vest and tie. We look more like waiter and waitress or those working in a casino. Just an average presentation and in fact I underperformed, but I sort of make it up with my Q&A.
So here's some pics of my smart looking group :)
Finance class in the afternoon was my last class of the semester. As usual nothing special happened, just that Hong Dong ended class 1 hr earlier. So I have more time to have my dinner at Aston's before going for my last class in NAFA.
Basically today was just submission and thankfully I manage to complete my final project after staying up till 3am last night. Some of the people in my class produced very impressive work for the final projects, making me quite nervous about presenting my work. Fortunately it did not turn out too bad, as the lecturer was quite impressed with one of my Zoscards, and that saved me from getting a C. More or less neutral comments were given on my other works, with pointers on how to improve it, and my main weakness was probably selection of fonts.
Got back all my work for the past semester. Although the grades were not that fantastic (with average around B-), what matters is that I can see my improvement for the past four months. Never for a moment in that last few months did I regretted signing up for the course. Not even with the many nights when I have to stay up late to do the assignments or crack my brain super hard to think of what to do. The things I learn and the friends I've made will probably make this course a very memorable one.
Looking back at the past 4months, it was a wonder how I manage to survive till now. (Anyway, the original class size reduced from around 18 to today's 10 ) From the very first lesson, I got the shock of my life when I was asked to draw stuff manually, which was what I did not expect when I signed up for the course. Eventually, drawing dots, lines, and later stars and eventually layouts have just become so normal. Even for computer work it has been a natural process to draw on the layout pad first. From spending hours on the arrangement of dots for the first assignment to developing quick sketches now, I can't believe I have come that far. The real nightmare came when painting was introduced. So many times I have to repaint the same thing over and over again cause I can't get the colour I want or the brush strokes are too obvious. For someone who failed his art all the way in secondary school, it was quite a remarkable achievement. Perhaps after exam I can scan all my assignments and upload on facebook so that you can see how horrenduous my works are and how little flair I have.
Only after attending the course I realized how little of my brain have I been using for the past 20years. Understanding things in academic context is easier in the sense that after reading the same thing for a few times eventually you will get it. Thinking of something out of nothing is much harder. You got to first think out of the box, experiment, come up with random thoughts. That requires much more brain power than understanding. This probably explains why I'm coping fairly well with my 5 modules in SMU but struggling in NAFA. I stayed up late a few times this sem, never once for SMU assignments. For SMU projects, I probably can see the end product after seeing the projects requirement, but for NAFA projects, I can't even see the start.
Looking forward, getting the cert will certainly have no impact on my career at all compared to some of those who signed up for the course in hope of looking for a career in design. It probably changed the way I think and look at stuff. As of now, I'm still considering if I should sign up for the two specialisation courses to upgrade to a specialization cert. I probably want to make use of what I learn as well. Although I'm quite hesitant to apply what I learn in projects (since in projects I'm very focus on content), I will want to continue to make e-mailers and posters for archery. After some practices, I will go for some marketing posts in school and even targeting the school newsletter, Blue and Gold. That's probably some of my plans for now.
