The Summer After ISTA
Summer 2012 was damage control time for me. I wanted to take courses I would have already completed, had I been an art major from the start. I took ART119 Contemporary Art & Theory online during pre-session with Larry Busbea. Of course, it was very fast paced but I thought it was great. I enjoyed it a lot because I already had an interest in 20th century art. This class ended up being greatly beneficial to me when I took my other art history courses, some of them upper division. The art I study in ARH300, ARH329, ARH429, and ARH202 are all things I saw in that short number of weeks of ART119. It’s a cool thing when all of your class material starts to come together.
Sophomore Year
By my sophomore year, I started taking studio courses. The university requires a total of 6 First Year Experience (FYE) courses. These are 3 hour classes that meet twice a week, for only 8 weeks instead of the usual 16. Three FYE’s are required: Mapping, Space, and Surface. The other FYE’s you can choose from are The Body, Propaganda, Amalgam, Experience, and Gaze. I had never taken studio courses until now and I will say that they can be rigorous and tiring. I had taken Mapping and Surface back to back which was somewhat regrettable at times. With my extra curriculars and everything else, I often felt pressed for time and sometimes my work suffered because of it. That said, I never left a class without feeling like I had improved my skills and learned how to better my work.
Now…
I am slowly working my way up to the higher level art classes and fulfilling requirements. I love planning, but I am honestly stressed out about what classes I will be able to take next semester. Many of them are inconveniently offered at the same time and conflict with other things in my schedule. Sophomores can usually apply to the BFA program during their Spring semester, but since I started the program later, I was unable to apply. I intend to apply to the VisComm program in the Spring of 2014.
As the semester comes to a close, I’ve realized how much better I feel in this major. Although it still has its difficulties, I feel much more in my element. The work can be hard and time consuming. There is fierce competition and stellar talent everywhere but none of that takes the fun out of it for me.
I’ve never related to this quote until now:
“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
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