The Final Grades
I've decided I'm going to keep writing in this thing at least for the six weeks that I am home.
My GPA is finally completely calculated. My professor for CMAT 200 didn't even bother to grade the late work I turned in to preserve my C...because I got an 80 on the 4th exam. So here's my final grade recap:
Popular History: C
I received a C in this course mainly because I had a hard time doing the reading assignments- while they were grade school novels like Johnny Tremain, I still didn't have the attention span to read anymore than 20 pages of any book she assigned. I'm a movie person, plain and simple. I also turned in my final project a tad late, but still maintained getting a 240/300 on the project. 35 points were deducted as penalty. You do the math on how good it must have been at that rate. Obviously I must have done good on the final, so I guess overall I learned stuff. A class worth taking.
Film History: A
By far the best course I took this semester, Film History is exactly what I needed to learn. The movies we watched included Sherlock Jr., A Band of Outsiders, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The weird thing was it did feel more like an international cinema course, but I could see why- up until the last twenty years or so, film was a much more global art. It was only in the mid to late 80's that it really started becoming completely ignored in other countries, what with the rise of blockbusters and the such. The two papers I wrote were astoundingly good, one on The Battleship Potemkin detailing how it communicates through mis-en-scene, editing, blocking etc, and one on Rashomon and how Akira Kurosawa intentionally used nature to give hints and details throughout the story using the same filmic techniques. My exam grades must have also been pretty high in this course, because I was worried I had flunked the final out of exhaustion and depression. This is possibly the most important class I've ever taken.
Liberal Arts Mathematics: Statistics through Baseball: B
This was probably the most different class I had taken in years. Dealing with both math AND sports, I was completely out in left field (no pun intended) with the information going through this course. I was, by freaking miles, smarter than a lot of the other people in the class, but they were better at talking their talk, so my final project grade was a B. I decided it would be best not to waste time on studying for a final that I had no idea what it was about, so in the end I took my project grade as 100%. It worked out fine, in my opinion, because it still lets me keep confident in my other abilities. It is worth nothing that my project was based off of my movie collection and collecting and cross-examining data between various website scores for the films I owned. I have to thank Phil and Amber a lot for helping me with the graphs and confidence intervals, and Lisa for getting the information for me. I couldn't have done it without you guys.
CMAT 200 Theories of Communication: C
Honestly the worst class I have ever taken- twice. There is too much information in this course, so they are going to split it into two 100 level courses next year. In any case, I probably could have pulled a B this time had I ever actually felt inclined to do so. The information isn't terrible, there is just simply too much of it. But I think I'm really just complaining, so I must digress. The less said about this class the better, except for the fact that it's over and done with and I'm happy.
EFP Electronic Field Production: A
This is the "big deal" course. This is the only actual movie making course in the entire curriculum of Salisbury University. I took it, and totally crushed all adversity- even my own ego. It was hard learning to work with other people, but the group that consisted of Scott, Ian, Mateo and myself eventually learned to mesh beautifully, with Scott and I teaming up for some incredible ideas and team work in our last film, Conflict Now. I am so proud of this film and confident in it that I will be trying to shop it around to film festivals within the next two years. I still don't find much love for the teacher's idea of teaching : short lectures followed by a "learn on your own time" course outline, but I guess it worked to my benefit considering I am already so far ahead of that particular curve. We out-and-out made the best films in the class each time, so I'm glad I took it and proved to myself what I'm capable of.
That about sums it up, next semester is going to be a lot of hard work as well, but with only a 12 credit course load so I can maintain my club and personal life for a change.
My GPA is finally completely calculated. My professor for CMAT 200 didn't even bother to grade the late work I turned in to preserve my C...because I got an 80 on the 4th exam. So here's my final grade recap:
Popular History: C
I received a C in this course mainly because I had a hard time doing the reading assignments- while they were grade school novels like Johnny Tremain, I still didn't have the attention span to read anymore than 20 pages of any book she assigned. I'm a movie person, plain and simple. I also turned in my final project a tad late, but still maintained getting a 240/300 on the project. 35 points were deducted as penalty. You do the math on how good it must have been at that rate. Obviously I must have done good on the final, so I guess overall I learned stuff. A class worth taking.
Film History: A
By far the best course I took this semester, Film History is exactly what I needed to learn. The movies we watched included Sherlock Jr., A Band of Outsiders, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The weird thing was it did feel more like an international cinema course, but I could see why- up until the last twenty years or so, film was a much more global art. It was only in the mid to late 80's that it really started becoming completely ignored in other countries, what with the rise of blockbusters and the such. The two papers I wrote were astoundingly good, one on The Battleship Potemkin detailing how it communicates through mis-en-scene, editing, blocking etc, and one on Rashomon and how Akira Kurosawa intentionally used nature to give hints and details throughout the story using the same filmic techniques. My exam grades must have also been pretty high in this course, because I was worried I had flunked the final out of exhaustion and depression. This is possibly the most important class I've ever taken.
Liberal Arts Mathematics: Statistics through Baseball: B
This was probably the most different class I had taken in years. Dealing with both math AND sports, I was completely out in left field (no pun intended) with the information going through this course. I was, by freaking miles, smarter than a lot of the other people in the class, but they were better at talking their talk, so my final project grade was a B. I decided it would be best not to waste time on studying for a final that I had no idea what it was about, so in the end I took my project grade as 100%. It worked out fine, in my opinion, because it still lets me keep confident in my other abilities. It is worth nothing that my project was based off of my movie collection and collecting and cross-examining data between various website scores for the films I owned. I have to thank Phil and Amber a lot for helping me with the graphs and confidence intervals, and Lisa for getting the information for me. I couldn't have done it without you guys.
CMAT 200 Theories of Communication: C
Honestly the worst class I have ever taken- twice. There is too much information in this course, so they are going to split it into two 100 level courses next year. In any case, I probably could have pulled a B this time had I ever actually felt inclined to do so. The information isn't terrible, there is just simply too much of it. But I think I'm really just complaining, so I must digress. The less said about this class the better, except for the fact that it's over and done with and I'm happy.
EFP Electronic Field Production: A
This is the "big deal" course. This is the only actual movie making course in the entire curriculum of Salisbury University. I took it, and totally crushed all adversity- even my own ego. It was hard learning to work with other people, but the group that consisted of Scott, Ian, Mateo and myself eventually learned to mesh beautifully, with Scott and I teaming up for some incredible ideas and team work in our last film, Conflict Now. I am so proud of this film and confident in it that I will be trying to shop it around to film festivals within the next two years. I still don't find much love for the teacher's idea of teaching : short lectures followed by a "learn on your own time" course outline, but I guess it worked to my benefit considering I am already so far ahead of that particular curve. We out-and-out made the best films in the class each time, so I'm glad I took it and proved to myself what I'm capable of.
That about sums it up, next semester is going to be a lot of hard work as well, but with only a 12 credit course load so I can maintain my club and personal life for a change.