Meeting of Minds
For those of you who didn't already know I am one of those people in the Media Honours program for 2009 at Macquarie University.
I applied hoping to hell someone from the Media department would see my application and think I was the next radio production genius and want to pick me like you do in high school when you play team sports.
So when I hadn't heard from them when they said I would I freaked out, my marks weren't as high as a lot of other applicants or people I knew, maybe my proposal wasn't what they were after? So a month ago, you can imagine my shock when I come home and there is a letter from the Media Department, my fate for the year rested in the hands of this letter
That letter has obviously served me well. So last Wednesday I went to my first Honours Meeting, I had no idea who was going to be there, how many people got in and what the course subjects were going to be like. My friend Friya who has done the same course as my got in to Honours for Cultural Studies so its nice to know I have someone to go this torturous year together! LOL So the interesting thing about Honours this year is it is under the new faculty regime. i.e the Media Department is no longer the Media Department - it is now part of the Faculty of Media, Cultural Studies and Contemporary Music. It is a HUGE change which includes an enitrely NEW Honours program in which we are the dummies so to speak (something I am used to after being part of the 2nd lot to have done a Media internship at Macquarie last year).
In the room, there were 20 of us (30 of us in total) I don't know why, I expected a lot more combining 3 departments? I don't whether this is because not many people applied, how many people they accept or if they take the bare minimum to ensure their funding continues.
So after this 2 hour meeting where everyone stood up (like in AA meeting) and said Hi my name is Amanda....and I am interested in doing my thesis in... - I realized what a mind boggling task was at the hands of Catherine our Honours Convenor for Semester 1- in the room were dancers, musicians, screen productionists, writers, radio enthusiasts (like myself) and cultural studies fanatics like my friend Friya.
I was more prepared than I expected, I reckon I sit somewhere in the middle in terms of how refined some people's topics are and how other people are still overwhelmed by their topics of interests- one didn't even know whether he was going to write a thesis or do a thesis with a production (which to me is scary if I didn't even know which type I am doing let alone the logistics and my final topic).
Having said that and picking my subjects: Critical Methodologies (Compulsory), Critical Readings in Musicology and The Stigma of celebrity, Charisma etc I feel like I have picked subjects that have faned my interest as well having the possibility of being useful to my thesis 2nd semester.
I had my first "Seminar" today. It feels so weird calling it that. It was for my music subject and there are 4 other people doing it with me. It was so intimate it felt really strange as I have never (not even in High school or other classes) had such attention from an academic and my peers. Denis who is in charge is being really great about the course and after we all talked about our interests for our thesis' and their relationship to music and sound he is tailoring the course and the readings to suit our interests and help us develop skills for the thesis writing process. He has also set up the assessments as draft type practise things for the real thing we write next semester so he can give us feedback and so we have a good leg to stand on and less work to do next semester. I am amazed at the help they are prepared to give us....
Having said that my compulsory subject is on Wednesday- it is hardcore methodologies in research- all about the ethics of research and the process we go through for our thesis- the readings are GINORMOUS. There is a musicology reading and I seem to spend my life using Dictionary.com to help me understand why analogies and science terms relate to the "detail in a detail" of understanding pop music.
This "busy" year has only just begun - and its doing a GREAT job on taking my mind off the drama that is my life i.e boys...I could write a book on that!
I applied hoping to hell someone from the Media department would see my application and think I was the next radio production genius and want to pick me like you do in high school when you play team sports.
So when I hadn't heard from them when they said I would I freaked out, my marks weren't as high as a lot of other applicants or people I knew, maybe my proposal wasn't what they were after? So a month ago, you can imagine my shock when I come home and there is a letter from the Media Department, my fate for the year rested in the hands of this letter
That letter has obviously served me well. So last Wednesday I went to my first Honours Meeting, I had no idea who was going to be there, how many people got in and what the course subjects were going to be like. My friend Friya who has done the same course as my got in to Honours for Cultural Studies so its nice to know I have someone to go this torturous year together! LOL So the interesting thing about Honours this year is it is under the new faculty regime. i.e the Media Department is no longer the Media Department - it is now part of the Faculty of Media, Cultural Studies and Contemporary Music. It is a HUGE change which includes an enitrely NEW Honours program in which we are the dummies so to speak (something I am used to after being part of the 2nd lot to have done a Media internship at Macquarie last year).
In the room, there were 20 of us (30 of us in total) I don't know why, I expected a lot more combining 3 departments? I don't whether this is because not many people applied, how many people they accept or if they take the bare minimum to ensure their funding continues.
So after this 2 hour meeting where everyone stood up (like in AA meeting) and said Hi my name is Amanda....and I am interested in doing my thesis in... - I realized what a mind boggling task was at the hands of Catherine our Honours Convenor for Semester 1- in the room were dancers, musicians, screen productionists, writers, radio enthusiasts (like myself) and cultural studies fanatics like my friend Friya.
I was more prepared than I expected, I reckon I sit somewhere in the middle in terms of how refined some people's topics are and how other people are still overwhelmed by their topics of interests- one didn't even know whether he was going to write a thesis or do a thesis with a production (which to me is scary if I didn't even know which type I am doing let alone the logistics and my final topic).
Having said that and picking my subjects: Critical Methodologies (Compulsory), Critical Readings in Musicology and The Stigma of celebrity, Charisma etc I feel like I have picked subjects that have faned my interest as well having the possibility of being useful to my thesis 2nd semester.
I had my first "Seminar" today. It feels so weird calling it that. It was for my music subject and there are 4 other people doing it with me. It was so intimate it felt really strange as I have never (not even in High school or other classes) had such attention from an academic and my peers. Denis who is in charge is being really great about the course and after we all talked about our interests for our thesis' and their relationship to music and sound he is tailoring the course and the readings to suit our interests and help us develop skills for the thesis writing process. He has also set up the assessments as draft type practise things for the real thing we write next semester so he can give us feedback and so we have a good leg to stand on and less work to do next semester. I am amazed at the help they are prepared to give us....
Having said that my compulsory subject is on Wednesday- it is hardcore methodologies in research- all about the ethics of research and the process we go through for our thesis- the readings are GINORMOUS. There is a musicology reading and I seem to spend my life using Dictionary.com to help me understand why analogies and science terms relate to the "detail in a detail" of understanding pop music.
This "busy" year has only just begun - and its doing a GREAT job on taking my mind off the drama that is my life i.e boys...I could write a book on that!