Thoughts on higher education

As many of you know, my boyfriend began his first semester at Columbia College this fall. Something he said to me about their department really stuck out to me. He was told by his mentor in the department that the program is designed to make the students hate writing. Why, as educators, would they want to do this? I really can't fathom it. I know that Columbia College has open admissions, and the programs are designed to be hard so that they only keep those students who are really passionate and talented, but teaching students to hate their career path seems a bit harsh. As an educator my goal has always been to encourage students and to fuel passion for the arts, so this just seems so off to me. Thoughts?

Final Project time!!!

I have been in serious work mode for the last week or so on final projects which has been frustrating, tiring, stressful, but a bit exciting as I'm developing my interests and strenghts in Art Ed and possibly thesis work. Most of my projects for the close of the semester are involving alternative experiences in art museums that hit on a variety of different subjects. They are all taking the collection of the art institute and reinterpreting them in different ways in hopes to get nonvisitors and repeat visitors alike thinking, experiencing, and interested in art! I'm really interested in ways to get nonvisitors engaged as I know many people who dismiss art in general as "boring" "stuck up" "stuffy" or "elitist", without even giving it a shot. So I have been thinking about ways to get my friends who think that way about art into an art museum and engaged, interested, and excited about what they are seeing. I'm really excited about using mobile media in museums and creating fun "challenges" like we did in our cyberped group with the teens! The other 2 tours I have been working on involve alcohol and art and religion/experience and art. I'm pretty excited to see how it all turns out, and I'll make sure I post the final results on my portfolio site!

Birthday Gift!

So yesterday was my Birthday, and I got an amazing gift from my Dad... a new Nikon camera! I am super excited to play with it more after finals week! Now that I know how to edit movies I will totally be doing some of that for projects to come! (and I'm guessing my photos and videos will look much better than my iphone quality ones!)