As long as I’m going to the trouble of posting random art projects I’m working on, I figured I’d put up the final project from my design class last semester.  It’s an entirely visual (no words!) interpretation of the Aesop fable “The Ant and the Dove” (or as a typo almost rendered ‘The Anta nd teh Dove’).

The whole process reminded me that I wish I had learned how to draw:

The Ant and the Dove

An ant went to the river to get a drink.

The water rushed along so fast that he was washed off the bank into the river.  “I shall drown!” he cried. “Help! help! help!” but his voice was so tiny that it could not be heard.

A dove was sitting in a tree that overhung the water. She saw the ant struggling …

The dove quickly nipped off a leaf and let it fall into the water. The ant climbed upon it and floated down the river until the leaf was washed upon the bank of the stream.

The ant called out in its tiny voice, “Thank you, kind dove, you have saved my life;” but of course the dove could not hear him.

Several days after this, the dove was again sitting in a tree. A hunter crept carefully up to the tree.

His gun was pointed at the dove and he was about to shoot, when he was bitten by an ant.

He cried out with pain and missed his shot.

“Thank you, kind ant,” cooed the dove, and the ant heard and was glad.

So yeah, that’s pretty lame, I know. But hey, ti took me a lot of time and I still didn’t get an A in the class so what do I know?

So I’m about 1 month into my courses at DePaul University’s College of Computing and Digital Media and I’m enjoying what I’m learning mostly.   Although the courses are offered both in-class and online, I’m taking the online versions to avoid having to drive down to Chicago every week.  I’m starting to think this dual-natured instruction method really sucks.

Most of the frustration comes from watching lectures and watching discussions that they have about things in class.  They’re able to interact in ways that are just completely unavailable to those who are taking it online.  They can ask questions, interact with the instructor, and actually hear what their classmates are saying generally.

Meanwhile those of us online have a crappy little message board that we’re required to post one thing on once a week.  And somehow that is equivalent to the interaction these guys get in class?  In my design class, they even do critiques of everyone’s projects the day they are due.  For the online students, they don’t get any of that.

I guess on one hand it’s probably just jealousy that I’m not getting to have as rich of an experience, but on the other hand I think it is making it more obvious to me the disingenuousness of the college of equating the two methods to take their courses.  I have absolutely no doubt that those who attend class have a qualitatively different experience than those who take them online, yet those who complete the entire curriculum over the web receive the same degree as those who took it in-class when they probably did end up learning and experiencing very different things.

This isn’t to say that we don’t take the same exams or have the same projects but there is a lot to a course besides those and it doesn’t seem like they do anything to really alleviate that difference.  Not that I’d like my degree to be branded as an ‘Online’ degree but at the end of the day I have felt that what I have received is an experience that is inferior to the in-class one.

I do think that online learning by itself is a great tool, and I think you could definitely have an experience that is almost as rich as an in-class one.  There are just a lot of parts of the class that would need to be reworked to really benefit from it and when you’re also teaching a physical class, it is much more difficult to have that process.

I am still planning on finishing my degree and I appreciate not having to drive somewhere for class every week (my classes last semester were so frustrating because of that) but if you plan on taking classes that may have discussion in them (and that’s a fair number), you might really enjoy taking it in-class even though it is extra effort.

So I started my new classes yesterday and it turns out that the Basic Design class I’m taking DOESN’T INVOLVE COMPUTERS.  I’m freaking out because, how can I do something that isn’t on a computer.  It just seems really weird.

And the class it was supposed to be filling in for was supposed to be a computer based class so I think I’m not sure that it’s even what I’m supposed to be taking.

It was just kind of hilarious because I could feel myself starting to get really nervous once I found out that it wasn’t on a PC.  “What do I do?”  “How am I going to function with this class not involving computers at all?”

They gave us this list of supplies that was like an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of paper long and I was like, “Now I have to buy all this crap?”  I’m debating just dropping it and pretending I know enough to start taking classes next semester.

We’ll have to see what the ol’ advisor has to say about the whole thing.

On some level though, I just want to keep taking it since I realized it was not what I was expecting.  I kind of have this aversion to doing things that I don’t know ahead of time that I’m going to be successful at and this really seems like one of those scenarios.

[Update]

Just got an email back from my advisor saying that it would be good to get the basic design stuff in and learn the tools later so I guess I’ll keep this course (the realization that it was going to cost me 20% of the tuition to drop it may also have something to do with me continuing to take the course).

Sigh, this means I’ll have to pick up all the ridiculous supplies they listed.  Ah well.

[Update x2]

Turns out that my stats class starts at 7PM and not 7:30 like I thought.  Note to self, make sure you put your things in your calendar for the correct time.  At least I won’t be late for the next class.

Well, it’s finally happened.  Even though I applied and was accepted into a masters program in Human Computer Interaction this past spring, I didn’t find out what prerequisites I actually passed until it was too late to enroll in any classes.  Then, the courses I needed (a basic design course and a stats course) were either not being offered over the summer or already full so I kept waiting.  I finally got enrolled in my design class today and pending a tiny bit of paperwork I’ll be in my stats class as well.

I used to pat myself on the back for having made it through undergrad without taking stats … now that decision is coming back to bite me on the ass.  I’ll be wasting money and 2 nights a week at class making up for it.  I’m actually interested in my design course though.  I always wanted to take more design/art classes in college but never really had the time (I took a bunch of Chinese instead and now I never use that junk … Ni hao communist overlords!).

It’s weird to think I’m going back to school.  Especially considering the thing I did when I got out of school was thank the crap out of finally being done with class and swearing that I wasn’t going back … unless it was because I needed an MBA so I could be rich.

Back when I was first attending college though, I never really appreciated how much the foundation you get in school can help you professionally.  I don’t know how many times those concepts we covered in that ‘stupid’ algorithms, machine intelligence, or compiler class has cropped up.  Heck, even algebra/geometry/trig stuff crops up fairly often.

For me, what’s interesting in going back is that this time I’m not just trying to get done so I can get a job and quit sitting in a classroom, it’s because I actually want to understand and excel in a different area.  I’m not promising I’ll care about statistics … but the rest of it, I’ve really got an appreciation of how often the fundamentals and even more esoteric concepts can come up in a profession.

Remembering those concepts and experiences can be the difference between floundering around and having to change course mid-development or picking the right approach from the beginning and easily meeting deadlines.

Of course, the first day of class does have to be my birthday.  Worst part about the late August ones. Blah.