You’re a senior in high school. You’re over halfway through the school year, and you’ve just spent the last four years of your life trying to forget that you’ve spent a good majority of it flipping through math, science, English, and history textbooks. You’re ready for your summer of freedom. But, that’s not going to happen. It’s time to decide your place in life. Your teachers tell you that college is nothing like high school. It’s hard. It’s tiring. You need to know what you’re doing before you do it, because there’s not much wiggle room. And all you can think about is what you haven’t been prepared for.
Our educators expect us to understand the world enough to know exactly what we should do with our lives, even at the age of ten. It’s a scary thought. But there lies the problem. People aren’t expected to have everything figured out once they reach college. However, our younger selves are somehow coerced into believing that picking a major field of study for higher education is a singular choice.
On the contrary, college is a place where learning the steps to make that decision actually takes place. The misconception that high school is where you make your final decision is just downright stressful. Some people get so worked up it actually decreases their likelihood of going to college. They feel so overwhelmed that their solution might be to wait it out. But education isn’t knowing everything in advance of doing it. If that were the case, we wouldn’t need education.
Venturing further into your academic career offers new discoveries and options everyday. The electives at Texas A&M University – Texarkana offer multiple teaching and learning styles, material, perceptions.
Photo by Allison Hall
One class in particular is Dr. Drew Morton’s Intro to Media Production course. The name suggests filmmakers would receive the most benefit, but anyone on campus can gain something. The course teaches students how to properly use DSLR Canon Rebel cameras for photography and video, and how to mash those clips together in Adobe Premiere. The course requires no necessary experience or skill (Hint: “Intro”). The series of projects in the course moves in an elegant and gradual way to ward away nerves about technique and to compliment your available skill set. The course is all about you: What do you want to make? What do you have to say? Film is an easy way to tell a story. A section of the class teaches you to do this without words. Visual elements can instill meaning into a person that words just can’t.
Photo by Allison Hall
One junior history major has ventured much further into the field of mass communication thanks to classes like this. Josh Wattigny has taken several MCOM classes and is now enrolled in Intro to Media Production. Prior to any of these, he hadn’t thought of branching out into media studies. Now, he has his own camera, equipment, and a YouTube channel. “I had an interest in learning about film history, and from there I found out that I really enjoyed everything that goes into film production. I wanted to learn more and make my own movies,” Josh said. The truth is, with or without a degree, we’re all involved in the field of mass communication.
You might think you know what you want, and maybe you do, but there’s always something else worth exploring. Something you might think is too hard, or not worth the time might turn into a consistent hobby, as it was for Josh. Here, we’re discussing videography, but maybe you have a knack for poetry or writing. So, a word of advice: get out there and take as many classes as you can. Wander around and find new media of expression. You never know what’s possible until you apply yourself in a new, scary, wonderful way.
Texas A&M University – Texarkana has some upcoming workshops and lectures you can use to test the waters. November events include a GIS (Geographic Information System) day hosted in the Digital Humanities Lab on November 14th, a Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) screening accompanied by discussion from Jaime Cantrell, Drew Morton, and Rachel Stonecipher on November 20th in Eagle Hall with a live podcast taping, and a walk-through of Audacity applications and podcast recording on November 27th at 12:15 in the Digital Humanities Lab. All these opportunities provide a variety of explorable content. Please check them out and don’t hesitate to ask questions.