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Forum Name: Eyrie Miscellaneous
Topic ID: 285
#0, Art, and So Forth
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-11-14 at 03:28 PM
(A digression from the thread about graphics and whatnot on the SOS/OOTR board.)

>>My own experience with ARTS 110 (Elements of Drawing I) covered
>>"Fundamental concepts, media, and processes of drawing. Emphasis on
>>observation and representation in combination with individual
>>expression. Subject matter includes still life, human figure, nature,
>>the built environment, and conceptual projects." So you should be
>>getting a little bit of everything if it's a full laboratory course.
>>Dunno what I can tell you about a 9 am course, though. ^_-;
>
>Sounds a lot like the Art 101 class I took in my senior year of
>college, so maybe we're seeing a more-or-less standard course content
>across schools here...

UMaine's course catalog describes ART 100 (Drawing I) as: "The fundamentals of drawing through creative exercises exploring the principles of line, value, texture, space, and form. Examines various media and their relationship to expression and composition," which sound ssimilar, though it doesn't elaborate on what the "creative exercises" actually are.

I'm vacillating now on whether to go for that one or ART 110 (2D Design): "Fundamentals of basic design through studio experience. Covers analysis of design, composition and basic perceptual and aesthetic aspects of color. Uses a series of problems that explore the areas listed above." Not that I'm terribly interested in that in itself, but it's a prereq for ART 250 (Graphic Design I) and ART 270 (Digital Art I), both of which could be useful later.

Argh. I really wish I had stumbled across the graphic design minor sooner. It looks Relevant to My Interests and potentially useful in a professional capacity later on, but I'm just about out of time now. 18 credits is easily achievable in a year, yes, but not the way the scheduling works out - ART 110 is a prereq for 250 and 270 and 250 is a prereq for 350, so that's at least three semesters to get the core 12 done. I guess I could still try and put it together if I stayed on to finish my MET BS, since that'll take at least another two years, but I don't know if the money will hold out.

(I'm not even taking into account the final debt level, because at this point that's like worrying about how dead you're going to be - relatively speaking, immaterial. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#1, RE: Art, and So Forth
Posted by Vorticity on Aug-13-14 at 04:15 PM
In response to message #0
Have you asked the professor(s) if you could take 110 and 250 concurrently? I shaved a year off of my college time by doing that, and it incidentally made the lower division course seem very easy.

#2, RE: Art, and So Forth
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-13-14 at 05:15 PM
In response to message #1
>Have you asked the professor(s) if you could take 110 and 250
>concurrently? I shaved a year off of my college time by doing that,
>and it incidentally made the lower division course seem very easy.

Hmm, I hadn't thought of that. I'll check with the art department office. I do have some 2D design experience, though it's all self-taught and probably involves the wrong software. (The catalog doesn't mention what they use in the UMaine program. Adobe InDesign would be ideal for my purposes, since I have a line on a part-time work-at-home gig that I already didn't get once because I don't know it.)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#3, RE: Art, and So Forth
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-14-14 at 11:16 PM
In response to message #2
>>Have you asked the professor(s) if you could take 110 and 250
>>concurrently? I shaved a year off of my college time by doing that,
>>and it incidentally made the lower division course seem very easy.
>
>Hmm, I hadn't thought of that. I'll check with the art department
>office.

So I checked. They are, in fact, willing to let 110 and 250 be run as corequisites rather than in sequence; however, the section of 110 I could otherwise take is already full. Waiting to see if there's a workaround for that.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#4, RE: Art, and So Forth
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-17-14 at 04:02 AM
In response to message #3
>>>Have you asked the professor(s) if you could take 110 and 250
>>>concurrently? I shaved a year off of my college time by doing that,
>>>and it incidentally made the lower division course seem very easy.
>>
>>Hmm, I hadn't thought of that. I'll check with the art department
>>office.
>
>So I checked. They are, in fact, willing to let 110 and 250 be run as
>corequisites rather than in sequence; however, the section of 110 I
>could otherwise take is already full. Waiting to see if there's a
>workaround for that.

It appears there is. I won't know officially until Monday, when there's someone in the department office to do the overrides on the registration computer and whatnot, but the professor's given me the OK to overload into 110 (she's pretty sure someone will drop it during A/D anyway) and the department head is OK with me taking 110 and 250 concurrently rather than consecutively, so that's half the core requirements for the GD minor right there. If the other two core courses and at least two of the electives are offered in the spring (which I won't know until the Spring 2015 catalog is published in October), I can complete the rest of the requirements for the minor then. Since I'll already have completed the HTY degree and MET minor requirements this fall, I'll be able to graduate next May with a BA in History with Mechanical Engineering Tech and Graphic Design minors.

Then it'll be time to decide whether to apply for undergraduate readmission to try and finish the MET BS, or leave it at that and move on to graduate school in history. Well, I'll probably have decided before graduation, but, you know what I mean. That's the sequence.

My only real misgiving about all this is that I'd gotten used to the idea of graduating in December, but I'm not concerned about the delay academically - I already have a financial aid package locked in for the whole school year, so I might as well use it. It's more of a personal thing. Still, it's another credential, and one I might be able to turn to useful purposes while I'm working on whichever degree is next, and like I say, I already have the funding to get it. It'd be silly to let that opportunity pass by.

I do still want to learn to draw (and also to play my damn guitar), but this is probably a better use of the university.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#5, RE: Art, and So Forth
Posted by Vorticity on Aug-18-14 at 06:57 PM
In response to message #4
Glad to hear that this worked, and I look forward to you having a degree. I can't offer much advice on which degrees you should go for -- getting a minor at all with a hard science major was just prohibitive with the unit cap.

> If the other two core courses and at least two of the electives are offered
> in the spring (which I won't know until the Spring 2015 catalog is published
> in October), I can complete the rest of the requirements for the minor then.

Yeah, I wouldn't leave graduation planning up to chance like that, when you're at the level of 2-3 terms remaining. Someone in the department already knows which courses will be offered in the entire academic year, and very often for the next year too. Probably even the staff knows this, as they'll know who is on sabbatical, etc. and when certain courses are always taught. I'm confident that they will know for certain who is teaching what course by the end of the month at the latest.

I was actually employed at UC Davis as a peer adviser, where I knew a lot but did very little; but I also got a job analyzing enrollment data in my department. In retrospect putting my skill points into Bureaucracy (university) may not have been the best use of resources, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

So History and Mechanical Engineering... I think that means you'll be fully qualified to build trebuchets. :D


#6, RE: Art, and So Forth
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-18-14 at 07:08 PM
In response to message #5
>> If the other two core courses and at least two of the electives are offered
>> in the spring (which I won't know until the Spring 2015 catalog is published
>> in October), I can complete the rest of the requirements for the minor then.
>
>Yeah, I wouldn't leave graduation planning up to chance like that,
>when you're at the level of 2-3 terms remaining.

It isn't. If the classes to finish the GD minor are available in the spring (and they should be, but sometimes 350 isn't offered at all, which is... awkward for a course that's a program core requirement), I take them and graduate in May. If they're not, I scratch the GD minor, and since the apply-for-degree deadline is after spring registration starts, and I'll have completed the other minor and the main degree requirements this fall, I file the paperwork earlier than expected graduate in December. Either way I graduate, it just means I'll have taken six credits of introductory graphic design for no real reason. I still filled up my full-time schedule with it, so, not a total loss.

Also,

>Someone in the department already knows which courses will be
>offered in the entire academic year, and very often for the
>next year too.

Your faith in the University of Maine's art department is touching, but I suspect possibly misplaced. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#14, RE: Art, and So Forth
Posted by Vorticity on Aug-19-14 at 06:59 PM
In response to message #6
> Your faith in the University of Maine's art department is touching,
> but I suspect possibly misplaced. :)

Heh, I suppose that the art department just miiiight be flakier than the environmental sciences. I don't know man, my department's professors were geniuses apart and idiots when trying to work together, and they still managed to figure out shit like this ahead of time. Of course, every department really is different.


#15, RE: Art, and So Forth
Posted by Gryphon on Sep-04-14 at 01:06 AM
In response to message #14
LAST EDITED ON Sep-04-14 AT 01:07 AM (EDT)
 
>> Your faith in the University of Maine's art department is touching,
>> but I suspect possibly misplaced. :)
>
>Heh, I suppose that the art department just miiiight be flakier than
>the environmental sciences. I don't know man, my department's
>professors were geniuses apart and idiots when trying to work
>together, and they still managed to figure out shit like this ahead of
>time. Of course, every department really is different.

In this case - I checked - it has nothing to do with the department. Professor Grillo, the head of the Art Department, has put ART 350 (Graphic Design II) on the requested schedule for Spring 2015, meaning that as far as he's concerned, the department should and will be offering it...

... unless the University, at some level above the Art Department, does not fund it, which happens some years. We won't know until the spring catalog is published after the midterm break.*

The University of Maine, despite its name, is primarily an engineering school these days. (By the strictest definition it's actually not a university any longer, since it's stopped offering degrees in Latin and Classics.) The College of Engineering pretty much gets whatever it wants whenever it demands it, from the President of the University and/or the Chancellor of the University of Maine System in Augusta. The other six colleges at the Orono flagship campus (to say nothing of the other schools in the University System) fight over the scraps, and the Arts part of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences isn't a very big hyena.

--G.
* I use the term "break" ironically. Do you know what the University of Maine's official Fall Break consists of? The Tuesday after Columbus Day. I'm totally serious.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#16, RE: Art, and So Forth
Posted by Mercutio on Sep-04-14 at 06:37 PM
In response to message #15
> The College of Engineering pretty much gets
>whatever it wants whenever it demands it, from the President of the
>University and/or the Chancellor of the University of Maine System in
>Augusta. The other six colleges at the Orono flagship campus (to say
>nothing of the other schools in the University System) fight over the
>scraps,

It could be worse. At many other universities, it is the business school and/or the law school that get to swing the big bat. At least engineers do things that are of value to society, rather than brainstorming new and more creative ways to commit legalized theft on a grand scale.

-Merc
Keep Rat


#17, RE: Art, and So Forth
Posted by Proginoskes on Sep-05-14 at 02:43 PM
In response to message #15
>The University of Maine, despite its name, is primarily an engineering
>school these days. (By the strictest definition it's actually not
>a university
any longer, since it's stopped offering degrees in
>Latin and Classics.)

You think that's bad? The BC provincial government legislated a number of post-secondary institutions into being universities relatively recently. One of them was the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, which, as you might expect from the name, has absolutely no offerings in any of the physical or social sciences, pure or applied (the closest ECI comes to engineering is architecture, which isn't quite the same thing). Bizarrely, the much older, broader-scoped BCIT (which teaches graphic design as well as trades, engineering, and medical lab technology) was left off the list.


#18, RE: Art, and So Forth
Posted by Gryphon on Sep-05-14 at 03:05 PM
In response to message #17
>(the closest ECI comes to engineering is architecture, which
>isn't quite the same thing).

Not the same thing at all, technically, though there is the hybrid field of architectural engineering (which is basically a more descriptive label devised by that subset of civil engineers who are, or in some cases think they are, also architects).

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#7, RE: Art, and So Forth
Posted by Mercutio on Aug-18-14 at 09:04 PM
In response to message #4

>Then it'll be time to decide whether to apply for undergraduate
>readmission to try and finish the MET BS, or leave it at that and move
>on to graduate school in history.

Huh, are you planning on a doctorate?

I know two guys with history PhD's, and according to them the consensus within academia is that a graduate degree in history is utterly worthless unless you can get it for free, you're independently wealthy, or if you're planning on getting your doctorate and making academia your chosen career path. Otherwise it is a waste of a masters thesis and a bunch of money.

-Merc
Keep Rat


#8, RE: Art, and So Forth
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-18-14 at 09:05 PM
In response to message #7
>
>>Then it'll be time to decide whether to apply for undergraduate
>>readmission to try and finish the MET BS, or leave it at that and move
>>on to graduate school in history.
>
>Huh, are you planning on a doctorate?

"If so, permit me to discourage you."

Thanks.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#9, RE: Art, and So Forth
Posted by Mercutio on Aug-18-14 at 10:00 PM
In response to message #8
I was (well, I suppose am) genuinely interested in what your planned education/career arc there was, as I usually conflate getting any sort of masters degree in the humanities as something people only really do en route to a doctorate. (With a few exceptions. A Masters of Library Science is technically in the humanities and makes you employable as a librarian all on its lonesome.) Especially so with history, as I actually have personal relationships with two guys in that field.

Only you don't seem like the kind of guy who would want to go into academia. But you're also not, y'know, dumb, which means you presumably have some sort of master plan re: academies and the people who laughed at you in them. Thus my query.

-Merc
Keep Rat


#10, RE: Art, and So Forth
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-18-14 at 10:12 PM
In response to message #9
LAST EDITED ON Aug-18-14 AT 10:12 PM (EDT)
 
>Only you don't seem like the kind of guy who would want to go into
>academia.

Well, there aren't a hell of a lot of historians in industry. I'm just saying. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#11, RE: Art, and So Forth
Posted by Nathan on Aug-18-14 at 10:25 PM
In response to message #10
Well, I know that it is possible to find jobs in-the-field for History degrees, and that combining that and graphic design is - relatively speaking - highly employable. Local museums and 'adopt a historic building' groups and so on need their exhibits and brochures and other paraphanalia designed, and there's quite a lot of groups like that - every county in the country is likely to have some old building full of interesting historical curios, kept up by a crew of dedicated retirees and What Republicans Assure Us Are Money Wasted On Young People... er, Americorps.

It is true that historic societies and their related organizations are, in general, basically broke, and that the number of slots is considerably exceeded by the number of people wondering, "Okay, now what do I do with a history degree?", but the absolute numbers are large enough that there's substantial turnover across the nation. From what I know of your own resume, G - electrical engineering, practical experience at web design, plus the specified Major and Minor - I think you'd actually have a good shot at finding something.

Now, if it'd be in Maine, I couldn't tell you, but the odds are better than anybody's chances of living like a human being on minimum wage.

-----

"V, did you do something foolish?"

"Yes, and it was glorious."


#12, RE: Art, and So Forth
Posted by Gryphon on Aug-18-14 at 10:42 PM
In response to message #11
>Now, if it'd be in Maine, I couldn't tell you, but the odds are
>better than anybody's chances of living like a human being on minimum
>wage.

Well, I only live in Maine because it's where I live, as it were, so that in itself is not an issue.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#13, RE: Art, and So Forth
Posted by Nathan on Aug-18-14 at 11:18 PM
In response to message #12
>>Now, if it'd be in Maine, I couldn't tell you, but the odds are
>>better than anybody's chances of living like a human being on minimum
>>wage.
>
>Well, I only live in Maine because it's where I live, as it were, so
>that in itself is not an issue.

I figured, but it needed to be mentioned. But yeah; because local public history orgs are cash-strapped, they like to economize where they can - if they're putting a guy on payroll, they're going to favor the one who can do half a dozen other things in addition to what they're officially paying him for, because that makes them less dependent on volunteers or grants.

And, since I suppose people might be wondering, I know this because my mother (Masters in History, herself) was one of the founding lights of the organization that owns and keeps up the local civil war battlefield, back when it was put together in the early nineties, and has probably had at least a passing part in most of what's happened since then in the field in the area.

And, since she's the Mama, she can tell me, 'Go do this, you've volunteered'. Which leads to picking things up by osmosis.

-----

"V, did you do something foolish?"

"Yes, and it was glorious."