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Last semester, my 16 yo began taking her first college courses. The large community college requires that “early enrollment” students take just one course their first semester. She was able to take a second one as well because it was just a two-credit course, and we were using it as the lab portion of our Apologia chemistry at home. The class was just lab/computation so there was also plenty of math. So, she spent two days on campus each week. The other class she took was Digital Photography. Her experiences were very positive. In the chemistry course, students were quite friendly. The instructor/course seemed to have scared away a good percentage of the students originally enrolled, since the first quiz sort of shocked a lot of people (being tougher than they expected). There were quite a few non-traditional age (older/returning) students in the class as well, and I believe that they were sort of anxious about doing well. My daughter noticed the shrinking size of the class, and picked up on the anxiety of some of the other students. We talked about the class dynamics a good deal and I coached my daughter to pay no attention to the vibes she was picking up on. She also complained that the students had so many basic questions that she felt that the class was not allowed to cover all of the material for that day. But, the work she was doing and the grades she was receiving nade it clear that she was doing very well. Towards the last quarter of the class, a student even asked my daughter if they could meet to study together. The student was having some difficulty and wanted my daughter to help her. So, they met and studied for several hours, and the student was so grateful. After that, the same student arranged a group study day with other people from the class, so my daughter went to that as well. All well and good, I say. The digital photography course was also a good experience. The interesting thing was that the class, of course, would involve a lot of critique. Assignments are completed, the work is put before the class, and the photographers have the opportunity to talk about their own work and to comment on the work of the other students. My daughter said that each critique day she was the first to talk. Actually, she would wait to give the others a chance to be first but nobody ever spoke up! I know that critique can be a scary thing because you put yourself on the line, and express your opinion. But, my daughter felt comfortable doing that. I have to admit that we had a little chuckle about “so much for the 16 year old un-socialized homeschooler”. She noticed that many students seemed not to take assignments very seriously, and turned in work that she felt could have been so much better if they had put more effort into it. For example, some students included very distracting things in the background of the photos, and seemed not to be aware of it. Another thing was the use of poor quality printers and paper, which took away from what could have been a stronger photo. Again, the class turned out to be a very positive experience. One comment that the teacher made about her written work (critiques of various photographers etc.) was that her written work was as beautiful as her photographs. At the risk of being a bragging mom, I will include one of her photographs below. She submitted this photo and a couple of others to a publication called American Photo on Campus. It is a nice little glossy magazine. They responded to her via email and said that they would like to publish the following photo, and asked that she answer biographical questions, and her goals for the future etc. Her photo and the bio will be included together in an upcoming issue. I assume the next issue. Isn’t that cool! |
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