(Online) Class Review: Overview of the Audio Arts Industries

Ahh. Overview of the Audio Arts Industries. I can honestly say that I really enjoyed this class. It was a bit time consuming at times, but then again I do have a tendency to overachieve and elaborate on things that don't need to be elaborated on. I'm at Full Sail, though, so it's very important to make sure you have all of the details. Let's get onto it before I go off on a tangent. 

First of all, let me say that my instructor for this course was awesome. They were always there when I needed some help on an assignment or clarification on some of the instructions. Throughout the month you have discussion posts (this goes for most if not all classes) that you must do and then you must respond to 2 or more classmates for full credit. Not only did my classmates comment and have wonderful discussions, but the instructor joined in on some, too. Now, I don't think I'd ever seen an instructor comment on some of the students' discussion posts before. This instructor did, and they were even cracking some jokes with students! They had laid out a good first impression for the class. That's for sure! 

This class was, like I said, a little time consuming at times, but for the most part it was very, very manageable. There were actually a few assignments that I really enjoyed. The first one being a mock interview. The objective of the assignment was to mock an interview with someone who is currently working in the position you're dreaming of being in. We were given a list of possible questions to ask in the assignment guidelines and we'd use those in the interview. Then we would have to research an answer to that question and cite it. I wish that this would've been a real interview, whether it be via phone, email, or even Facebook, it would've hit home more. It was still very interesting and I learned a lot from it. The other assignment I really enjoyed was the last one: The group project. Now, group projects are always a nightmare. (Well maybe not always.) But it's definitely a nightmare online because people have lives so they don't just sit at their computers all day. Some only check their stuff once a week because they work every other day, so it was like pulling teeth getting my group members to do their share of work. (I said that like I was the group leader. I was not the group leader; however, a friend of mine was.) So, to speak for the assignments on this class: They were pretty easy, manageable, and fun. Definitely nothing to worry about. 

One complaint that I do have about this class was during the last week. My instructor went on a vacation and was gone the last week, so they were unable to correct our last week's assignments. Why's that such a bad deal? It's not. Going on vacation is awesome and needed by every human being (I think), but the instructors that did correct these assignments were not good, and by that I mean they went hard on the grading. There were two of them: One that graded the group projects and one that graded our last week's project. For our group project, we received a 70%. This isn't horribly bad, but it isn't great, either. We, as in I and my group leader, left a comment on FSO under the assignment asking for some clarification on why we received a such a low grade. It stated why, but there were two ways it could've went. Was it because of our other two members' lack of information or was it as a whole? We met all of the criteria as stated in the instructions. We never received a response. Both my group leader and I sent an email to our instructor asking them to review it or for some clarification when they got back from vacation. Neither one of us received a response. My group leader then sent an email to his adviser asking them if they could get ahold of one of those instructors to respond... Nothing.

My last week's project was the last thing to be graded. I received a 75%. This grade combined with my group project grade was not good and I was on the verge of getting a B+. (A B+ is good, but it's not good enough when you're actually paying to go to school. For me anyways.) I was deducted 15 points (!) for not supplying a downloadable link to the media I shared. 15 points! (The assignment was analyzing an original piece of music or audio we've worked on and answer some questions on it.) I rushed to open up the instructions to make sure that it did not say to share a downloadable link. It didn't. It just said shareable. I shared my media in Google Drive and granted anyone with the link the ability to view/listen, but not download. This was an original piece that I had worked very hard on and put many hours into, so I didn't want anyone downloading it and/or stealing it. This was my work and I hadn't even released the song yet! Why did they need to download it? They could listen to it right there in Google Drive as long as they had the link. The instructor even took a screenshot and posted it so I could see that downloads weren't enabled. They were on an iPad. Why did they need to download it?! That's what I didn't understand. I just couldn't understand why I lost so many points for something so simple. I did, however, get an extra 5% added on, so I got an 80% on the project, but it still made me mad that I lost so many points for something so simple. 

We also had to create a Flavors.me profile for ourselves and on there we had to post a few links to social media sites. I did really well on that. In fact, I had one of the best in the class (that's what the instructor said at least). A friend of mine, however, lost some points for something the instructor screwed up on. My friend's little biography on Flavors.me was a little longer or the font was bigger or the spacing was different. They had all of the necessary social media links, but it didn't fit on one page so you had to scroll down a hair to see the last one or two links. The instructor didn't think they had them all so they lost points. The instructor just didn't scroll down. That's all. The links were there the whole time. They tried arguing it (I think) by posting a comment in FSO about it, but they couldn't receive any points back because they couldn't prove they didn't add them after the assignment was graded. Seems a bit ridiculous if you ask me. *end rant*

Anyways, other than those two gripes, I had an excellent time in this class. Like I said, the instructor was awesome and was always there to help whenever I needed some help on the assignments. The class was fun and the assignments were fun and not too horribly bad. If you have any questions, concerns, or something you'd like to add to this, please feel free to do so. 

Keep up the good work,

Lennon
Student
Bachelor of Science, Music Production