New Courses!

My semester for next fall has been finalized! I will be taking a full load but I look forward to it. Some of my classes will be expanding on the knowledge I already have while others I will be encountering totally new ideas.

The list

• Hon 74: Grief and Loss – students will learn how narratives of grief are constructed, experienced, debated, politicized, and pathologized. Examine various aspects of grief including cultural difference, social policing, media portrayals, and theoretical debates. Learn how tragedy and grief are used to sell politics and products and what implications this has on individual and cultural understandings of loss.
• Hist 194: Women’s History through Film – Basically what it says in the title.
• J 63: Advanced Video Production – Use of video technology to communicate effectively in a journalistic environment, with emphasis on field production. Identification of stories best-suited to video storytelling; basic principles of video storytelling and creation of a compelling narrative; operation of a variety of video cameras and of non-linear video editing software; technical and artistic fundamentals for gathering and editing audio and video; writing specifically for the ear and eye; preparation of video stories for web presentation; on-camera presentation; and use of video as a marketing and branding tool.
• J 75: Digital Photography – This is a hands-on class focusing on the technical and aesthetic properties of digital photography, with an emphasis on how these qualities inform through image content. Topics include lenses and optics, light and sensors, depth of field and perspective, image processing and editing, and the history and ethics of photography.
• Span 52: Spanish II – The next level of Spanish I have to take.
• IS 145: Website Technology – Last Semester I took Web Page Design through the J-school. Now I am trying to bulk up my skills through a Computer Science/Information Systems class. If nothing else I’m hoping it will help me on my presentation here.

Where I stand now

I actually only have a few classes left in my course work. However, I will be keeping busy as I have recently declared a Spanish Minor to go with everything else. Now I stand as a Double Major in History and Digital Media Production and a Double Minor in Computer Science and Spanish. Most of my course work is over halfway through, right where I should be as next year I will be Junior at Drake University.