Ceramics

In Ceramics, you can be as creative with your projects as you'd like as long as you follow the directions that are neccessary for everyone's work no matter what it is. For instance, we had to make "Turtle rattles," but it could be something other than a turtle with similar anatomy [four-legged]. I made a cat and added a tail that wrapped around it [so that the tail wouldn't break off] as well as two mouths [since it's based off of a character]. You're meant to capture photos of your work throughout the process [greenware, bisqueware, glazed, fired]. With the texture tile, our first assignment, we could create anything as creative as we'd like as long as we show texture with the tile that we make. The first thing that we did was sketch various textures and observe them, then we picked a texture we liked and used a photo of it as reference for textures. I picked the texture of fire, brick wall, a pyramid [similar to brick], and money. There's a brick background on it and I made two triangles at the sides [it's a character] with fire in the middle and money burning above the fire. The teacher encouraged us to be as creative as possible but show good texture. I tried interpreting the waviness of fire and money as well as the sturdy mold of bricks. It's a long process, so she accepts late work as long as the person tries.

Photography

You choose your own ways to capture your assignments as long as you follow the crucial prompt given. You also get a relatively good amount of time to complete the assignment. For instance, with silhouette, the teacher encouraged people to take photos of a person in front of a sunset, but really you could use an inanimate object if you'd like, or even a few trees. I took photos of trees in the sunset as well as a figure of two people dancing which created a beautiful silhouette giving off an illusion of two people dancing in the moonlight.

Communications

This class teaches people to communicate well and understand the history of communication in the world today. Even with propaganda and advertisements we see everyday, we see historical ideas of communication in them [ethos, pathos, logos]. The explanations of these things aren't terribly long or exhausting, and they actually are explained in intriguing ways rather than with a monotone voice or mundane attitude. The teacher also tries to give the students a bit of a break when he does extensive lectures, so he'll pause and go on a tangent about a story relating to his life if the students want him to. You can be as creative as you'd like with the presentations [I even made one about a game, which I'll explain soon] as long as you follow the given prompt thoroughly in your speech. Yes, you have to present in front of the class, but he gave tips that helped it become a lot less anxiety inducing. When you think about it, people in the class are the age range of 20-32 I'd say, so these college students won't be nearly as immature as high-schoolers during presentations. As a matter of fact, there was a year when a student was so overwhelmed they broke down while presenting, but everyone was concerned for them more than anything, not snobbish or rude about it at all.