This triggered a fun memory for me!
The design classes were part of a selection of courses offered by the university that were practical only. This means there was no textbooks or written exams. It was all design projects. This and many other courses like it attracted exchange students, and the university I went to had a large group of Chinese and Japanese students who had minimal English language skills. So, I'd go to class and the prof would teach a lesson then describe the assignment. Typically each class was immediately followed by open lab time, during which I would start on the assignment. There were several open lab times, but the one immediately following class was the one that typically worked best with my schedule. This would lead to a number of non-English speaking students standing unobtrusively behind me, shyly watching me work on the assignment for the first hour or so after class. Sometimes one or two of the ones with some spoken English would collect questions from the others who didn't, then ask me to explain while translating back to them. I didn't really mind. It was a little weird to see a bunch of finished assignments where my creative choices were often replicated over and over because some students were clearly unsure which choices were mine and which were those required for the assignment, but whatever.
Later in the year, there were two assignments after which I couldn't do my lab work immediately following class because there were rehearsals for the production I was in, so I ended up doing my design assignments pretty late at night in the hour or two before the design lab was locked up each night. The assignment was to draw the iconic Ikea Poäng chair using only a shading technique such as cross hatching, with no outer lines, then to draw sphere in the same fashion. Late at night was a quite time in the design lab; sometimes I was alone, but usually one very creepy student and I were there. He was one of the three Canadian students (including myself), but he was really unpleasant and made a lot of creepy conversation with me, so I only went to that later lab time for those two assignments where I had no other choice.
After those assignments had been handed in, my prof asked to speak to me after class. I sincerely thought he was going to ask me about that weirdo, because he had really set off some red flags for me and if the prof told me that guy was assaulting other students I wouldn't have been at all shocked. "I wanted to ask you something. Every student but yourself and one other failed the last two assignments, and I've been wondering if you have any idea why?" Ohhhh. I explained that my schedule had changed due to rehearsals, meaning the non-English language students were unable to watch me work as they usually did. I guess without being able to watch me work, they had misunderstood the assignment? Yup: they had all handed in perfectly drawn chairs and spheres, but had totally missed the point of the assignment, which was to use only shading to create the images. The prof was kind enough to give everyone a re-do and started to stick around for lab time to provide input when he could.
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Topic: wondering about this cartooning class (Read 2453 times)