This was one of my first classes at the University of Utah after I transferred from Utah State. I ended up registering late so Radio was the only class I could get into that had to do with my major. The rest of the semester was full of other classes the U required to graduate. I really liked this class and I feel like I learned a ton. Just a few months previous I was interning at a radio station in Logan so I kind of had an idea of what I was doing. It's always nice going into a class and having a small understanding of the way things worked.
One of my main projects was creating an in-depth radio story (2-3 minutes) about the new Timponogos Highway that was being put in close to the point of the mountain. (It's now the main road that connects the freeway to Lehi/Alpine). I spent a day with a hard hat on following around a UDOT employee getting Nat sounds of trucks and traffic and interviews. I remember my recorder STOPPED WORKING in the middle of my biggest interview. I had a little inner freak out session and without the person knowing (hopefully) switched over to my iPhone and finished recording. It saved the day!
My professor was kind of a douche and always made the excuse that his other job kept him too busy for the classroom. That is one complaint I have about the University of Utah...a lot of the professors are "too busy" with their real jobs to worry about the class. Me and my $45935 aren't happy about that.
Fall 2010. SOC 1010- Introductory Sociology. Grade: B
Another introductory class I don't remember anything about! Oops. I must have liked it though because I decided to take more Sociology classes right away. I remember my other classes, but this one bites the dust.
Spring 2011. SPCH 5300 Visual Rhetoric. Grade: B+
This class was taught by the same professor who taught my interpersonal communications class. I really liked her, even if she didn't like me all that much. (Let's be honest...you can just tell when teachers don't like you). This was a facinating class. It addressed the aspects of visual communication that most people don't even realize is going on. Why are certain colors used in social campaigns? Why do you like this color of paint for your kitchen but not that one? Why is a picture worth a thousand words? These are all things we talked about. Diagonal lines in a picture gives us a sense of movement. Larger objects have more power, and we sort things by color before we sort them by shape.
I analyzed this photo for 7 pages for my final paper. A little background of this picture: this was a young girl who was immortalized in a single photograph. This is back in 1985 when a volcano erupted in Columbia and over 25 thousand people died. This picture was taken just hours before she died, trapped under debris from a mudslide. The photo was controversial because why wasn't the photographer helping her? Was this too private of a moment to capture? There are opinions on both sides of the issue. The point is that photos tell a story and photos make a point.
This was also the class where I said "you can basically make crap up and still be right/correct" and the teacher heard me. she later wrote me an email saying I should get out of the class if that's all I think visual rhetoric is about. I stand by that comment. You can look at a photo and it's your opinion what you see. There is no right or wrong answer. She didn't like that very much.
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