Creative Technologies department at AUT is a multidisciplinary unit that has been going for 3 years, with the foundation students about to complete their degree. This review is not just about the course itself but also the transition back to student life.
The course covers a wide variety of content and borrows skills from several faculties. It could possibly align itself most with Art and Design, but also borrows heavily from Engineering, Science, Communications and Business school. This makes it a rather exciting course to study for those of us who have multiple interests that are both creative and technical but it can make the course difficult to describe to interested parties. I've found myself using the word multidisciplinary a lot. Another effective tactic was to describe the projects one was doing. They can sound more impressive than the actual result but I don't see a problem with wowing people, it's perhaps a skill one should learn, considering I'll have solid skills and understanding but will still have to compete for interest against people whose core skill is... selling. But to say that you built a robot that senses it's environment and draws, or a garment that is a wearable interface to a computer, or an interactive art installation where a participant interacts with a character, they sound quite impressive. Last of all I may tell people "It will get me a job that doesn't yet exist".
We were told from day one that the course was more like a post graduate course in that there is a large degree of self-direction and self-learning. I found this quite suitable as I've always been self-taught. Just point me to some good material and ideas I'll do the rest. The more traditional class tutorial situations, when they occasionally come are however sometimes a welcome relief, although one is quickly reminded that the pace is then dictated by the class as a whole which may be too slow or perhaps even to fast for an individual.
The course has possibly already had some positive impact on the way I may go about completing a task. Being a highly competent mac operator before becoming a student I was skilled with a range of software but more and more over the years this has narrowed to mostly one company: Adobe. Their software is great but one can unwittingly put themselves in a rut that they will never get out of as they define their skills by the offerings of one company. I was not likely to ever branch out of what I did which would have been a massive problem as I basically came to loath it. As an aside, in the workforce one can easily get pigeon-holed into a skill-set which is ridiculous. Give me something else to do and I'll do that effectively too, but all to often employers, and worse, recruitment agents define you by what you have done so far without looking at the bigger picture: Why is it I can do this stuff in the first place. But I started to pidgin-hole myself too and ran out of ideas on how to change that. BCT has already broadened my view of how to complete tasks without looking to the first tools that I know.
There are downsides, and it's hard to untangle them to work out which one to blame at any one time. I think they have all compounded to make my first semester rather difficult. Perhaps some of them are just life and my attitude needs to change to reflect that. The first is untangling former expenses from my present low-budget life. This can be overwhelming as companies with inept staff bill me for services I have cancelled (for example) and I have to waste my precious time sorting out the mess. Related is having to move and live with other people again, who aren't students themselves and have perhaps forgotten the lack of time a student has, wanting things that are just not that important. No I do not want to help you mount the TV to the wall, you may have noticed I never have time to even watch TV. Add to that the lack of time and money to get projects up to a standard that I'd be really proud of. So far my projects have looked a bit too high school / show & tell cardboard and sellotape standard for my liking.
The time factor of course winds up messing up sleeping patterns. I endeavour to just do tasks during normal hours and sleep at normal times, having pulled a number of all- nighters recently, I just don't think it's very effective. Any tasks that require cerebral input will suffer and motivation and interest also drop. But, it's hard to stop working.
Lack of of time and money has also resulted in a massive drop in exercise and a change in diet that I could never have predicted. I used to lead a very healthy lifestyle consisting of regular gym, running and high-protein healthy meals. That all seems to have gone out the window and the more distant a memory it gets the harder it will be to turn back. I think that hasn't helped with my energy levels either. During the next break I intend to change this situation. Last of all we tend to work in groups a lot which drives me absolutely nuts. I like to be responsible for my own work and my ideas to not be diluted to suit a committee. Of course team work is a skill we must learn, because there are plenty of teams in the real world you're likely to run into some idiot who bandies corporate jargon like "team player" who also happens to be in control of your employment.
All that said, I really enjoy the degree, I enjoy student lifestyle (despite the no money thing) and I feel like I am exercising my mind and going places. I've also made a number of friends which I wouldn't say surprised me but I did wonder how that would play out considering I'm an adult student and much of the class is considerably younger than me. It seemed odd and unsettling at first but now I am fairly comfortable with a few people and will get to know the others as time goes on.
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