I have had a dilemma during my time here at AU. I transferred in, so I'm a third year graduate. What keeps happening, however, is rather perturbing. I don't hate the people who are responsible, I just feel like I grew up in a totally different generation.
Because of my stature, I am often called when something has gone wrong with the radio station or when someone needs help with editing in Pro-Tools. I used to be called for Avid help too, but ever since we got Final Cut machines, no one really uses Avid. There was one time someone wanted my help with Adobe Premiere...
Anyway! Last week, during our winter storm nightmare, WRDL went off air. Ever since I've been here, I've experienced this about once a year, always during the cold season. For some reason, the transmitter just shuts itself off. In all those previous cases, for the most part, all I've done was just turn it back on, as the directions are right next to the unit to do such. Well, my ops manager sent me a text, telling me she couldn't get any meter readings, and, after some questioning, I realized I'd have to go over there. Not a big deal; I had a small bit of free time at the moment.
When I got over there, without many words, I booted the thing up and it worked fine. She was very surprised, and asked me what I did. I told her, and in turn, I asked her what she tried to do. Turns out, she didn't do anything.
It's really not a big deal, but I've just never had that mentality. If something goes wrong, I try and fix it every way possible (within reason), then I call for help. I've hardly ever had to call for help because of this. I hate to even bring any of this up, but I taught myself Avid because I shot about four hours of interview footage with about half an hour of b-roll and I wanted to make it into a documentary. It took me three days to do such, and I ended up getting into the Advanced Editing class without having to take it's prerequisite. Not to mention, when I got here, there was not one student that knew how to use Pro-Tools effectively and efficiently. So I taught myself that. Of course, with instructor help, I've improved and honed the skills, but I still am surprised other students (in my class at least) didn't seem to care to learn.
I know a lot of tips and tricks for editing just by playing around with different settings and effects. Growing up, I've picked up little bits and pieces from life experiences; I once messed around with my mother's EQ on her stereo because I was bored, and I now have a simple understanding of such. I miss that passion and desire to learn more and become proficient and dependable in my peers. Instead, it seems like either people don't care, or they learn one thing so good that it becomes their primary identifier and they choose not to learn anything else, because they either don't care, or are too prude and stubborn to ever believe that learning something else would be necessary.
I miss the fiery passion I have in those people around me. I miss having people in the editing labs with me, bouncing ideas off each other. I hate that everything in this major seems to be a "my way or no way," with arguments around every corner. I don't understand why people get so invested in the tiniest piece of an argument that it actually turns into a full-on fight.
I learned from my philosophy club friends that you should never hold on to your opinions so much so that they blind you to the other possibilities around you. That seems to be everyone's problem around here. Either that, or my philosophy friends broke me.
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