I became more entwined in the Radio/TV Department during my second year in college. I had gained some good and bad experiences my first year and was looking forward to increasing my chances of working in broadcasting after I graduated from college.
But I still had some rough classes to get through. The roughest was a class intended to improve our ability to speak, and for the life of me, I cannot remember the actual title of the class. I will preface it by saying that at Eastern New Mexico University, there were at least four levels of classes at ENMU. They were one, two, three and five-credit courses. Under normal circumstances, the number of credits indicated the level of difficulty in the class. Some of the beginning Math classes were five credits and required attendance five hours a week. Most classes were three credits, or three hours a week. Both the one and two-credit courses were about two hours a week, with the one-credit Physical Education classes (required) running two hours a week.
This particular class was a two-credit course. The schedule listed one hour-long class on Monday and two non-credit workshops which we were required to enroll on Wednesday and Friday at the same time. What was supposed to happen is the entire class was to meet on Mondays for the lecture. Then, we were to be split into two separate groups, one of which would attend the workshop on Wednesdays and the other on Fridays. This would account for the two hours to match the number of credits. However, the professor, who was the college TV station's General Manager, didn't see it that way. He made us attend all three days, had lectures, quizzes and homework assignments every day and there was little actual "workshop" time to improve our speaking abilities. It was practically at a difficulty level of a three-credit class.
His tests were also very challenging. Even though they were mostly true/false, we would have minor changes in the sentences which were hard to pick out. However, once I studied really hard for an upcoming test. I went through and marked the answers that I knew. When I went back to figure out the rest, I noticed I had marked all the answers I knew as "true." I thought for a moment. Is he devious enough to give us a test in which all of the statements are true? I decided he was and marked the rest "true" and handed it in. I was the first to finish. A few others completed their tests about the same time. When we were done, we were allowed to leave the classroom while everyone else finished their tests. We all came to the same conclusion that all the answers were "true." A little while later, the professor came out and told us we would know how we did on the test by the number of answers we marked "false," because they WERE all "true."
I had really been struggling in that class and I was looking forward to having my grade improve because of that test. However, the professor announced the next week that he had lost the tests and the would not count toward our final grade. AAAAUUUGH! I felt lucky to get a B in that class.
For my Broadcast Workshop that semester, I decided to work behind the scenes of our live TV news broadcasts. They had a number of positions for people to work. I was a camera operator in the studio. It was fun getting to run the camera. A little less than halfway into the semester, they had us switch positions, but I was assigned to a different studio camera. I felt like I wasn't really getting a variety of experience. About 2/3 of the way through the semester, I asked the student Floor Manager (with other students present) if we were going to switch positions again. All of the students in the studio chimed in and said they wanted to try out the other duties. He said he would look into it, but we never did switch again.
But that really wasn't that big a deal, because the next semester, I got to take Beginning TV Production and learned all those duties anyway. The only thing was that we weren't dealing with an actual broadcast in class, so a lot of the edginess was removed. But we did have a good time. That same semester, I was also taking the Beginning Directing class in the Theatre department. For one of my TV projects, I brought the two actors I had directed in a scene from "Teahouse of the August Moon" into the studio and shot it using the three-camera method. It actually came out pretty good.
That same semester, I also took an Announcing Techniques class. It was an evening class taught by the General Manager of a radio station in Clovis. It was a good class, and we mostly worked on learning how to do live announcements. One evening, our teacher was unable to come and Dr. B substituted for him. That was the night we were supposed to perform TV spots that we had written. Dr. B asked me to be the TV director. I suddenly felt like the top Radio/TV student.
One of the other students in that class, Daz, told me she hoped the teacher would offer her a job at his station. I was actually hoping the same thing for myself, but I didn't know how I would approach him. Daz wound up getting a job there the next year. I got a job at a different radio station in Clovis.
I felt like I had laid down the groundwork for a stellar junior year in the department. This also paralleled my feelings about the Theatre department as well. However, as we'll see in tomorrow's and a future post, I was wrong on both counts.
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