Friday, October 12, 2007

Political Correctness in College


While I’m not terribly sure that feminism has wrecked havoc in my college ( there is some rather male friendly societies there ) one vile thing definitely has; Political Correctness.

The reason I’m speaking of this is because one lecturer on my course in college was willing to tell us the honest truth about our work. He kept quiet during the Crits ( a kind of show and tell of our work where we get feedback ) on Tuesday but the following morning, told us that he thought about not coming in because he was so disillusioned by what he say. He thought it was pathetic and crap and we, who were there, myself included actually fully agreed with what he was saying!

He told us that we’d better not tell any of the other lecturers or indeed the head of department about what he said and he’d get into trouble over it and how the college would get sued over someone taking his criticism the wrong way and then crying ‘ ABUSE! ‘ No. Fucking. Joke.

He then repeated about how the standards coming from the course have plummeted over the years because of the system that in place where the lecturers are too nice to students and dare not criticise the students in fear of getting sued over ‘ abuse! ‘ He told us that when he was in college, his lecturers would often look at his work and if they didn’t like it, tore it up in front of his face!

This guy is an asshole but a good one, I was actually warned to be weary of him by not one but 2 people I know who were on the course and had him before me. What the fuck has happened to all these types of lecturers. Here is somebody who can actually teach me something, even if I resent what he does and says about my work!

To be quite frank, the structure of the graphic design course in my college is a joke. You learn NOTHING useful in 1st year, it was nothing more than stupid and pointless art course. Who the fuck let a woman head the fucking 1st year course!? My other 2 lecturers in design this year ( the core subject ) are not much help either, too nice. Well ones a woman and the other has being married for too long and its clear who wears the pants in that marriage!

Don’t they realise that the Graphic Design industry is a cutthroat business!? Then again, I doubt they had much in the way of proper industry experience. The lecturer I speak of in this post has had plenty of experience. In fact, the reason he started lecturing was because he was disillusioned by the crap standards of graphic design students just out of college and felt he had to do something about it!

I came to college to be a graphic designer, a good one at that as well. I DO NOT want to end being thrown into a trash heap like a lot of the others students this lecturer has told us has happened after they graduated. FUCK THAT! I DO NOT want that fate!

Seriously, I hate the idea of political correctness more than ever now because of this crap. Besides, if you want to make it in the graphic design industry, that is one thing you need to throw out the window, the whole idea of political correctness!

Until next time, be Politically INCORRECT!

NHY

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

it's embarassing (for you) that you attribute your female professors incompetancy to their gender. that's like me attributing your anger and low level of intelligence to your gender.

Anonymous said...

As someone who has taught on these sort of courses, and knows people in the industry, while I might raise many many criticisms of how they're taught the idea that it has something to do with some of them being women isn't one of them. I genuinely hope that when you eventually graduate you get out into the industry and start assessing people not on their sex (which incidentally isn't politically correct, just asinine) but on their work. If you don't, well that says more about you than them. As for the comments about 'wearing the pants' in relationships and the other person being a woman... Puerile stuff.

As regards 'political correctness'? That's unbelievably wide of the mark. I've never been at or held a crit where the truth wasn't told. So either you're being economic with the actualite or you don't really understand what criticism is about. As for a lecturer being 'sued' because they said that, he's having you on mate. I've often expressed my feelings about the weaknesses of contemporary design education at third level in this country.

Anonymous said...

i'm not sure that you fully understand what exactly 'political correctness' is. you made absolutely no reference that was anything at all related to political incorrectness or correctness.