checking through some of the topics i'm amazed at the number of students doing essays on peepshow, zombies, comedy programmes in general - in fact anything other than real work.

when i was at uni i had to read moby dick in a week and then do a seminar presentation and an essay and cook my own dinner. no wonder i dropped out.

and this is all paid for out of my hard earned taxes. so my question is...

where do i sign up?

Hah, when I was at uni I had to case studies into CarpetRight, The Kingfisher Group and McAlpines. No contempary culture for me!

This sounds horribly familiar pots.
You just described my uni experience. Only for some odd reason I didn't drop out.

Cheers
AC

i do visual culture/ film and media studies so im one of the lucky bastards that wastes my time watching films and doing nothing. ha! not really, its a huge misconceptrion, my whole family think that all i do is turn up for lectures and watch a coupla films and eventually im gonna get a degree for it, not true. its a mixture of critical and cultural studies and a whole lot of the history of art and culture thrown in. then once you've mastered all the dry theory you can apply it to certain films/ tv programmes/ adverts/ art works etc.
i finished my essay on spaced and fan culture last week and altho i really enjoyed doing it, the essay nearly killed me i aint ever linking a programme that i love to an academic essay every again it may destroy my soul!

I did journalism, film and broadcasting for my degree. Like Holly said, it's a fallacy that all you have to do for a media studies degree is turn up and watch films. You could do that of course, and many of my course-mates did. But it's just the same as any degree course - do the minimum of work and you'll get the minimum grade.

I've never understood the cultural elitism surrounding media courses. Why is a book or a play a valid cultural artefact to base a degree course around, yet a film or television series isn't? Don't they tell us just as much about our culture and socialisation?

Stella,

Did you study in Cardiff? I did Journalism , film and broadcasting but changed to a Politics degree in the second year...That means I started JFB in 97.

My degree started by watching films about media theory and properganda, and seminars with wannabes and then I changed to Politics and it blew my mind.

Amazing what floats yer boat really.....

Px

As part of my critical theory unit I did an essay on a CD cover (Oasis -Definitely Maybe) - semiotics and all that blah.

I did go to Cardiff. I started JFB in 2000, graduated last year. I loved that course. It was, of course, totally useless as far as the working world goes but I had a geeky ball.

I loved studying in Cardiff! I especially loved the social life (Club ifor bach (?) on a wednesday (?...so long ago...) and the Emporium and Hippo for drum and bass on a friday night...whenever I watch Human Traffic, it brings it all back...

Lived in Uni Hall, Miskin Street and Mackintosh Place...them were the days...

Im going to study again...this time in Scotland...cant get enough of the home nations!

Px

Ahh...Wednesday nights in the Welsh Clwb! It went a bit downhill when you didn't have to pretend to be learning Welsh to get a membership but it's a brilliant place none the less.

I lived in 87 Colum Road, Thesiger Street and Cyfarthfa Street. Sob. I loved that city; so many good times, so many good places.

But that's what I did. We weren't asked to do much. And in fact once I had an assignment to write a 3-5 page paper on the film "Saturday Night Fever" & I still didn't do something so simple. It's pretty sad when you slack off from assignments that are as simple as watching movies. I blame the school though, as long as you paid the tens of thousands of dollars for their prestigious degree, they didn't care what you did.

actually i did do a school course on american cinema which involved watching terminator, 2001, the searchers etc.

the stupid thing was i even skipped those...

exactly, -oops sorry cant remeber who im replying to - but yeh films and tv programmes are just as important as novels and art etc. at the moment im studying a sub course called aesthetics of trash and its all about the distinctions between what is considered high cultrue e.g art, and low culture like comics or trashy films. its great cuz you actually get to study low culture in the resepct that it deserves.

i do love my course. i do however hate the knobs that turn up and watch the films and then dont bother actually doing any work. or the knobs who think they are better than me just because their favourtie film is a goddard film whereas mine will probably be evil dead or soemthing trashy. its just too easy to hate films students, they really should break away from the stereotype!

You too, huh?

I left school at 12 and a half,never did me any harmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

I do theatre, film and television. That's the official name for my course, but I haven't done theatre since the first year. I didn't think it was going to be a doss but I was in all day five days a week at first while my friends doing things like history or English were in once a week, for an hour. My course is pretty practical though. It's sort of half theory, half practice. I got to spend all last year making films.

Do they do a plain 'Film Studies' course there?

Damn it...I have to study molecules.....and ...well....Molecules!!!

well that'll learn you for doing science...
i did english and drama at uni...loads of my friends assumed it would be a doss but it was much more involved than any other arts course at my uni. there were only 26 of uis studying drama, and only 6 people doing my dual honours degree. we all ended up very close as a year group because every year we had to do a full-sclae production, as well as all our academic courses and acting classes. but it was the best thing i ever did.