Before I begin updating on my recent activity regarding Visions, I'd like to articulate a budding revelation.
I'm split 50/50. Half of the time I'm really into Visions4, and I take pride in my work, because other departments rely on my setting things up for them to accomplish their goals. The rest of the time, the work feels unfulfilling, unmotivated, and, so, unproductive. Now I'm beginning to understand why I feel this way.
See, the work I've done, and still do, for Visions is challenging and rewarding. On the surface, it may look like I've just said, again, what I said on the previous paragraph. Here's what I've realized - the work I'm assigned to complete for our Professor/Festival Director almost never feels satisfying.
Here's how I came to draw this distinction:
- I received an email from the director asking me to complete a task. To compile a list of the festival workers who did not complete assigned work. It's a fair enough request. Some suggestion or a firm talking to might correct any lack of enthusiasm for completing work, vital to putting on a good festival.
- Weeks after completing the list, I receive another email asking for the same information, but separated into the specific time frames of missed work. Odd, but I know this is a class, and this info might help fill in some grades for my fellow festival workers. As I'm compiling the second list, I receive a text: "What's up?"
- My response: "I'm working on something for a professor."
What I was doing had nothing to do with the festival and conference.
In all likelihood, my perception of these events and the perception of my work simply need adjustment, but, for now, I'm concerned by the possibility that I can do everything within my power to ensure that this years Visions is the best it could possibly be, and I may still be graded poorly. Or worse, that I may be graded below someone whose work ethic is less than mine, or that I'd be graded higher than someone who hasn't adhered to the principles set forth in the syllabus such as professionalism during class especially in discussion - these people know who they are, and should be warned properly that their unwillingness to adhere to the guidelines in the syllabus has lowered their grades in the same way that not completing assignments set forth in the syllabus might lower mine or other's.
My struggle with the grading system may also stem from the fact that it selfishly presses on, apathetic the to time we put in during class. I don't see why the extra hours we spend in class every week, or on one occasion when we chose to meet as a class on the weekend, cannot also be recorded and attributed as "extra credit." Seems to be at least one solution to solve the disproportionate relationship between investment in the event and the grade in the class.
It wouldn't make sense to attempt a transition into an update on my individual work...
Cheers,
-Nico
