#college adventures
College Adventures S4 Pt16
It’s the first time this series will ever go on a mid-season hiatus! And to celebrate, I’d like to announce that I have begun production on a 5+ minute animated short under the working title of “Wishful Thinking”!
I sadly can’t provide too many more details or a definite release date, but my production deadline is around May 2023! It’s going to be a long year of animating but I hope to see you all then!
College Adventures S4 Pt15
“The Flamin’ Hot Cheetos Mac n Cheese Incident” (2022, colorized)
College Adventures S4 Pt14
I just won my major’s annual Nerf gun assassin game.
College Adventures S4 Pt13
It’s been many years overdue, but I FINALLY got my driver’s license!! I failed the first two times and the stress has been killing me for weeks, so now that I have it, it’s like a giant weight has been lifted off my shoulders.
I could go into the minutia of what I liked and disliked about the whole process but that just feels pedantic, so I’m just gonna keep celebrating!
College Adventures Special Episode VII: Interview with Cissy Jones!
Hey, everyone! It’s been a while, but today I’d love to tell you about my interview with the one and only voice of Lilith Clawthorne, Delilah from Firewatch, and Katjaa from TWD- Cissy Jones!
- She started out in Silicon Valley with a business degree, working there for 10 years, but was inspired to start voice acting by Nancy Cartwright
- She wanted to be an actress as a kid, but her dad was the one who forced her into being a business major
- She then got herself an agent and was quickly signed on to voice in the Walking Dead video game!
- It was a non-union job, so it didn’t pay well, sadly, as were many of her first few roles.
- Because of that, she and her husband moved to LA for better jobs. But none came for a year, which really worried her. And that stress comes through on auditions which made job hunting harder for her.
- So she had to start voice-acting coaching classes to improve and really work hard to get to a professional level.
- Her big break was signing on to do Ralph’s commercials for 8 years (Wow, that’s not even on her Wikipedia page)
- She enjoys voicing for video games because to her they’re a more flexible medium for storytelling! Especially since LGBT stories aren’t censored nearly as much in the gaming world than they are at Disney.
- Overall, she seems very supportive of LGBT rights in the most casual of conversations, which is pretty cool!
- She uses a Voice Straw to warm up her voice. It’s a metal straw that helps you practice yelling at just the right volume so it doesn’t damage your vocal cords! She highly recommends it since her throat hasn’t gotten injured anymore ever since she started using it!
- When it comes to using your own voice to audition vs changing it, she says it’s best to figure what you can do comfortably, put together a demo reel of it, and send it to an agent!
- She said she went into labour during a voice-acting session and had to get back to work 8 days later- the industry’s pretty rough!
- Sometimes while recording, her anxiety will spike and she’ll interpret every frown from the director as a bad sign, even if it turns out they liked her performance.
- And sometimes she’ll actually have a director who hates her, which is also something you just gotta push through!
- Usual recording sessions for video games or animation are about 4 hours, though in quarantine times that’s not absolute.
- Never forget to tell the sound engineers when your take is going to be much louder or much quitter than normal!
- Anyone who promises you a demo in a weekend is scamming you.
College Adventures S4 Pt12
Some creature laid a bunch of weird blue eggs around my college campus today.
Sometimes I wonder if parents touring my college campus see what I leave on the walls, and re-think sending their children here.
College Adventures S4 Pt11
It’s my birthday!! Because of COVID, this is the first one I’ve ever had on campus so I can finally celebrate with friends…!!
College Adventures S4 Pt10
I still think I deserved credit for that answer.
College Adventures S4 Pt9
So I just found out Denny’s changes their name online to increase sales.
I recently started graduate school and have been very fortunate to land a TA, or teaching assistant, position! I help teach three sections of an undergraduate introductory science course.
It’s been about a month of being a TA, and whew… it’s a lot of work! Here’s what I want you all, as undergraduate students, to know:
- I’m a college student too. Like you, I am here at this university to study. I may be at the graduate level, but I still have classes to attend, assignments to complete, research to participate in, etc just like you. I am not at your beck and call, and cannot be expected to respond to emails immediately, unfortunately. I try to reply to emails within 1 business day.
- I don’t know everything about this class topic. Yes, I have a background in the subject and was chosen from the applicant pool to be a TA. But that does not mean I know the answers to every question you have about the material. I will do my best to answer or point you to good resources, though. But please don’t expect that I’m a walking encyclopedia! I’m finding that I get very specific questions or “what if” questions - and I love it! But just know many times this may not be within the scope of this course.
- I have imposter syndrome. I’m not sure how I got admitted as a graduate student. I’m not sure how I was chosen to be a TA. I still feel very unqualified in many aspects of my life!
- We are not necessarily close with the professor. We likely have meetings with the professor weekly to discuss things, but it’s a very professional friendly relationship. TAs are not necessarily chosen because they work in the same field or research lab as the professor; certainly not me!
- As a first-time TA, know I’m anxious before each section I teach! Try to be understanding and have patience. I’m doing my best! If a TA has taught before, they are likely more experienced and less likely to get flustered.
- Grading actually takes … a while. Don’t expect your papers to get graded ASAP. I have 3 lab sections to teach, and it’s about 80 students total for me. That’s 80 assignments I have to grade… every week.
- Understand that being a TA is much more than teaching a section and grading papers each week. I have to attend a required teaching pedagogy course (on top of my busy coursework!), weekly TA meetings with the professor, host weekly office hours, spend hours before section to prepare, respond to student emails which range from anxiety/mental health issues to wifi problems to confusion over a topic, etc. PLUS, throw in COVID-19 right now and it can get hectic! I’m at 20 units this quarter! I know not all TAs are this busy (some are in their last quarter, or just focusing on research) but just a FYI!
- Why do we want to TA? Benefits include great experience, tuition remission, networking, etc. Receiving a TA position gives you amazing experience to interact with students to teach them a topic you’re (hopefully) passionate (or at least, proficient) at. It looks great on a resume, plus it doesn’t hurt that most TA positions offer fee remissions. AKA most of your fees for the quarter/semester are paid as a result of your employment AND you get a monthly salary on top of that. It’s not “cushy”, it’s appropriate given the amount of work. Lastly, the chance to network with professors and leaders of the field is amazing too!
- Please participate in class! It’s really awkward for us when we do our best to teach, and … no one participates. Or students do the bare minimum. If it feels awkward for you, trust me, it’s awkward for me too.
- Many times, the class is structured and formatted in a specific way and the TA is just a facilitator. I’m very fortunate that the course I help teach is very structured: specific powerpoints, assignments, worksheets, homework problems, etc. I do not really have a say in how the lesson planning of the overall class. I have more say in the individual sections I lead, but even then I have to abide by certain rules (no recording of lecture, no posting of powerpoints, etc), use specific powerpoints (I can add my own slides, or modify a little bit), etc so that there is consistency between all TAs. That makes sense, right?
tldr; Being a TA is a lot of work. Since becoming one, I honestly have had a shift in how I formerly thought of TAs… I find there are ups and downs to being a TAs but overall my experience has been positive. But just know, we are people too! We have other responsibilities and we get stressed out too! :)
