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Reflections on the BECA MA creative project system
"The creative project system is broken". - Ron Compesi, (then) Creative Arts interim dean, 2007
Many students give up halfway, faculty have admitted there's a problem, and there's talk about severely restricting students' access to it. But what should be done about the creative project option?
Along with fellow students Vidyut and Kurt, I'm the latest BECA grad student to emerge successfully through the creative project option (BECA 894 and its preparatory class BECA 897 - from hereon I'll refer to the creative project option as 894). Having been involved with 894 for over a year, I want to share with you my thoughts on how I think one can make the best use of this option and what needs to change. In short, I think all students should be permitted to take 894 if they wish. The problem with 984 is certainly not with the students, many of whose experiences with 894 has been lacking, but with the department. Ron Compesi is right that the creative project system is broken, but it wouldn't be hard to fix it.
(Images in this blog are taken from an edit of my 894 documentary)
Introduction
894 is one of the three culminating experience options - exam, thesis, and creative project - of the BECA MA program. The exam is the easiest, least time-consuming option for students who have learned everything they want to learn and who simply want to leave and who don't care about adding an item to their portfolio. The thesis is much more demanding and has an academic bent. The creative project is, although it depends on the specific project, the most time-consuming option. Students pitch their idea for the project to the professor whom they want to head up their three-person review committee. If accepted, then a semester is spent taking 897, which allows students to prepare for the actual doing part - 894 - the following semester.
It's my understanding that students are supposed to produce something of professional quality. For instance, a documentary should be broadcast-quality. I produced a documentary and that's what I was aiming for. But this is an unreasonable requirement. It takes years of practice and a full team of professional collaborators to produce broadcast-quality material. How can this be expected of even MA students? I actually found out from a few professors towards the end that the process one goes through and what one learns is really the point of 894, not the end result. That's the way it should be.
How to work with your committee
894 (and 897) requires you to choose three faculty members, one of whom will be your chair (or primary contact) as committee members. Your committee is supposed to give advice and provide a structure to help work through the project. You should choose people whose talents you respect and who you personally like. When deciding, ask: do you really like this person, do you think they have sufficient ability, do their specific talents fit in well with the other committee members, do they understand what 894 involves? You must be honest with yourself about your feelings and this is particularly critical with your committee chair, who should be the person with whom you most regularly consult. Don't brush lightly over the selection stage - this part is critical. And if at some later date, you realize that you're not getting the chemistry with one or other person, you should consider swapping them out for someone else.
To be most helpful, 894 needs structure. Don't let yourself get away with "okay, I'll see you in 6 months". I think the best method is to lay out the steps required to produce your final work and have specific deadlines for each step. You should be absolutely clear on what the steps are. It's partly the committee's responsibility to identify the steps and to make sure you are clear about such steps - it should not be assumed you know anything. If your committee chastises you later for not doing this or that when they didn't make things clear earlier, then your committee has failed you.
During the long hard slog, keep in touch regularly with at least your chair and probably the other members, depending on how ofter their particular skills are required. Provide updates in person or by email. Face to face meetings are usually the best. Your chair and the rest of your committee should be reliable communicators: they should respond to correspondence in reasonable time.
Be mindful of your personal chemistry with your chair and/or committee: Do you feel that your chair has time for you or is she/he trying to push you out of her/his office? Is your chair supportive of or pessimistic about your efforts? Is your chair honest with you? Does your chair anticipate and advise in advance or criticize after errors are made? Do you enjoy meeting in person?
In the right situation, hurdles will be anticipated far in advance, meaning that your defense meeting (the occasion when your end product is scrutinized and you are told whether you have passed or failed 894) will yield no surprises; the project will minimize crunch times when critical work is rushed; and you will feel enthusiastic about the project throughout its course. That last one is crucial: this is your life, you must enjoy the project!
Making 894 work
My main reflections on my experience with 894 have been channeled into the above advice. If these kinds of ideas were followed, 894 would not be as broken as Ron and others say it is. But to be explicit, here's what I think BECA needs to do to make 894 work:-
1. Faculty must properly gauge whether or not a project is viable
The project should be within reach of the student's - and faculty members' - abilities and time-constraints. This also involves making sure that the student understands the time, energy, and possibly cost that the project will likely involve. During negotiations, the student may have to amend original plans (usually by down-scaling ambitions).
2. Committee chairs must understand how to mentor students
894 is not the real world. Advice, constructive criticism, and positive encouragement must be abundant; personal chemistry must be present; and chairs should fill in gaps in students' knowledge, especially gaps of which the student is not aware. Your committee, and especially your chair, must believe in you!
3. Chairs and students must co-produce a project plan with deadlines
And they must stick to the plan! 894 really should feel like a class as much as a free-flowing project. Chairs should provide students with a model plan (with explanations for each stage) for their kind of project and work with the student on tailoring the plan appropriately. Plans must be adhered to throughout the project.
Assessing student eligibility
Should a student already have professional experience in the area of their proposed creative project? Should, for example, a student wanting to produce a documentary already have some degree of professional documentary experience? I don't think so. Certainly, the relevant BECA classes should have been taken. But if professional experience were necessary then most students would not be able to take 894. A properly structured 894 experience plus relevant classes taken is enough for most students to succeed. Certainly, the end result is not likely to be top-notch professionalism, but should that be the point? This is a learning experience, a stepping stone to greater things, not a PBS special.
894 is the perfect opportunity to make countless mistakes from the specific to the fundamental and learn the most powerful lessons. I had little documentary-making experience and none professionally and made tonnes of basic mistakes, but the experience gained was invaluable. Although my experience could have been improved by greater awareness of the above points, it was still a unique and cherished journey that no student should be denied.
Final thoughts
Don't take 894 lightly. It involves a colossal amount of energy, time, and often money. You must be hard-working, passionate, and committed to the project; you must work well with anyone in on the adventure; and you must be willing to overcome times of doubt and frustration. But you will hopefully walk away with both a strong portfolio item and a fantastic learning experience.
But I cannot deny that it's the BECA department that needs to pull up its socks about 894. The failings that I've observed in students' experiences of 894 have arisen largely because faculty members weren't clear on how to make 894 work. That shouldn't be hard to fix.
However, I should also acknowledge that many students have had few criticisms of their 894 experience. It all depends on the particular situation. Hopefully, with improvements we will be able to reduce the number of students who start and never complete 894. Then one day, a steady stream of graduates will enter the real world with powerful portfolio items that help kick off successful careers.
For those who have taken or are considering taking 894, please chime in below. It's time we came together on this one and shared our experiences. Over to you...
Many students give up halfway, faculty have admitted there's a problem, and there's talk about severely restricting students' access to it. But what should be done about the creative project option?
Along with fellow students Vidyut and Kurt, I'm the latest BECA grad student to emerge successfully through the creative project option (BECA 894 and its preparatory class BECA 897 - from hereon I'll refer to the creative project option as 894). Having been involved with 894 for over a year, I want to share with you my thoughts on how I think one can make the best use of this option and what needs to change. In short, I think all students should be permitted to take 894 if they wish. The problem with 984 is certainly not with the students, many of whose experiences with 894 has been lacking, but with the department. Ron Compesi is right that the creative project system is broken, but it wouldn't be hard to fix it.
894 is one of the three culminating experience options - exam, thesis, and creative project - of the BECA MA program. The exam is the easiest, least time-consuming option for students who have learned everything they want to learn and who simply want to leave and who don't care about adding an item to their portfolio. The thesis is much more demanding and has an academic bent. The creative project is, although it depends on the specific project, the most time-consuming option. Students pitch their idea for the project to the professor whom they want to head up their three-person review committee. If accepted, then a semester is spent taking 897, which allows students to prepare for the actual doing part - 894 - the following semester.
It's my understanding that students are supposed to produce something of professional quality. For instance, a documentary should be broadcast-quality. I produced a documentary and that's what I was aiming for. But this is an unreasonable requirement. It takes years of practice and a full team of professional collaborators to produce broadcast-quality material. How can this be expected of even MA students? I actually found out from a few professors towards the end that the process one goes through and what one learns is really the point of 894, not the end result. That's the way it should be.
894 (and 897) requires you to choose three faculty members, one of whom will be your chair (or primary contact) as committee members. Your committee is supposed to give advice and provide a structure to help work through the project. You should choose people whose talents you respect and who you personally like. When deciding, ask: do you really like this person, do you think they have sufficient ability, do their specific talents fit in well with the other committee members, do they understand what 894 involves? You must be honest with yourself about your feelings and this is particularly critical with your committee chair, who should be the person with whom you most regularly consult. Don't brush lightly over the selection stage - this part is critical. And if at some later date, you realize that you're not getting the chemistry with one or other person, you should consider swapping them out for someone else.
To be most helpful, 894 needs structure. Don't let yourself get away with "okay, I'll see you in 6 months". I think the best method is to lay out the steps required to produce your final work and have specific deadlines for each step. You should be absolutely clear on what the steps are. It's partly the committee's responsibility to identify the steps and to make sure you are clear about such steps - it should not be assumed you know anything. If your committee chastises you later for not doing this or that when they didn't make things clear earlier, then your committee has failed you.
During the long hard slog, keep in touch regularly with at least your chair and probably the other members, depending on how ofter their particular skills are required. Provide updates in person or by email. Face to face meetings are usually the best. Your chair and the rest of your committee should be reliable communicators: they should respond to correspondence in reasonable time.
Be mindful of your personal chemistry with your chair and/or committee: Do you feel that your chair has time for you or is she/he trying to push you out of her/his office? Is your chair supportive of or pessimistic about your efforts? Is your chair honest with you? Does your chair anticipate and advise in advance or criticize after errors are made? Do you enjoy meeting in person?
In the right situation, hurdles will be anticipated far in advance, meaning that your defense meeting (the occasion when your end product is scrutinized and you are told whether you have passed or failed 894) will yield no surprises; the project will minimize crunch times when critical work is rushed; and you will feel enthusiastic about the project throughout its course. That last one is crucial: this is your life, you must enjoy the project!
My main reflections on my experience with 894 have been channeled into the above advice. If these kinds of ideas were followed, 894 would not be as broken as Ron and others say it is. But to be explicit, here's what I think BECA needs to do to make 894 work:-
1. Faculty must properly gauge whether or not a project is viable
The project should be within reach of the student's - and faculty members' - abilities and time-constraints. This also involves making sure that the student understands the time, energy, and possibly cost that the project will likely involve. During negotiations, the student may have to amend original plans (usually by down-scaling ambitions).
2. Committee chairs must understand how to mentor students
894 is not the real world. Advice, constructive criticism, and positive encouragement must be abundant; personal chemistry must be present; and chairs should fill in gaps in students' knowledge, especially gaps of which the student is not aware. Your committee, and especially your chair, must believe in you!
3. Chairs and students must co-produce a project plan with deadlines
And they must stick to the plan! 894 really should feel like a class as much as a free-flowing project. Chairs should provide students with a model plan (with explanations for each stage) for their kind of project and work with the student on tailoring the plan appropriately. Plans must be adhered to throughout the project.
Should a student already have professional experience in the area of their proposed creative project? Should, for example, a student wanting to produce a documentary already have some degree of professional documentary experience? I don't think so. Certainly, the relevant BECA classes should have been taken. But if professional experience were necessary then most students would not be able to take 894. A properly structured 894 experience plus relevant classes taken is enough for most students to succeed. Certainly, the end result is not likely to be top-notch professionalism, but should that be the point? This is a learning experience, a stepping stone to greater things, not a PBS special.
894 is the perfect opportunity to make countless mistakes from the specific to the fundamental and learn the most powerful lessons. I had little documentary-making experience and none professionally and made tonnes of basic mistakes, but the experience gained was invaluable. Although my experience could have been improved by greater awareness of the above points, it was still a unique and cherished journey that no student should be denied.
Don't take 894 lightly. It involves a colossal amount of energy, time, and often money. You must be hard-working, passionate, and committed to the project; you must work well with anyone in on the adventure; and you must be willing to overcome times of doubt and frustration. But you will hopefully walk away with both a strong portfolio item and a fantastic learning experience.
But I cannot deny that it's the BECA department that needs to pull up its socks about 894. The failings that I've observed in students' experiences of 894 have arisen largely because faculty members weren't clear on how to make 894 work. That shouldn't be hard to fix.
However, I should also acknowledge that many students have had few criticisms of their 894 experience. It all depends on the particular situation. Hopefully, with improvements we will be able to reduce the number of students who start and never complete 894. Then one day, a steady stream of graduates will enter the real world with powerful portfolio items that help kick off successful careers.
For those who have taken or are considering taking 894, please chime in below. It's time we came together on this one and shared our experiences. Over to you...
Add a Comment
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Comment by Amanda on May 24, 2009 at 3:25pm -
The school has a vested interest in making graduates of both flavors; that is what they exist for, nothing else. As an institution with that goal, it does not reflect well on them when they do not make graduates. If somebody wished to be a prospective student of SFSU, and asked how many people have become graduates and the answer is, "Well, we had some people doing really challenging projects and research but the last time we saw them they were charging into the library/running off with camera in hand" that does not reflect well on the institution's ability to make or attract potential graduates.
That said, I didn't do this to be a graduate. I've already got a piece of paper that says I accomplished something and nobody cares. I did this to have projects and experiences to my name and use those to finally get where I need to be, not the piece of paper.
Thank you for your observations, Adam. These are good to keep in mind.
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Comment by Adam Greenfield on May 19, 2009 at 12:11pm
- Thanks Molly and Sasha! I think you should absolutely be able to take the creative project. You should be able to walk away from BECA with a big master portfolio item, as well as a tonne of practical experience. I'll be pushing for that to happen.
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Comment by Sasha Doppelt on May 19, 2009 at 11:45am
- Thanks for this Adam. Good to know. I like Molly am totally gunning up to do the creative project. I am going to be thinking about it and gathering bits and pieces of what I need to know during every semester here. If there is one thing I would like you to communicate to the profs, it is "please don't take the creative project away!" It is one of the reasons I came here, and I am very excited about it!
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Comment by molly on May 19, 2009 at 2:54am -
thank you. i agree with you whole-heartedly. i really appreciate everything you said.
it seems to me that you learned so much from your experience. this is an educational institution and it's a department in a building called "creative arts." creativity is about process and we learn most from what does not go right, (which is especially true of productions). i think the creative project should be about the process, not the end result.
i plan on doing a creative project. that is why i am in this program. it never occurred to me to do anything else for my culminating experience. i understand that the school is strapped for cash, but i am going into so much debt to be in this program that i need to demand that i get something out of it. for me personally, the exam is not going to teach me what i need to learn.
thanks again, adam.
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