Writing & Contemporary Cultures (1 Viewer)

[jack white]

Hey guys, i am a year 12 student looking for the perfect course as you may have already guessed...

I am tossing up between all of these writing courses and so far this writing & contemporary cultures course is at the top of my list. I am thinking about a career in film/music/literary criticism/journalism and possibly even screenwriting, novelwriting and other forms later on down the road. Is there any advice any writing and contemporary cultures students can give me concerning the course's details and relevance to critical and creative writing careers. I do not want to do just a journalism course i want to branch further out into other writing fields. So is there any advice you could please give me?

are there exams?
what kind of subjects can you pick with electives?
how are the lecturers?
what is the course time per week?
is it demanding, challenging or easy?

thank you so much.....

 

[my sharona]

From my limited knowledge, the writing people have a Major Piece due before all the other assessments, and they're all whingeing about it.

Oh, and they don't actually have lectures for Writing for some bizarre, unexplainable and unfair reason.

 

[jack white]

no lectures? is that a good or bad thing ya reckon? i am naive with a capital N.

 

[Jinglebell]

My knowledge of Writing is fairly limited also, but I'll do my best here...

I think the core writing subjects in first year (don't know about beyond that) may cnsist of just a 3-hour workshop/seminar thing or something like that. Which would explain the lack of lectures, but don't quote me on this one.

As with all Humanities subjecs, there shouldn't be exams involved. Rejoice

Electives mean you can pick any subject from Humanities (a journo subject if you wanted for example), or from another faculty (say if you wanted to try a law subject) or even another uni if you're so inclined. Within writing though, I'd say you'll get to pick subjects leading you in a certain direction (poetry or whatever) from second year...Although I'm just assuming that since that's what most of the other courses do.

Per week you're loking at about 11/12 hours first year, depending on your writing subject which I know little to nothing about. Three out of your four first-year subjects will be common with the rest of the communications students though, with only one dedicated writing subject.

From what I've heard, writing is quite challenging, and you have to be *very* open to peer criticism, I think the reason their major is due early is because they workshop them as a class. But if it's what you really want to do then go for it, if you're planning on a career in writing you'll have to get used to being picked apart anyway, I guess...

Hope that's been of some help...

 

[my sharona]

no lectures? is that a good or bad thing ya reckon? i am naive with a capital N.

I'm going purely from what I know... so I guess in some ways it would be good - no one is dictating to you what is a good way to write etc.

It just means you have less hours... so that's good if you work well alone... but if you procrastinate alot then i guess it might not be so good.

In your workshops, all i know is that you have to write stupidly long amounts per week (say, a 2500 word story plus a page of poetry) and read it out aloud to everyone else and they give you feedback.
From what i heard, there are a lot of idiots who read too much into everything and think that a simple twenty word poem about a sunflower is about suicide and the mental state of immigrants... but that's just what i heard.

 

[Jinglebell]

From what i heard, there are a lot of idiots who read too much into everything and think that a simple twenty word poem about a sunflower is about suicide and the mental state of immigrants... but that's just what i heard.

They can't be entirely blamed for their behaviour, subjects like CC1/2 and the like encourage and reward such wankiness...I have to admit to buying into it on occasion, it rarely fails to make you look intelligent/like you have some vague clue what you're talking about. Although there are those who are born wanky and just continue to nurture the skill as they get older. Not that I'm thinking of any specific people in my year

 

[braindrainedAsh]

Journo students don't have lectures for their journo subjects.... we have 3 hour seminars.

And you don't just find people like that in WCC rabbit, you find them in all the communications degrees.... and you would be likely to find them in every single arts faculty in every university around the country.

 

[jack white]

thank you all for your responses...it kinda sounds like the degree for me - i love working alone and i can take criticism off others, in fact i want to be a film/music critic so i guess if you dish it out for a living people will want you to take some of it back...as i think i said, i am interested in critical writing not so much the poetic/creative side of things...do you guys consider this degree to be relevant to critical writing or is it mostly creative? can you specialise or do you HAVE to learn how to write in every form? (just wondering because i am yet to tackle poetry)....in the journalism degree can you specialise in criticism?

 

[bridget.]

i do WCC, and if you're just looking into critical/informative writing, then it's probably not the course for you. *all* we work on is creative writing, a seminar (3 hours) each on things like characterisation, plot, short stories, scripts etc. one or two 2nd years who chose the class as an elective were disappointed/pissed because it DOESN'T cover esaay writing, critical pieces. i don't know about next semester, but this semester is purely creative.

you don't HAVE to learn anything. you're not forced to present poetry or any other style for assessment, you chose what you are assessed on.

you don't read anything aloud if you don't want to, and in my class at least, you don't even have to write anything. so long as you submit assessments, you're not pressured to write when you can't think of anything, you're not comfortable with the topic/medium, etc.

and i think it's the bestest.

 

[jack white]

so any idea as to which degree is more suitable in terms of critical writing? is it available at UTS?

 

[jack white]

i mean a critical-based degree...

 

[bridget.]

journalism maybe? social inquiry?

i don't really know much about either of those courses though.

 

[Jinglebell]

I wouldn't say Social Inquiry, it's more research and policy based, not particularly relevant at all...journo possibly, but Ash could give far more insight there than I could, so I won't even try

 

[braindrainedAsh]

Hmmm funnily enough I wouldn't say journo either.

Most of the writing you do in journalism is news stories and feature articles. Plus you have to write TV/radio scripts etc. It isn't really critical writing. You can't specialize in criticism in the journalism degree. In journo you can specialize in print/investigative, online, radio, tv, editing and publishing.

There are quite a variety of writing subjects at UTS (cultural studies subjects in the fields of music and film would be the type of thing I imagine you would be interested in and we do have subjects like that), however I can't think of an entire degree at UTS geared toward that direction. Maybe a general arts degree with a major in cultural studies or film or something would be what you are looking for?

 

[jack white]

you have got it spot on...

braindrainedAsh, you said, "cultural studies subjects in the fields of music and film would be the type of thing I imagine you would be interested in and we do have subjects like that" - would those subjects be offered as electives if i chose to do a communications degree at UTS? Because i have noticed that UTS does not have a general arts degree - please correct me if i am wrong...

 

[olay]

i don't think you'll find any degrees anywhere geared specifically towards critical writing in that sort of way.... so in terms of career prospects, journalism looks like your best bet, cos i think it would be a well regarded degree within the industry. and no, you prob don't want to be doing social inquiry [which i do] if u are looking to get into that

 

[braindrainedAsh]

You could do either writing and contemp cult or journo and yes you can pick the cultural studies subjects as electives. I actually think that in writing and cc those cultural studies subjects form a core part of the degree as well as writing subjects.

Do you live in Syd? If you do, I would rock on down to UTS and try and get a copy of the faculty handbook.... it has all the subjects in it and the degree structures so you will see what you will HAVE to study (because there are some compulsory subjects for each degree) and then what you can pick for your electives. There are descriptions of each subject in the humanities faculty. I think they sell it at the coop bookshop, cnr broadway and harris st. It's pretty cheap.

I think you need to think about what you want to do. My advice would be not to do journalism unless you want to become a journalist, because essentually that is what the whole degree is geared towards. If you want to become a writer, as opposed to a journalist, then the writing course is probably more suited for you. But it also depends on what boring compulsory subjects that may not have a direct relation to your personal career outcomes you want to sit through, and how much you like creative writing and/or writing hard news stories and learning how to use radio editing software.

UTS only offers BA in Communications or BA in International Studies (which is languages and can only be studied as a double degree I think). No "normal" BA. USyd would be your best bet for a normal arts degree.

If I were you I would look at the course outlines, read some of the subject descriptions etc so you can make a better informed choice. Ring them up/email them if you have questions about some of the subjects as well, I'm sure they would be helpful.

 

[Hermzie]

Which would you guys recommend if I wanted to get into journalism that deals with art criticism, essays, etc? The obvious answer is probably 'BA comm Journalism', but since I heard a few people say that it deals mainly with news article writing and the like, I wasn't so sure.

I'm interested in the whole editing process and criticsm thing - what advice have you guys got?

 

[glycerine]

yeah I think I want to go into publishing... like editing and the like... would this degree be any good for it at all? I think I may combine it with law if I get the uai, it's unlikely that I will though.
I'm not thaaaaat interested in creative writing myself per se, but I can do it and I can enjoy it.

 

[braindrainedAsh]

If you want to do journalism in a specialist area you should just do a degree in that area. E.g. do a degree in art theory or something. Or just do a general arts degree maybe where you can study art alongside writing. YOu need to have specialist knowledge to become a specialist writer. By art criticism do you mean being an arts reviewer, or writing stories about art criticism? I don't really understand what type of writing you are talking about. A lot of journalism is news focused particularly in first year but after first year you can pick subjects like print features, editing and publishing that are a bit less newsy. But there is still a news focus.

If you are interested in editing and not interested in creative writing, journalism might be better than the writing degree.

What I did before I picked UTS was to look at the content of subjects that form part of the degree. You can find out what stuff you do in subjects and what subjects form part of the degree by looking at the faculty handbook.

http://www.handbook.uts.edu.au/hss/index.html

Have a look at what the subjects focus on, that will give you more of an idea.