So among the crazy things that I got feedback from, I had to come home today and realize that my entire idea had just been torched by a professor. And then my roommate told me something that I had never thought about before. I'm sharing this because I don't think any of us have ever thought about it before.
She said, "Your department has to ask for too many opinions."
And I thought about this. She's right. I sit in class all day, listening to the opinions or different professors. We are so afraid of failing or not understand something that we debate it to death. In the last week alone, I have gotten the opinions (for this project) from the professor teaching my class, every student in it, the opinions of two other professors, my roommate, and my boyfriend. Three of those who are not closely related to our class have told me to leave my idea alone (that changing it would compromise the initial theory and idea). But I think there are still a few small details that could be tweaked here and there, so I do. Then I have had classmates and professors alike tell me to either change something major or almost scrap the whole thing. And so I am left here without a clue the night before critique wondering what the hell I should change and what the hell I should leave. I will continue to try and put forth my best work regardless. And I will attempt to make it mine... regardless.
But my point is... and the point she was making... is that we are given so many different opinions to sort out that we hardly have time to insert our own. I deem this as truly a weakness. We are so afraid to fail that we dare not try. We keep changing and changing things until we have lost all but 20% of the original design. And it's everyone's fault alike. So... in the end, what do we do about it?
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