Back to University

Going back to university this year felt more daunting than it did when I started the MA last year after 10 years out of higher education. I am halfway through the course now and I was really dreading the online aspect of tuition, which is to say, all of it.

However, I am really glad to be back.

The new module, Transitional Skills is about learning a new skill that will enhance our everyday practice, and no just dabbling in lots of different skills that won't help our practice in the long term.

What can I do in the timeframe?

How much can I realistically learn and apply to my practice between no and January?

Am I going to come out of the module with acceptable skills or will the time constraint mean that I won't learn enough to be feasible?

Originally I wanted to start looking at game development and learning to use industry standard software, however game art and dev courses are as long as a BA and I am worried that I will be wasting my time and won't have enough time to actually learn anything that will make a viable body of work and something I will be happy with.

(I have a feeling that learning to use most of the software will probably require a 3D skill set, which I don't yet have.)

Am I fixating too much on industry requirements and forgetting what I actually want to do?

Would it be a better use of my time to learn skills that push my creativity and the strong skills that I already have.

For example: 2D animation. I already have good groundwork for this - my drawing skills are strong and I think my images are stylised enough that the transition to animation would be fairly straight forward. I will still need to learn to use new software, but I won't be starting from scratch.

I would also like to learn InDesign and Illustrator so I could make an animated e-book, but I think animation is a more important skill to focus on.

So how do I adapt what I've already done, to create something that will:

a. work as a final project for the MA

b. give me a decent new skillset

c. be a feasible outcome that I will be happy to present in January and develop in the next semester.