Goldsmiths - The Final Frontier!

It is quite fitting that I should write this from my new school, Goldsmiths College-University of London, where I am currently in the lovely Macintosh computer lab at the Rutherford Information Services Building (aka: computer and media center attached to the library).

Today marks the start of the second week of classes! It seems like just last week I was downloading information on various Masters-level Visual Anthropology courses, only to discover that they were mostly in the UK... then came the months of gathering reference letters, visual materials, application forms, etc. Then the decision to actually accept the offer... and voila!

Now, I rise and shine (sometimes to thoughts of "Oh that's right, I live in London"), and take a 20 minute ride on the 225 bus to New Cross, where Goldsmiths is located...

It is fairly safe to say that I am still experiencing, for lack of a better term, major waves of culture shock. In the same way that daily life in the UK is subtly yet powerfully different from life in the United States, academic life at Goldsmiths could not be more distinct from academic life at the University of Virginia.

For starters, as a physical space, New Cross is sprawling, hectic, vibrant, ethnic and urban. This also means that is loud, dirty and not very green! Common spaces are few and far between, and where they exist, you can be sure that someone is smoking in them (special memo to all hipsters: Smoking is out, lifting weights is in!).

Environmental hazards aside, studying is its own beast over here. The fundamental message that I have picked up: School, by and large, is an "independent" endeavor. Rightly so, the expectation is on the individual to prepare all readings, view all films and perform all necessary fieldwork in order to succeed in the course. What is slightly more surprising is how little time one spends in the classroom! This semester, I have 3 required classes, all of which meet only once a week (for 1-3 hours). I have tacked on 2 additional classes that I am auditing (ah, the joy of learning), which adds a whopping extra 2 "official" hours to the week, but overall, I've realized that MA courses in the UK are rigorous in that they MAKE you as interactive and engaged as YOU want to be. The understanding that great dialogues with my classmates statistically will not take place during our structured classroom hours, but in down-time at the cafe or pub down the street, is quite challenging.

Call me a dork, but I glow when sitting around a class seminar table with the text at hand, furiously flipping through pages of reading, seeking the perfect quote or the verbal embodiment of the debate at hand...

That being said, I am ready to embrace this new hands-off model of teaching and look forward to Visual Anthropology debates outside of the traditional academic setting. Let's take it to the streets, people!