|
|
This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
|
|
Author
|
Topic: Should a projectionist go to college?
|
Randy Stankey
Film God
Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
|
posted 01-20-2005 11:05 AM
Let's assume that you go to a private Liberal Arts school like I work at.
You will spend, on average $25,000 per year... Government financial aid notwithstanding. The average college student ends up paying about $100,000 to go to school for 4 years.
A person with a High School diploma, on average, will be able to get a job that pays $50,000 per year at most.
A person with a College degree... virtually ANY kind of degree... has the potential to enter a career that pays anywhere from $100,000 per year and higher. (Depending on the degree, the school the degree was earned at and how the person persues a career.)
That comes out to as much as a $50,000 per year differential in income! (Or, in some cases, even MORE!)
In 20 years time, on average, the person with a College degree will out-earn a person with only a High School diploma by $1,000,000!
Consider that it only cost you $100,000 to go to school in the first place, and you get a TEN-FOLD PAYBACK on your dollar!
And, this is only the AVERAGE! Some people who continue on and become doctors and lawyers, etc. can earn MUCH MORE! You'd be SILLY if you had the chance to go to college and didn't take it!
The above is a summary of the speech the President of my school makes every year to the incomming Freshman class and their parents. The man says it much more eloquantly that I can!
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
James Faber
Film Handler
Posts: 66
From: Des Moines, Iowa , USA
Registered: Nov 2004
|
posted 01-20-2005 08:15 PM
Thank you so very much, you guys. After reading all of the posts, I'm leaning toward taking some community college classes, and if that works out, taking the next step to a larger univirsity. I would most likely end up taking film, English and history classes, and maybe a couple of management classes. If I decide I don't want to go to school anymore, I'll be out $4000 for 2 years of community college, but big deal, I'll at least have an AA, which is a little better than just a diploma.
I don't figure I'd do too well in engineering classes, since my math skills are not the greatest, however I'm fairly proficient with a computer(especially hardware) and can fix pretty much anything around the booth. Perhaps a tech school would suit me, I just don't know what kind of skills that would require. A mild amount of math is acceptable(I love physics, but I can't do problems that it feels like I'm solving for no apparent reason). A little more help, please?
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
|
posted 01-20-2005 09:58 PM
Let me tell you about a fella I know....rather well....
He came from a familiy where both parents were college grads (Chemists) and whos siblings (3-older) all went to college, one who placed out of his Freshman year (many "AP" classes in HS and had over 1400 on the SATs). Needless to say, going to college was a bit of an expectation.
However, this guy was not what one would call a "good student." He didn't really enjoy school that much.
When he turned 16, he, though a mutual friend, landed a job as a projectionist at a local theatre chain. His grades shot up substantially...from say a C-D student to an A-B student. Musta been something about the booth environment (especially in the days of singles, twins and the odd triple) that lead to better scholastic environment. He also was earning substantially more money than his friends.
As he progressed through school, so did he though the projection ranks (obtained better theatres to work, improved his skills and had more recognition from the administration). However, the theatres ment more to him than the school work. So much so, that upon graduation from HS, he, like you, didn't really want to go to college and was "tired" of school. This was certainly a disappointment for his parents though it was predictable based on his activities.
He progressed through the theatre chain to become their in-house tech, trainer, and assistant supervisor (projection). The company supported him and sent him to "Dolby-School" and such. He had a say on theatre construction for the chain as it pertained to projection/sound.
When his boss resigned, he was promoted to "Operational Supervisor" which ment that he was responsible, along with the other supervisor, for the day-to-day running of the entire chain of 70 some odd screens. This included staffing the projectionists as well as providing support/guidance for the managers. At this point, he was 22-years old, had a new Corvette (he still has it, I believe), and had seen his last promotion. It was a private company and his immediate superior was the owner.
For the year prior to his promotion, there was this ever increasing desire to go back to school (college) to learn. To be more. To not have to accept just what is provided.
So, he eventually resigned after he applied, and was accepted at his local community college. He also applied, and was hired by another independant theatre chain as a projectionist, and to help out with service and design of their theatres.
The plan of showing movies while going to college worked out very well. His grades were quite good. They would have to be. His chosen major was Electrical Engineering. At the state school he was to attend, a 3.0 GPA was a minimum to continue into one's Junior year.
He found that the profressors at the community college to be quite good and eager to teach. Most were quite eager to provide extra help and effort, if desired. The work was hard but was certainly doable in a mannor that never seemed so in High-School. Physics was the Deusy...the Professor announced on the first day of class that they have a 1 in 10 success rate of Freshman that make it through their 3rd semester of Physics (a requirement of the Engineering Sciences). Most chuckled at the statement figuring it was a scare tactic. After the first exam, noboydy was chuckling. The professor made up another exam and gave it to the class, again most people failed it. By the end of their first year only a 1/3 of the orginal Freshman were still in Physics, this guy being one of them.
At the end of his community college days, having never applied nor obtained an AA degree, he qualified and transfered over to the state school. This was a different experience all together. Whereas at the community college, the professors were interested in you doing well, not so was the case at the state school. They couldn't care less, by and large (there are always exceptions in life). Reality Bites nailed it when they pointed out that you would learn your Social Security number in college, if nothing else.
There was a system in the state school for doing everything and if you didn't know the rules, or how to work the system, you were trampled upon and left behind.
He chose to live on campus, and due to his age, was housed in the adult appartments on campus. There he met one of his life long friends that showed him the ropes of "working the system."
He roomed with people both from his country and from other countries. Learned to live with a group of strangers and make friends. He also learned how to live with people he didn't particularly like. In a large college setting, there are ALL kinds of people with all sorts of beliefs and habits. Hopefully you learn how to have freedom and how to allow others to have it too.
He became active in professional societies like the IEEE and SMPTE. Both of which he is a member to this day. He is still quite active in the SMPTE and is on one of its engineering committees. I also hear that he gave a speech in front of a bunch of video guys at a section meeting of the SMPTE.
When taking classes that had projects, he always tried to have theatres or movies as part of the project. For technical writing, he wrote a paper on restoring a theatre. For a senior Physics class with a programming language called Mathematica, he wrote a program to calculate the optimum light reflectance from a curved screen based on gain, room shape and audience area. He once took a class on "Film Appreciation" where they actually gave out grades for watching movies! His professor for the class went on to work at the Library of Congress' film archive.
While in school, he joined the local union of IATSE. He eventually was elected as an officer of the local (Financial Secretary). He helped organize and successfully turned a lockout by Cineplex to a 100% union representation for Cineplex in the area.
However, by the end of college, he once again was ready to leave school and go back to the "real world".
When he graduated with that Electrical Engineering degree, he found that times were tough in the EE field, IBM was laying off engineers for the first time in their history. The other tradional EE firms, with their cubicle lifestyle, were doing likewise.
However, he took a job with a local service company that was always the pre-eminate company for theatre and started his career off there by designing audio interfaces so allow these new-fangled digital processors to communicate with the older sound systems. He eventaully made a changeover interface for the Sony brand of digital processor, SDDS, I think it is, that sold well and was installed in just about every country around the world.
So once again, he was able to bend the professional training to work with the movie theatre environment.
He still designs hardware (or software if necessary) to allow for better projeciton/sound installations and his former film professor is now his customer!
If you pay attention to Film-Tech, you will see his posts...in fact, he is writing to you right now!
Steve
PS In the fast paced world that we live in, the above, heavily abridged story could be easily summed up to "Been there done that, got the degree" but I don't think that would help you at all. The realies are, as Thomas has pointed out, that college is NOT for everyone but what it offers, if you give it your all, is much more than academic education but an ever lasting education of people and culture. It will give your mind a workout much the same working out in the weight room can work on your muscles. My physics professor, Dr. Corely, said often, doing physics for 6-hours should feel every bit as exhausting as digging a ditch for 6-hours or working out for 6-hours.
I don't think I would have had the same experience in college if I went stright from High-School but I don't regret for a minute just about ANY of my classes that I took, major or non-major. My college days were certainly some of my favorites. Do you want to learn how to get along with different cultures? During the first Gulf war, one of my apartment mates was a Jordanian. It takes on a whole new meaning to turn on the TV and while all the Americans are reveling in their victories to notice one who is scared about what is going to happen to his country. College can provide that sort of education too.
Like everything else in life, it is what you make of it.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
William Hooper
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1879
From: Mobile, AL USA
Registered: Jun 99
|
posted 01-21-2005 02:27 AM
I agree with Thomas Procyk (& Steve Guttag). Colleges & Universities are very high-stakes for students, unfortunately, they're also self-sustaining, closed organizations that frequently become as dangerous & dysfunctional as the Drivers License office, poplulated by the same kind of people. Folks in any profession will tell you theirs has got lots of people in it who are there for the wrong reason & shouldn't be there; teaching is no different.
There are a lot of occupations that attract people with personality problems which are essentially a need for display - law enforcement, emergency services, performing arts (non-tech), teaching, politics, health professions - because they are seen as a way to assume a position of authority, which some folks desperately need for self-esteem. The rough part is that those occupations specifically require the most results-oriented, probliem-solving, & realistic personality types. In some, like the performing arts, the result is just lack of vocational success, in others, the result is much more destructive to everyone around.
If you get a bad class/instructor, get on the outside of it mentally; view it like another nasty job like changing the oil that has to be just seen through. But if it's really bad, like a hostile instructor, one that isn't effective in teaching what his examinations cover, etc., write a complaint, go see the dean, change to another instructor. Hostile people are very fragile, & staying there after they've been disagreed with one is academic suicide. It's your money, & you're neither their target nor shrink.
I've got to disagree with the idea that now degrees (& certification) are less valuable because more people have them. In a pool with a lot of applicants & the neccessity to establish a minimum requirement, *any* degree is usually a baseline to get out of the very bottom. The top is not getting higher, the bottom's getting lower.
Also, a degree gives you room to move to something similar, if the current occupation starts going smelly. People in sales & management can always get a job somewhere else in another business doing sales or management, but being a projectionist is lmited to pretty much that alone. You can't take any experience in that as brownie points somewhere else; you're entry-level again.
When you're looking around trying to find what you want a degree in or certification for, it doesn't have to be far from what you're doing now. Technical occupations a little higher the ladder can be very satisfying. Will Kutler looks like he's going to be having fun. Get some additional training, & you'll be a more valuable (professionally & monetarily) tech.
People who like their jobs have in common that they're described as "engaged" with their jobs. It's not very useful; the engagement is described in various ways as I like to work with communicating with people & do, I like interesting machinery & work with it, etc. Some people really like routine, but in folks looking at other things, it's very uncommon. When you pursue the "engagement", it turns out that they like the *problems* presented to them in the job that they like. Like the same problems every day - likes routine. Like figuring out how to construct a method to communicate something so others will understand it - PR/teaching. Like figuring out how to make a new device to do something specific - design. With all the vagueness about the *engagement*, it basically boils down to the common satisfying sensations that performing arts people know have to go over for people on the other side of the foots that's always the same process flow: setup, suspense, payoff. The suspense is where the engagement is; people just sort of sit through the setup & you try to structure it also with little bits of setup/suspense/payoff sprinkled in there to keep it from getting too boring. If it can't be resolved (payoff) satisfactorily, there's frustration & dissatisfaction. If it's too difficult to handle (setup), same result. That's how you can read that people who like their jobs like the problems the job presents. Not awful, unsolvable, or repetitive problems. People like novelty, but novelty they can deal with.
So when you look at possible other occupations or pursuits (even if it's switching from projectionist to mercenary projection wiz-tech like Steve Guttag), the way you assess an occupation is to look at it & say "Would I like the problems?" You can get training & experience to back you up for just about anything, but to enjoy a pursuit: rock climbing, engineering, cooking, etc.; the problems have to appeal to you.
There's a sort of superficial vocational preference inventory thingy online at
http://www.careerkey.org/english/
Results you get for your interests & preferences are again going to be really broad, possibly uninteresting descriptions: most of the "engineer" things sound duller & more isolated than "librarian", but it's the actual jobs under that category that are interesting. You get the degree to pursue a particular job, or find the interesting job objective in the information you discover while you're pursuing the degree.
If the admissions folks at the school you're looking at doesn't have a service & counsellor to adminiser something like this, check out a larger nearby universtiy & do it. It's almost always free, to suck in prospective students. (Heck, you might transfer there later anyway through any turn of events, not excluding winning the Sam Chavez Scholarship For Socially Isolated Projectionists). If the counsellor can't offer any more information when asked about occupations other than the top broad listings in such results other than "well, you'll have to research that", that person is there either to prop up some personal inadequacy by sitting in a chair of presumed authority or just to get into the retirement system.
If you have to do additional research on your own, just remember that all research at the top level is tedious; it's as you start burrowing down to the specifics that things *always* become interesting.
Good luck!
| IP: Logged
|
|
Monte L Fullmer
Film God
Posts: 8367
From: Nampa, Idaho, USA
Registered: Nov 2004
|
posted 01-21-2005 02:32 AM
quote: Sam D. Chavez
If I may turn this topic on its head, the real questions is, can a projectionist remain normal if there is nothing else in his/her life to make them grow. It is an isolating experience that often causes severe atrophy of the social skills.
There is ALWAYS something else out there to make one grow and that something is ALWAYS out there - one just have to find that.
In a general sense: that's kind of a bad excuse when one's not trying to grow. (no offense intended)
For, if you don't grow, you'll destroy yourself in a heartbeat. This is always a good challenge for all who fall in this trap: go find something else to do and find something else to learn, for studying and learning won't hurt anyone.
Also...finding a girl who can really understand were you are coming from and fully understands what your profession is and that your profession make you happy and you feel successful in doing this sort of work, plus enough income to support raising a family, then get married.
This cures the isolated experience real quick, for it will make you realized whom you are "married" to.
A projectionist CAN be normal if they want to. But, I've seen some eccentric, anal retentive ones that I'd love to shoot just to get them out of their misery. -lol-
thx-Monte
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Daniel Alt
Expert Film Handler
Posts: 111
From: Lakewood, OH, USA
Registered: Mar 2004
|
posted 01-21-2005 09:42 AM
My two cents?
Try not to look at college as a "trade school", but rather a chance to grow. In college I majored in Astronomy and Music, took classes in economics and philosophy, had a radio show, was president of a fraternity, and spent a lot of time juggling.
I went to parties, dated, fell in love, fell out of love, made friends, lost friends, and generally had a lot of experiences that shaped who I am.
Can you do all of those things outside of college? Sure. But the academic environment provides you with unparallelled opportunities to explore a wide range of interests in a relatively compact space and span of time. It's an incubator for diverse, interesting people.
I wholeheartedly recommend it, for the overall gestalt, not just for the academics. (Plus, you learn to use words like "gestalt")
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
|
This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|
Home
![[thumbsup]](graemlins/thumbsup.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic