Keeping that desire to do better going?

[Liquid Blue]

Remember how I said awhile ago I want to reach my full potential and do better, and help others do better? Well I got burnt out on the shit load of homework I had to do last quarter, so this quarter I'm only taking 3 classes. The thing is, while I still feel like doing good and helping others in pretty much all areas, there is one area where I'm reluctant and keep not reaching my expectations on- academically. Like I keep having these massive flares of apathy and seem to lose interest in doing as good as I could. It doesn't happen all the time, but it happens enough to alarm me. Is it because it's the summer? Is this a normal college thing? I don't know, I'd like to hear your opinions.

(To clarify, I go to a year round college, currently in the summer quarter. Started around July 11th, ends sometime in Sept.)

[Benno]

The graduate show is on Friday Sept. 16th, so your last final is on the 14th (Wed.) or 13th. Either you go to the same AI I do, they all have the same schedules, or you go to a school with the same schedule?

[Liquid Blue]

AI of Washington, sadly a branch of Atlanta. I still don't graduate until July of '06, though.

[Benno]

On topic (sort of):

Design school is really draining. For a purely academic course you can study till you know what you need to know or write x pages for a paper and go to sleep. One layout design on the other hand could go from sketch to screen in under 5 hours, but it rarely does. I don't think i've had a single quarter here that i've slept well in the last 3 weeks of the quarter. I'm not even one of those poor animation bastards who has to wait 10 hours to render their 2 minute animation, I just get so attached to perfect I neglect the reality of time.

I wrote my senior projects paper on the strugle between pragmatism and idealism for the designer. Those who treat their work like religion will burn out fast, but they'll burn bright.

or OD like Cobain and be lionized despite marginal talent//.

[Mr. Peanuts]

I'm really good with computer hardware but I do general ICT in college as there is nothing I can take that is more hardware based. I know that I really need to start hitting the higher grades next year after just about passing last year in order to get into the Uni I want to go to, however, as much as I should be shitting myself and working really hard, I'm just not. I'm not motivated at all, despite knowing the possible consequences.

I wish that something would give me a good kick in the arse, something that will change my attitude to my work because I can't do it myself, but so far, nothing has happened.

I could blame it on the teachers not motivating the class and making it more interesting but I won't.

[Liquid Blue]

On topic (sort of):

Design school is really draining. For a purely academic course you can study till you know what you need to know or write x pages for a paper and go to sleep. One layout design on the other hand could go from sketch to screen in under 5 hours, but it rarely does. I don't think i've had a single quarter here that i've slept well in the last 3 weeks of the quarter. I'm not even one of those poor animation bastards who has to wait 10 hours to render their 2 minute animation, I just get so attached to perfect I neglect the reality of time.

I wrote my senior projects paper on the strugle between pragmatism and idealism for the designer. Those who treat their work like religion will burn out fast, but they'll burn bright.

or OD like Cobain and be lionized despite marginal talent//.

I'm in animation

During the quarter that I had intro to 2d animation, our final was a 30 second animation. We had 2 weeks to do it. I think the most anyone in my class got was 6 hours of sleep one night, over the course of those 2 weeks. Animation is just really...engrossing, and can take awhile. 3D animation is tedious as shit however, and I never want to fucking work as a 3d animator. Oh you have no idea how long and boring and complicated it is to create faces and bodies and all that. Drives me crazy. Anyway I don't know why I've been feeling this lack of wanting to...do work, but I guess I just have to keep doing it. BBL with a better post, this is kinda rushed.

[Tone]

motivation is neural chemical in basis, just take an adderall or other dopaminergic to find out if im right. theres also the psychological factor of knowing if the end result is worth it (which is also largely neural chemically controlled)

[Subjugation]

Yea, I think it's pretty normal for you to need to psyche yourself up for it. I think it's hard to be motivated 100% of the time, and I think people usually have to make a conscious decision to live that way---it is a lifestyle choice.

I was pretty fired up last semester and got straight a's, didn't drink all semester, and got lots of exercise. Over the summer, I've been majorly slacking by getting hammered a few times, not exercising as much, and really haven't done any of the projects I wanted to get done. I did read about 3/4 of my reading list, though.

So, these last couple of weeks, I've been trying to psyche myself up again to get seriously focused on the same shit I did last semseter, since school starts the beginning of next week.

Good luck.

[Ephemeral]

Motivated to do what? Remember things short-term and than regurgitate them to pass some exam and then forget the stuff 2 weeks later?
Since I was paying for college out of my own pocket, I noticed that if something was important to me, I didn’t need to work to remember it. It would ‘stick’ on it’s own. So I walked through the last 3 years of college without ever carrying a book or writing anything down. I only achieved a 3.1 GPA but to be honest, no one ever checked my school records when I got into the job market.

[Liquid Blue]

Motivated to do what? Remember things short-term and than regurgitate them to pass some exam and then forget the stuff 2 weeks later?

More like fill up 28 pages of sketchbook paper with radically different characters, in 2 days time, create an entire head in 3d in a few days time, write a few response papers on some movies (which I must admit, are the easiest of the bunch), do some 18x25 character models (fill "up the page", blah blah ), that sort of thing. That's about a general week of schoolwork for me, give or take.

[Ephemeral]

I guess my point was that for me, motivation comes naturally for things that I like and enjoy. I only have to find displine for things that I don’t like doing or care much about.

[ZeUs!!]

Degrees are over-rated, you could end up working for the British government spending the time making shiney boxes for you boss to keep his sick records in

[Tone]

I guess my point was that for me, motivation comes naturally for things that I like and enjoy. I only have to find displine for things that I don’t like doing or care much about.

the ability to enjoy things and experience reward and thus motivation has a biological mechanism. if someone doesnt feel enjoyment, reward, and thus motivation , calling them just lazy is inaccurate. the mechanism by which reward and motivation are allowed to exist is through activity of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the limbic system of the brain. anyone with dysfunctional activity here will experience deep depression and loss of motivation. anyone with hyperactivity here will be hypermotivated. with more technology, the amount of pleasure and motivation people experience will be able to be engineered artifically.

[Theif of Time]

Motivation is a bitch, I have to take Calculus to do Engineering, but I'm thinking, eh, wtf, I'll just major in Chemistry instead.
I dread these calculus lectures. Once upon a time I found them interesting. Now I just copy down the notes in a brain dead state. (Or, on wednesdays, read the letters to the editor from the student magazine.)

Oh, and I know from experience how much commitment art subjects such as design can take. Last time I did art was two years ago in high school, and I took two subjects on it. My cousin is doing a digital design course, and my sisters flatmate does some extreme drawings, that look like they take a very long time, and a lot of effort. Man, that was a busy last term, rushing to get everything finished. But it was also quite relaxing, and I sometimes find the urge to pick up a paintbrush again. But in the two years, I never have got round to it. Maybe these holidays, heh.

[Saturn V]

Motivation is a bitch, I have to take Calculus to do Engineering, but I'm thinking, eh, wtf, I'll just major in Chemistry instead.

When I was a kid, I loved astronomy and science in general. Then one day in middle school I found out math was involved a lot and ditched astronomy for computers (but I still was fasinated with astronomy).

I hated math all in high school. I was in the "idiot" algebra classes, the one that spanned algebra I over two years, then I failed a semester of geometery and retook it in the summer. My last high school math class was "math of money" or something retarded like that. I graduated from high school with a C average. I already had a computer related job, and didn't really like it. I took another job with killer pay, but I still wasn't happy.

Well, I got laid off and basically gave the middle finger to the computer industry and went back to school for a physics degree. I actually applied myself and conquered this "math fear" and now it's all pretty damn easy. I plan to get a master degree in astronomy and more than likely a doctrate degree.

In a nutshell: try sticking it out, you may end up back where you started (and save yourself many years, too).