Foundation degrees

[jimthedrum]

Hello people.
I’m afraid I have a research question, but different to the normal “if you had £500k, what studio would you buy” type of question.
The college I work for are thinking about running what’s called a Foundation Degree, and would like some opinions about this from other people in the business.

“Foundation degrees are degree level qualifications designed with employers and combine academic study with workplace learning to equip people with the relevant knowledge, understanding and skills to improve performance and productivity.” (Foundation Degree Forward 2007)

This means hopefully the government are letting the educators have more control over what, and how we are allowed to teach within the course. This will be replacing the HND level of qualification, and we have been able to ask businesses for their input and now can change what we teach to suit. We will be able to work more closely with other people in the business to hopefully improve graduates chances at getting their chosen profession. Obviously we can’t give them huge amounts of experience, but students will be required to work within a business as part of the course.
I have my own opinions of what I would like to see happen as a musician, a teacher, as well as a sound reinforcement company owner, but would like other people’s views also.
Please criticize away as hopefully we might be able to change how each group views education and improve everyone’s experiences.

[Rick Sarson]

Sorry to be dim, Jim. But what exactly are you asking? What I think of college courses? What I think of work experience students? What I want from a crew newbie before I book him on a job? Or what I think should be in a college course? What is your new course going to be about? What HND level of qualification are you talking about?

[jimthedrum]

my apologies for not being clear. basically, if you or your company had a say in what students need to learn before you would employ them, what would these skills be? With a foundation degree, hopefully educational establishments and businesses can get together and discuss what is needed within a course etc without the government then deciding what they think is best.

[Rick Sarson]

Been thinking about this for a while, it is a much harder thing than I thought it would be to start with.
I don't know if you will be able to instill such a thing, but something that always ticks me off with newbies is that they think they now everything already! I have been at this for umpteen years and am amazed at how much more there is to learn. Always. Also for them not to be afraid to ask. I was putting a musical into a theatre (it had to be in Ireland) and gave a local some cable and a comms belt pack with the instructions to rig it in the flys above prompt corner and drop the cable down there. He came back 45 minutes later and said "Wots der flies?" I would much rather some one asked and did it right the first time.
I would expect them to have a working knowledge of how most sound kit works, to be able to rig it, connect it all up and (most importantly) perform basic fault finding. I would also expect them to have some grasp of acoustics, of how speakers interact with rooms and each other, so that they can achieve a clear and coherent system appropriate to the job they are working on. Rock and roll is not jazz, which is not a musical, which is not a conference. They all use similar (ish) kit but need different approaches which are sensitive to the needs of the situation. I don't know if this will be any help, but I will keep on thinking about it.

[jimthedrum]

i realise from a couple of students i have personally taken on gigs with me for my personal live sound rig thats its a real wake up call for some of them having the pressure, and quick thinking needed for some live shows. i'm hoping that what i can research, and what i can influence in the implementation of the foundation degree will help any studnets we wi;; take on. i hope the government, or new government at this rate will allow us to ask businesses (everyone who teaches are involved in the industry in some form) for their input and allow us not to worry as much on retention, and how many students we can give a qualification to by lowering standards to suit the students, rather than what businesses needs.

[Rick Sarson]

I don't know if this will be any help but, a few years ago, I filled in for a week at LAMBDA during one of the student productions. When they do these shows they hire in a few professionals to help the students. An old mate was running that part of the college at the time and we commented to each other that if something went wrong the pros' would jump in and sort it out, rather than leaving it to the students to figure out. Personally I found it very hard to resist as you want it to go well. However it struck us both that the students were missing out on discovering what it was like when things went wrong because it was being fixed for them. What better environment to learn how to deal with problems than on a course? Maybe you could build some kind of scenario where they are under a little bit of show type pressure and then introduce problems for them to deal with in real time? At least they would learn how they cope with it and what to do about it without wrecking a real gig/not getting paid/getting a bad reputation. His description was that it should be a Kobayashi Maru type of thing
[glow=red,2,300]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobayashi_Maru[/glow] I hope this helps.