Sorry folks, I've got a late entry again. March 19th 2025 is a flash and a twist and a deep unwinding. Slept in late until 9:45, languorously got ready for the day (shaved and moisturized), swung by Porter Dining for breakfast with Sasha. Talked with them about Amphibia and SVTFOE and identity in media. Made a cup of coffee (1) when I got back up and continued binging Ali O'Keefe's One Month Two Camera videos. I cannot get enough of her! She is a wonderful inspiration. She's a product manager at an advertising firm and does photography as a hobby, so her perspectives on cameras and photography are unique and free from sponsorships. I also started outlining on my week review of the GF2. Sasha spent a good chunk of time working on their last final and packing for their trip back home. We went to Trader Joe's around 3:45pm to get some flowers and a bottle of white wine for Keanna, and we did some extra shopping for snacks and a couple of vitamins. We headed back to campus and along the way got to talking about finances, and Sasha wondered if coming to Santa Cruz was worth it because they didn't get much financial aid even though their family was in a rough spot already. I tried asking them for a counterfactual (like, what WOULD it be like if they went to CSU Fullerton or Northridge?) but their thoughts drifted to an even more pressing issue when we got back to our dorm: are people in the AGPM major actually going to be ready for senior year technical game development and the industry? Their experience with their classmates for 3D modeling points to a lack of autodidactic learning and a lack of UCSC teaching for the technical skills in, frankly, frustrating and unintuitive software. Shruti swung by and grabbed some stuff to get ready for Keanna's surprise party and then headed out with Ava and another person. I was supposed to go after but I was still very curious about Sasha's thoughts on the value they're getting from their major. Most of their technical knowledge comes from personal hobbies and community college courses. There's even a difference in specialization: UCSC has a couple 3D modeling courses whereas Santa Barbara City College had a whole 3-course set, on the semester system. After some time they guessed it was a lack of weeder classes in the major and (if I remember right) the diminishing technical demands in the major. Recently AGPM had been changed to alter the degree progression, and our graduating class is the first one to go through the whole degree after these changes. It used to be quite aligned with the computer science equivalent major, and those guys are doing plenty of technical work. Sasha's only able to keep up because of their background and not because of anything really taught in lecture, so they wind up doing a bit more work than their peers (though some do put in their fair share -- others are just disconnected and drifting).
"[Growing up] is hard and nobody understands." // https://www.homestuck.com/story/2391