[SML] Student workers (was: Aggregrate hours for majors?)

[Kristi R-C]

We're having this discussion at length as we're reviewing our undergrad program. 
Richard and I and many people on this list came to theater already in possession of a great many "shop skills" but just 30 minutes ago, I was teaching one of our undergrads how to mop a floor. The first week of lighting class included how to use a screwdriver to take apart a stage pin plug and how to solder. There are no teeter-totters on playgrounds so that analogy doesn't work when teaching how counterweight systems work.  We can talk about how it was 30 years ago all we want but the same curriculum and standards from then don't work now because the students are often lacking in those skills that our fathers and grandfathers taught us AND the technical needs of productions have become exponentially more demanding. 
Who's to say that an hour of mopping a floor is a more worthy learning experience than an hour of painting a set or an hour of sewing or an hour of drafting or an hour of programming the lighting board? All provide skills necessary to the show. Is the time spent waiting in the dark wasted when you have only 3 cues in an hour? 
Whether we like it or not, most colleges proscribe an actual hour in class per week to be a semester credit hour. (Hence the name!) So a two credit class meets two hours a week with the expectation of 2-3 hours spent out of class for every hour in. To do the math, if you spend 15 weeks in class and 2-3 additional hours per week, that's 45-60 hours for a credit.
We ask far more of our students than that and a great shop manager/TD looks at each student's existing skills, what that student should be able to do at the end of the class and assigns work accordingly. I strive to get a variety of experiences for our students.
It's not a one-size-fits-all situation. 
Kristi R-C






 
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