LEVEL 4 / POST 10: ENGLISH LANGUAGE CHALLENGES

Hello! This is my last post (it makes me a bit sad) hahaha The truth is that making this blog has been a very entertaining activity. My experience learning English at university has been good and bad. I remember when I took English II, it was a horrible experience. The teacher treated us like kindergartners. I say this because she scolded us throughout the class. She kicked us out of the classroom, she made us stay after class to talk to us, etc. She even once grabbed all of her stuff and she stormed off. We were all shocked not being able to turn in our homework. I promise our behavior was not bad. The good thing is that he no longer teaches at the university. I really don't wish that on anyone. English III was great, the teacher was very human, he never scolded us. He only corrected us when we did not pronounce a word correctly. English IV has also been great. Although it is a shorter course, I have enjoyed it and the teacher has not made me feel uncomfortable in any way, on the contrary. Personally, I have always had a hard time understanding and speaking English. But I am very interested in improving and learning. Activities like blogs, audios and videos are great! They serve much more to learn than the classic tasks in the notebook. I would like to speak English more fluently. I promise to practice it more, even if it's in my mind while I'm walking down the street (the truth is, I'm already doing that 😂)

LEVEL 4 / POST 9 : CHANGES TO MY STUDY PROGRAMME

The Sound Engineering career at the University of Chile needs many modifications. If we start talking about the study plan, I consider that there are more courses of the career that are missing. Also, I think that there are subjects that take too long and it is not necessary. For example, we have two years of Calculus. Calculus I, Calculus II, Calculus III and Calculus IV. Although I understand that this is part of Engineering, in our case it is not so necessary for so many semesters. We don't really use it at all. Another subject that would shorten for our case would be Harmony. It is entertaining and useful, but three semesters of harmony for us is unnecessary. I already passed those subjects, and I must say that Harmony I and II is enough. The rest is seeing the same. 

I would like them to add more practical subjects. The teaching methods are good, but there are many theoretical subjects and we need to put them into practice while we study.

I also think that there are several teachers who should leave, but I won't talk about that here🤣🤣

As for the academic load, it is a lot. We normally take approximately 9 courses per semester. Talking with a girl from the Dance career, she told me that they would have that many subjects in a very heavy semester. I remember when I was in second year, I would arrive at the faculty at 8:30 am and go home at 8 pm. No windows in between. I think Sound is a daytime and evening career at the same time🤣 

The building is old, I don't know if much could be done about it. But the truth is, I like it. 

Last semester a lot of sound equipment arrived on the run. That's a technological breakthrough for us! I hope it keeps moving forward for future generations😊😊

LEVEL 4 / POST 8: SUMMER HOLIDAYS

 In my family there is still no talk of summer vacation, but I think we will go where we go every year, to Los Angeles, California. Just kidding  🤣🤣🤣Los Angeles, Bio Bio region. An aunt has a plot with a very nice house, and with my family we go on vacation there since she was a little girl. But I would like to talk about where I would like to go on vacation. The truth is that I would love to go somewhere in the south of Chile that I don't know. In 2018 I made a great trip touring the south with my cousin. We left through Argentina and returned through Chile. They spent two weeks camping in different places, but several remained to be discovered. I would like to go to Chiloé, since we passed through there but at night and very quickly. I have seen photos and videos of some beautiful landscapes. 

I would also like to visit Hornopirén. 

And I would not only like to visit new places. I would also like to go back to places that I have already visited but where I would have loved to stay more days, such as Chaltén or Calafate, which are in Argentina.

 Or Puerto Natales, Puerto Cisnes.

I loved those places! They are many. I don't know who I'd like to go with. Hopefully with my cousin again or friends. But I really wouldn't dare go alone. Also, I would like to share the experience with someone else :)

LEVEL 4 / POST 7: THEMED / FREE POST

I was remembering the subjects I've had in college. Although I have had several that I have liked, I remember one in particular. When I was in my first year, I had a subject called "Reading and Listening Practice I". I had that subject for 3 years, since then I continued "Reading and listening practice II and III", but those were with another teacher and it was no longer the same. The previous teacher, Miguel, is the best teacher I have ever had in my life. He has a way of teaching that is fascinating and you learn a lot. That theme was my favorite because he made it very educational and entertaining. He is also a very good person. He is not the typical teacher who only cares about teaching the subject and purpose. He also cared about us personally, about talking about relevant topics and making sure that the class was not just passing content.

I remember that the classes were very entertaining. For example, he made us all sit in a circle in the classroom, and one by one we had to recognize intervals, metrics, musical scales, or harmonic functions. He was very entertaining, we had a great time.

He is a person who knows a lot, so we could be listening to him for hours. He would never make you feel like you don't know, on the contrary, he loves to share what he knows with you. I think that's why it was my favorite subject.

I think that having a good teacher who knows how to teach is fundamental and satisfying. Even having a good teacher can make you love a subject you once hated.

LEVEL 4 / POST 6: POST GRADUATE STUDIES.

The truth is that it is difficult for me to make this post because it is something that I have not thought much about hahaha But if I think about it, I would like it to be here in Chile, at the Austral University, for example. In 2020 I had a subject called Musical Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, taught by a teacher named Carla Badani. She studied sound and has a doctorate in linguistics. At first I did not understand what relationship that had with the career, until we had to do a job that studied the voices of different people.

We had to get 6 people, 3 men and 3 women of similar ages. I used my parents, uncles and aunts as an example. It was a very dense but very interesting piece of work, since we carried out segmental (for example, vowel emission) and suprasegmental analysis (of a text that people read). In both analyzes we studied many parameters, such as the average fundamental frequency of your voices, the spectrum and waveform, the vocal extension, the vocal dynamic range, etc. And then we compare by gender and age! it was a very entertaining job. The study of language and its explanation understood as a system of autonomous signs is very interesting.I would love to do a postgraduate in linguistics! I would like to study in person. Going to live in Valdivia I think it would do me good :) jajaja

LEVEL 4 / POST 5: MY FUTURE JOB.

When I think about my future work, the truth makes me a little nervous, because I would not want to work in something different from what I studied. I chose the only career that I liked, since I feel like I don't like anything else. I have a few options on jobs that I would like. In sound there are two main areas, music production and sound reinforcement. I like the second option better. I would like to dedicate myself to attending live concerts, with different stages, artists, public.

Another option that I would like would be to work in a radio station. It's an interesting area where you can learn a lot, as they don't teach you much of this in the university.

 But I would not only like to be at the sound table. I would also like to be backstage, like "Roadie" (being the girl who wears a black shirt with the band's name hahaha), which practically consists of worrying about all the technical aspects of the stage.

This is why I can't say if I would like to work in a hall or outdoors, since working in concerts varies a lot from working on a radio.

If I have to travel, I travel. Regarding the salary, as long as I have enough to live I am happy. The truth is, what matters most to me is being able to work on what I like :)

LEVEL 4 / POST 4: CAREER RELATED TOPIC

 I never had many dreams when I was a child. I think the only that I ever thought about was being a veterinarian, but it was only because I liked animals. I never wanted to be someone in life😂.

 Then I saw what a group of veterinarians they had to do to a cow and I felt the desire was taker away.

Is for this reason that when I was in the fourth grade I did not still know what to study.

When I gave the PSU for the first time, I entered at the Pedro de Valdivia pre-university. At the end of the year, my options were between geology and psychology. The true, I always liked the music, but I did not dare because I knew that remuneration was not good. Finally, I chose Sound engineering in the University of Chile, since I like to attend the musicians more that being one of them. My experience in the Univerisy has been good and bad. Socially, I'm very happy. The people are very loving, but academically I feel that I don't have a time for nothing.

In the future, I would like to dedicate myself to attend live sound at concerts. That makes me really happy.