My Learning Journey: How to Build A Giant

1: Journey To A New Beginning

My learning journey started three years ago when I first came to Ngee Ann Polytechnic with doubts. There’s the inevitability of overlapping hopes and dreams. This left us thinking of how one day the Giant we’ve built will never be able to see the starry skies. How for once, the wonder that appeared before you like a dangling candy to a child, can finally be gotten. After all the ruins have been re-shaped. The compass have shifted. Then I realised, there was more to everything, than everything was before. And to build a Giant starts with the first step.

2: Journey’s First Step

Sometimes, not everyone takes a step. Sometimes, they fumble. They roll and turn, and tumble. But that’s okay, because nobody said the first step was going to be easy.

During the first year, students were taught fundamentals in design and programming. These are two of the most wicked blueprints that pushed students into doing well. And, having mini-milestones to build their successes upon. The ultimate to introduce this was to have preliminary lessons where our lecturers impart their skills and knowledge of the task-at-hand. Hence, aiding the wings of the students to flutter.

This way, students are able to practice their skills in myriad of ways. And, still feel fulfilled that what they have learnt was not easily forgotten. The modules that engaged me the most was Storytelling and Scriptwriting. Reason being that I was always fascinated by stories, characters and settings. I learnt that with the module I had learnt, I was able to apply it in my sophomore year of studying in Ngee Ann Polytechnic. This is where my circle of friends grew and my experience were widened.

It all had to do with the first step.

3: First Learning Journey Advice

The ones who make the tall order stand hardly ever stand, because they’ve learnt how to do it all along

One of the most enjoyable experiences were the lecturers that I meet throughout my three years in Multimedia and Animation. For example, my supervisor who had also been my module lecturer for two years, Mr. Malcolm, was a guiding force for me, especially during the final semester of my final year. During some of our more difficult sessions, he was there to help us every step of the way without fail.

Ms. Dai, a lecturer in Interactive Art and Technology, allowed me to excel and learn through advice and continual feedback. With lecturers whom are unabating and dedicated good-naturedness, it had made the sail through the inevitable thunderstorms more exciting and fulfilling.

Please work hard.

4: Attitude Towards Learning

In Ngee Ann Polytechnic, and more importantly Multimedia and Animation, our learning environments and ambience notches the experience up by tenfold. Simply because of how the classroom itself acts like a real human being. One of such room was the Figure Drawing room. This is where all the tracing, scratching of thin paper and the constant utter silence took place. It was also a place where our modules such as Drawing in Perspective, Figure Drawing and Tone along with many others took place. As such, many students deemed it as the ‘Room Where Magic Happens’.

The attitude of being in a room is not the same as inhabiting one. It was a rule that students learnt. For example, when a lesson is going on, we pay strict attention and keep our eyes focused. Especially, during live model sessions where every minute wasted was a worse than the one before it. But a habit was developed overtime — what to do, what not to do and how to act in this scenario. What matters most of all is that we learnt, and years on since then, that it hasn’t left us one bit.

5: Journey’s First Promise

Promises, no matter false or shaky, is indubitably still a promise.

When I had reached the middle of the road before my sophomore year in Polytechnic and Multimedia and Animation, I had to pick a path: Game Art Design (GAD) or Interactive Art and Technology (IAT). The idea for me was simple, and that was to not pick whatever it was that I was not good with. And so, I chose IAT, a specialization that I would never regret in the next two years of my life. It was the specialization that harnessed me, and by the end of the second semester of my second year, I had begun to process how I got there when a year before that I was trying to still fit in.

And that was the first promise, but that first promise starts in all of us. The first promise is to understand that: sometimes, things don’t always work out, and if they do, they aren’t always going to again. During my time in IAT, I had learnt much more than I could have imagined. Adding on to it were having eventual friends that rowed the same boat towards the ultimate destination at the end. I had so much fun and memories throughout the years. Ranging from lecturers to people, to engaging modules and frenetic deadlines, to nervous encounters and to learn everything new again.

There is no doubt that regret is but a soft spark fading in the dark corner, still whispering, but now in a different tune.

6: Journey nearing to the end

By the end of my second year, I was able to understand more about people. Especially , my classmates whom have allowed me to be who I am. By having group activities and assignments allowed me to work with more people and enlarge my social circle. This dispel my own qualms of ‘fitting in’, and rather just be myself in the way that only I can be. Once my second year had ended, I found a group that took me in for the module that would be Concept Project Development (CPD), of which was possibly the most fun that I had in a semester since as long as I could remember.

What made my learning journey all great was that I wasn’t trying as much to get myself into things, and rather just letting it all happen because now, it didn’t matter as much as it did before. The fear had dissipated and no constricts were holding me back, and as such, I was glad that I had memories that could represent my Polytechnic years in ways greater than I had ever imagined.

Through modules such as Digital Video and Art, Digital Visual Effects, Digital Audio Design, it allowed me to have fun while learning and create poignant events that I was able to look back on, be it with group projects, assignments, trips or conversations.

7: My Learning Journey Last Lesson

Looking back on everything, I will never forget all that I’ve learnt and the people I’ve met along my three years of journey in Polytechnic. The last lesson I took away from it all was that though everything has ended, the journey ahead of us is still a winding road. But this is a stepping stone, in fact, multiple stepping stones, and the only way is up. I’ve been grateful to all that I’ve learnt in Polytechnic, and in Multimedia and Animation, and the time that I have spent here. Now, the Giant walks.