observation paper

The Crucial Critique  Monica Nastasi  (Observation Paper)

As I settled in the back corner of the computer lab onto the only chair without cushions and wheels, I was sure hold all of my belongings close by. I did not want to be the one responsible for slowing down one of these graphic design students about to be critiqued by their notoriously militant professor. “Make sure you all upload onto this computer! We got fifteen,” shouted one of the four boys in the group in front of me. The nervous team consisted of about ten designers bustling about the lab, each who has taken at least one minute of their quickly descending time to stare curiously at me. Although the lab is outlined in new glistening Macintosh “Mac” computers, only four were turned on. Backpacks and iPods decorated the sleeping computers. I wondered about the health of these computers in the intense heat of this room—why doesn’t someone add air-conditioning to protect them, or at least to insure the safety of the students. Most of the students were helping others with last minute problems, trying to insure that their entire critiquing session would go smoothly. The long cutting board tables in the middle of the room were cleared off, as if no one had worked there in some time.

With five minutes until critique time, the room contained 18 students sitting in three neat rows facing a huge white screen pulled down onto the bare back wall. There was a chair at the cutting table left open. A graphic design student Carl was sitting at the computer onto which everyone had uploaded their projects. I was waiting for someone to take the coffee from his hands and replace it with water, being that his naturally tanned face was drained of all color as the caffeine twitched his limbs at random intervals. Nervous tension filled the room in the form of light giggles and conversation of what horror was to come from their professor. “Dude, I’m just gonna get chewed today.” I felt myself also become rather nervous for the entrance of the professor. I was previously warned that he tends to yell, forget people’s names, and kick students out of class. I also knew that critiquing day is him at his worst. I had only received permission to observe his students less than thirty minutes prior. Our interaction left me uneasy and unsure of my limitations in his lab. I had walked up to his office door, which was ajar, knocked and asked, “Excuse me, sir, may I speak with you?” His hair was white with wisdom and his flannel shirt was refreshingly grandpa-like.

“Depends on who you are and what you want,” he replied, barely turning his head from his computer screen and sliding his glasses down his thin nose. I stood in the doorway and introduced myself as a psychology major interested in observing his students. Before I could finish my spiel or even step inside his office, he told me I had his blessing. I walked away from the conversation more nervous than I began it. All of the warnings that the students gave me were flooding into my imagination. I definitely thought I was not going to make it through the next two hours without him wondering what I was doing sitting in the back of his critiquing session.

At this point the students in the front row of the group had adjusted the height of their chairs to the lowest setting to allow the back row a better view. Pads and pencils were in hand and cells phones were turned off. The first student’s work was projected onto the screen in front of the room. As I stared at the creativity of what the students call a “spread”, which is basically their design before it is completed on the correct materials, the door behind me slammed and student number 19 hurried into a seat next to the other three boys. “Ah, with one minute to spare,” he smirked. He unzipped his black North Face fleece and pulled off his skully hat as he slouched back in his chair ruining the perfection of the straight rows.

The professor finally trotted in and sat in the open chair. I could practically hear everyone’s (including mine) hearts beating as he stood back up and looked around the room as if he was looking for something specific. I knew he could not be looking at the walls in the room because they were basically bare—the upper half made of cork waiting to be pinned and decorated, but painted white with only a few 8 ½ X 11 size print out designs that seem to have been up for a long time and a maintenance number in case of crisis dealing with the computers. The silence in the room seemed to be something not new to the students, but they still pulled back in fear of what they could have done wrong. Then, the professor looked at me and smiled widely as if he actually had multiple personality disorder and was switching into personality number two from a list that no one really wanted to see completed. Although this look was warmer then the one he was giving the students, I felt myself pull back the same way they did. “By the way, do you all know… what’s your name again?”

“Oh, I’m Monica. Hello, everyone.”

“She’s here to review me. To see if in my fifth year of teaching I’m sane.” I let out a huge breath and laughed, but I was the only one. Apparently, the students didn’t think this was too funny. “No, I’m just kidding. She’s here because she heard stories of you guys and wants to see if you are all as crazy as they say you are.” Again, funny. But, apparently, not to them. “No, I’m kidding again. She’s a psychology student and she is observing you for a project. She came to me and asked me because she thinks that you guys would be an interesting subculture.” Now there is more of a chuckle among the group as their shoulders drop, and they look over to me and smile and look back at him to show that they are still paying close attention to what he is saying. “Well, I guess I gotta be at my best behavior while she is here. You guys are lucky she is going to be here, so now I will reflect on myself and be nicer.” He asked me how long I am going to be around, and I told him for most of the semester. The students chuckled again at the thought of someone around all semester to possibly keep him from his worst.

With that out of the way, his voice changed again. All heads focused forward and the first spread was under attack. After the professor stared for what seemed like an eternity, he asks who it belonged to. All heads went down and a mousy voice peeped in, “It’s mine.”

“Whose?”

“Mine.”

“Whose? Liz?”

“No. Mine. Amy.”

“Oh, this must be some sort of psychological issue right?” I pick my head up from my notebook and realize he is engaging me into the conversation. “I get these two girls confused. They are using each other’s type. It’s gotta be something…something dealing with psychology. I’m sure of it.” I just laugh back as he continues to talk, not really wanting my input. The students are still too tense to take a joke.

As if he was speaking to a child, he began the critique. He used kind words, as if trying not to hurt her feelings, and he beat around the bush. “Amy, what was your idea here?” Her voice was a mismatch to her look—a soft hesitated reply came from the darkly dressed, firey red haired “punk” of the group. After barely defending her spread, which to me looked like a map in the background, a matchbook on top, and type that I could not read from my position, she was told some new ideas and what she did wrong. The other students worked like busy bees taking notes of the critique. Not a sound was made unless spoken to. The swivel chairs suddenly seemed locked in place. “Now that’s called graphic design. Ugh, I always found it to be painful, especially teaching young untalented designers. Amy, where the hell are you from anyway?”

“Oh, I’m not telling you,” she snapped back as the mood lightened up and everyone laughed.

Carl, who was still making up for lack of sleep with the coffee intake, was in charge of switching spreads. He was the only student not taking notes. He had his head in his hand as he stared blankly at the screen listening for the cue to switch spreads. With a quick click of the mouse, the next image on the screen was the bottom half of two women’s legs. Both women were wearing fishnet stockings with stilettos. I finally realized that this project was based on a “found object,” which is an object that you actually place inside of your magazine spread of two pages. So they had to come up with any object (matches, stamps, cards, cloth, etc) that could actually be placed inside of a magazine, and they had to design the spread around it. Amy’s spread would have actual matches in it.

This student’s idea was to actually place real, touchable stockings in her magazine. Unfortunately, the professor did not qualify this as a “found object.” His tone changed from the previous critique, as he stood up and paced about the room. Seemingly this student’s feelings did not matter much to him. She was more outspoken than Amy and challenged every suggestion that he made in order to defend her work. “Natasha, why are you fighting the point of this assignment?” Her eyes rolled. “I don’t care if you think it’s pointless. One day you might be at working at Visionaire, and they might ask you to do something that you think is ridiculous. And I am not going to be here to hold your hand. Are you going to fight with them about it too? Are you going to skirt the assignment?” I wondered how sexist this remark was. Natasha’s spread was girly but distinct and fashionable, just like her in her black high top converse, blue jeans, and pale fitted sweater. She had her two toned blond/black hair pulled back as best as possible, being that it is almost too short to do so. As time ticked slowly by, the images decorated that blank screen with imagination and students spoke out in thoughtful reflection. Needless to say, the professor was not as impressed by the designs or by the students themselves. “Ok, this one must belong to the Doctor of Disaster—Sam, right?”

“Yeah, I know I messed up,” he barely replied, in his German accent with his chin down against his boring gray tee shirt.

“Who? You? Not a man like you. Not with your impressive background.” I could almost see the sarcasm ripping right into his work on the screen. How could a student keep his confidence in such a group when the professor doesn’t even have faith in his work? Sam sat quietly with a blank look on his pasty drained face.

After sixteen critiques, which took over two hours, the dissected students were still not off that table—each of their group member’s work reflects inadvertently on their skills and abilities. However, the chairs unlocked and a bit of movement returned to the once hissing room. The last student that I saw critiqued was cool and collected Tommy, who was the one that walked in with only a few moments to spare. Before the professor could even have his fun, Tommy woke up from his daze and piped in, “Yeah, yeah, I know. The type is awful. I have to change it. I’ve been thinking about it. I need more color on the page with the movie films. I think I am going to change my whole idea based on what I’ve been hearing today.” Then, he slouches back into his chair, as if his rehearsed speech had taken the last but of energy he had from working on this project straight through the previous two days and nights.

Once the critiquing session was over and the professor was out of sight, the sound in the room exploded as the students unanimously stood up and let out frustrated grunts. Natasha moved her chair right back to the computer she was working on, stuck headphone in her ears, and pulled up her spread. Carl, Amy, and many other students did the exact same. Tommy smiled at me as he put he hat back on and simply stated, “Fun,” and walked out the door. Whether they got started on their work at that moment or after their next class or later that evening, they all knew that they had a long night of no sleep and a lot of coffee ahead of them.