Most, but not all, of the undergraduate three-hour courses had an associated practicum course, commonly referred to as "lab,” where we got our hands-on training. These mandatory lab courses met only one hour a week and were made up of students from the various sections of the mother course. The "mother course" meant, for this first semester, my Introduction to Broadcasting course that met Tuesday and Thursday mornings. There was another section of the course that met the afternoons of those same days, and students from both sections could sign up for any one of the half dozen-or-so lab times on Mondays and Wednesdays. That in turn meant your lab might consist of people not in your regular Intro course.
I found some of lab sections somewhat boring, considering I was already familiar with some equipment from my work at the radio station. Mind you, I was by no means an expert but I was a fast learner and I didn't enjoy having to go through how to record my voice from the microphone via the audio board. Not everyone was participating at the station, so I'm sure it was interesting for those people. Plus I was now going to be graded in my ability to record my voice, so I should, at the very least, pretend to do with some skill. I also found I had no issue speaking to the entire county over the airwaves, but yet got nervous when I had to do something in front of the class-size audience.
The labs did help to illustrate what Dr. Propel was yammering about during class because being told how equipment worked or was used in “the real world” went only so far. I mean, really: reading about how to cue a record on a turntable is different from actually doing it yourself and hearing the "wow" noise when you do it improperly. Like, wow, man.
During my first two years in program the labs were graded like others classes: students received a letter grade for their efforts. Midway through my time as a student the faculty decided (that is, I assume it was them that decided) to change this to "pass/fail." By that time I was done with all the mandatory labs, but ultimately I should have been unconcerned because I knew if I were in such a class that I would put forth the effort to receive the "pass" grade at semester end.
There was a group of us, though, that were less than thrilled about the change. It was a small group, mostly comprised of student management at the radio or television stations, that all had the shared experience of going through the Advanced Audio course with Dr. LeMeck. LeMeck expected you to work in his course – there were no such thing as an "Easy A," much less an "Easy B" – and he set the bar a little higher than some of us originally envisioned it. Part of our displeasure in the change in grading is that we had been required to put forth great efforts to just get a passing grade; now students could do "A-level work" or "C-level work" and still "pass" the course. We felt that the new crop of students coming up would not be as battletested as we were or put forth the amount of effort we did to keep things going strong.
Propel's labs were more or less the same as his classes: direct, informative, and the occasional goofy comment on something. It was going to be an interesting semester as far as I could see.
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Sea
(Joe Sib/C. Shifiett)
22 Jacks
From the album Uncle Bob
1996
think I might go down today
complications way to deep
wanna swim way out to sea
implications on my skin
feel the situation rise
told myself to many lies
working for the good of all
and now I’m gonna take their fall
if I go under
why even come back
think I might sleep today
things are moving way too fast
pull me up before I pass
got anchors on my ankles
then again I better go
cause everybody here will know
think I might drown today
think I might drown today
just motionless and stuck in it
just motionless and heartless
somebody give me a push
before I drown
don’t wanna go down
