MIT and the SAA

MIT and the SAA I woke up at 8 this morning after passing out on my computer around 4 AM. Since I have the worst luck in the world, I had a serious case of KeyboardFaceâ„¢. It youre not sure what KeyboardFaceâ„¢ is, its exactly what it sounds like. Clearly MIT is refusing to let me graduate without a few last hard kicks in the face. (Remind me to tell you about how I failed my swim test last month.) This morning was out of the ordinary, though, because my KeyboardFaceâ„¢ wasnt caused by one big epic scientific fail for once. If youre anything like I was before I left my soul behind and enrolled at MIT, youre probably really into art. Youre probably a huge nerd with a love of all things scientific, too, or you probably wouldnt have applied to MIT in the first place. And now that youre in and youve sent off your reply card (send off your reply card and come here, by the way, mmmk?), youre steeling yourself to leave all your cameras and sketchbooks and paints behind and to dive headlong into four years of SCIENCE SCIENCE SCIENCE. Abandon all art, ye who enter here. False. There are organizations all over campus specifically so that you dont have to do this. If arts an important part of your life now, it can be an important part of your life at MIT. And if art isnt already a part of your life, but youve always wanted to change that, were still here for you too. That said, lets talk about the SAA for a bit. The Student Art Association is one of my favorite things about MIT. Students and members of the MIT community can take classes in ceramics, photography, life drawing, sculpture, and about eleventy million other areas. Classes are offered at every level, so you can get in on the action even if you think that throwing a pot can be classified as violent assault. Students even get a discount on the classes, so a life drawing class that might be over $200 elsewhere in Boston will cost you $85. You cant beat that. Really. You cant. Whats particularly awesome about the SAA is that the things you so there arent just an escape from the stress of classes and, well, life. Almost all of them teach you something that you can take and apply to your work. My experiences in the darkroom have carried over to lab classes in my major; sometimes, you wont get the result you want on your first try, but you have to have the patience to look at what youve done and figure out what it means and how to change it if necessary. Wait, am I talking about brains or pictures? IM SO TIRED. I took a Color Photo class through the SAA last term. Their darkroom is one of the only ones equipped for color film processing and printing, and they have one of the few color enlargers in New England that takes 810 negatives. Its huge. Its scary. Its awesome. Biyeun has blogged about the SAA before, so some of this might sound familiar, but its always nice to be reminded that theres more to MIT than science and engineering. Dont forget about art once you come here. Theres no excuse for it. And if I havent convinced you, maybe this video will. Welcome to the SAA: PATD 2010 on Vimeo.