I’m completing my first semester as a sociology student at Lehman College. (Finals are coming. The struggle is real.) I captured all of these photos with my smartphone before and after class one day.
Being a mature student is an interesting experience. I’m getting a lot more out of class than I got when I first attended college. I also have a better understanding of my strengths and weaknesses and of what I need to succeed than I did back then. I’m a little wary of next semester’s class (research methods), but this semester’s class (sociological imagination) deeply interested me. I stayed engaged…not to mention pissed off as I gained a better understanding of various social systems and how they work against the most vulnerable members of society.
So why am I not studying photography? Right now I have little interest in being formally trained in photography; I’ve heard art school can kill creativity. Plus I wanted more than anything to understand society better, and I felt I could learn that better with a formal curriculum. I expect my sociology studies to inspire future photography projects too. So for the time being I’ll continue to learn photography in a self-guided manner.