AV Geeks @ Hunt Library - So You're Going to College (8-21-2020)

[Music] [Music] all right we're live everybody hey everyone welcome to av geeks at the hunt library not at the hunt library i'm jason evans growth digital media librarian at nc state this is our 12th semester of this series which partners ncsu folks with raleigh's av geeks to discuss vintage educational and classroom films why do we do this well we know skip skip alzheimer who is the founder of av geeks is an nc state alum and he has been for the last few decades collecting film made throughout the last century mostly 16 millimeter educational training other sorts of how-to movies he does an incredible job sharing them with the world both through events like this and through things like stock footage watch at the end of every documentary that you see produced these days you'll probably see av geek's name there it has never failed he currently houses and this is a new number as of tonight everyone he currently houses over 35 000 such films at the av geeks archive here in raleigh and shares them again as stock footage for films and exhibits as research material and during public events like this so tonight our theme is so you're going to college and we're very excited to welcome our guest chester brewer chester is in his ninth year as assistant director of the university scholars program here at nc state where he helps students expand their horizons in and out of the classroom through explorations near and far he has a ba in romance languages and a masters in outdoor education we're so glad to have him and just real quick there are over 200 av geeks compilations that are available for checkout from the libraries if you are an nc state community member and while the libraries are still open for those of you who aren't you can visit avgeeks.com or search for ad geeks on youtube or at archive.org to see some of those films even if you're not a student or faculty member this is the first show of the semester we're so excited to be back and i'm going to hand things over to skip to kick us off thanks jason all right so um let me uh i'm looking i have like a thousand windows open here so um yeah so tonight um we have special guest uh uh chester brewer um and one of the things that we wanted to do was to welcome new students and new scholars to our show by showing some films that are meant to be shown to incoming college freshmen one from the 50s and one from the late 60s early 70s and these were shown maybe during freshman orientation maybe during the first you know day that somebody came to the university and it's they're they're trying to prepare people for uh what you're gonna encounter like what is it gonna be like you know you were in high school not that long ago how is this gonna be different um trying to manage expectations a little bit try to rein in some behavior issues maybe so the first film is by coronet and coronet made lots and lots and lots and lots of educational films over the years covering lots of different things and this one is called college your challenge so let's watch this [Music] um [Music] so so i said to the coach if you want to win that match on saturday why not put me up against their number one man if you will i said i'll even skip the shindig on friday night and catch up on my sleep okay big shot what did the coach say well i already said if you even want to see that match on saturday you'd better start catching up on your analytic geometry what are you writing there another weighty editorial for the campus gazette not this time i'm writing to my kid brother he's in high school you know yeah i know ah he's a great kid i gave me some trouble while we were growing up but well he's all right yeah he told me about all the things he did in high school he's looking ahead now wondering about college fair enough what have you written well here it is dear but so you want to know what i think about college for you well it's hard to say and that's it so far well that's a big help well it is hard howie should he go to college even what does he want to do in life can he go and how about his grades how about his bank account just so what college should he go to can he talk those things over with his guidance counselor at school that's who helped me decide about going on to college uh he's talked to his counselor now he wants sort of an on-the-spot report from me but college means so much there are so many things where to begin well start with something easy like uh well what colleges look like i've been traveling with the team and i've seen quite a few now some colleges are small like ours there's only one or two main buildings others are big with building after building you can go to school mid southern ponds or perched up on a hill overlooking the ocean some campuses are so big they have to give you a map so you can find your way around whatever kind of layout you're looking for in a college you can find it if you scout around come to think of it ray the size of a college and its location well they have a lot to do with the kind of life you leave while you're there of course they do howie but college is more than a campus and the buildings it's inside the buildings uh take chemistry for instance the lab where you spend five hours a week doing experiments that's part of college so are the people around you there so is the professor helping you with a suggestion then leaving you to find out for yourself find out for yourself now there's a real clue to understanding college you're there with a lot of other people but you're still on your own even in class you're finding out for yourself oh you're listening yes but you're working thinking learning quicker ways to get answers checking your answers with a class and your teacher finding out and lecture classes it's the same thing finding out oh it isn't easy you can let it slip right by you but you can find out what an expert thinks and what men know about an idea a place or a people after class in the library you're still on your own it's your own time and you spend it in the library because because this is college and you're here to find out it goes on right in your own room this business of finding out you know how the more i think about it college is a challenge a challenge to find out for yourself with the help of teachers and books it's a challenge to me all right for me the trick is keeping up with my studies and having time for sports too half the time i don't think i'll make the grade yeah but you really work at it why i don't know i suppose it's because i had a lot of time and money invested in college and i don't want to waste any college can be a waste of time you get out of it just what you put into it that goes for studies and well take something i know more about basketball it's here but you don't get much out of it unless you really throw yourself into it work at it it's another challenge then there's more to be had if you go after it sports that build you up physically sports that are less strenuous some break the routine by taking part in an intellectual sport and you know there's a lot more to campus life being away from home feeling that you're part of a school and it all helps you to learn this business of living some find it in being with the gang or joining a sorority or fraternity some find it mixing with others in square dances or other social affairs some go in for music and dramatics for fun or for serious interest many enrich their lives through religious experience while at college so it really is a challenge a challenge to find out the kind of person you want to be and to learn how to live with yourself and with others i guess you can call it education for life all right so you write your brother this and he wants to come to college now can he of course he can if it means enough to him now you know that all around us here our fellas who work hard to put themselves through college it means that much to them it's no disgrace to wait on tables but it is hard working at a time when others are enjoying themselves relaxing others work part-time in stores to pay expenses and the college helps most of them get the jobs college is harder this way but it can be done another way to get help is through scholarships and there are all sorts of them scholarships based on financial need special scholarships for special fields of interest scholarships for doing research work special aids for veterans even scholarships for studying abroad for many fellows rotc is a way to combine college with military training this makes going to college harder yes but it makes it possible so that's why i'd say bud can go to college if it needs an up to him but what does it mean we've talked about buildings and classes teachers and studies activities and campus life it's it's all part of something but what is it are you going to answer not me i'm no philosopher ah don't kid yourself you know why you're here oh i don't know maybe this sounds snobbish but as i've grown up it seemed to me that i could always tell a college man when i met one he had something i don't know what it was i don't know what you'd call it i only know that i wanted to be that kind of man i don't know what you call it either but it's there and you know out of our colleges will come the future leaders of the nation and the world did you ever stop to think about it the work of thousands of men and women has made our country great college-trained men famous for their contributions in politics and government science and industry religion education human relations and the leaders of tomorrow will be trained in college you know people realize this this building was given by one man because he believed in what college means to the future other places all the buildings were paid for by taxpayers of a state many of them didn't go to college but they helped build the college because through it they were building the leaders of the future the future that's really what college is it's your preparation to meet the bigger challenge that is the future isn't that right holly don't buy that but right now i'd better crack that geometry oh there won't be any future for this boy i'll be ready to shut up and start writing in a minute and tell that brother of yours that colleges work it's work at this desk and it's work sweeping those miles of corner every night but it's a lot of fun i wouldn't miss it for anything okay i'm telling that and i'll also tell them that college is ending and the most rewarding experience i've ever known as for you bud what about college for you well it's hard to say it's your decision bud it's your challenge so chester um is there still is college man still a term that people would use nowadays um in my experiences um i don't think so so in this time period that this this film is made um i see the college man ideal as as a comparison between you know a broad-reaching liberal arts education versus a vocational education i think that in the time frame of our country at least that's sort of a dividing point between um general public education that lots of people are participating in versus vocational education and i think that that's a strange distinction that we don't hear as much about anymore currently in our country the other thing that i would say that that that concept that work that term college man makes me think of is like oxford university an oxford man like that is a term you might still hear he's an oxford man versus a cambridge man interesting what uh what were some other things that that caught your eye as far as um how we talked about university in college back then versus and preparing for it um versus what you say nowadays um you know preparing for it um and this might just show that i'm not as involved in sort of college recruit like i'm not helping with college recruitment as much as like current students in college but like i don't remember there being as much conversation around how you pay for college no the guys in this video talk a lot about you know oh you can pay for college there's nothing wrong with working while you're in college to help pay for it and i know that there are students that do that currently but i don't think there's the same conversation around that aspect of the college experience working while in college i think it's something that everybody more or less sort of expects to do if nothing else than to get experience while you're in college um the other aspect honestly that sort of stood out to me that i wouldn't say it's taboo currently but that we don't talk about in the same ways is you know in the in the film they talk about one of the recreational opportunities or self-development opportunities being religious experience and unless you're going to i call it a small college that's has a religious background most universities are not going to mention that as a part of your college experience not in the not in the broadest sense anyway yeah and i guess you know this was made for general audiences so the likelihood that someone might go to a smaller college that's you know sponsored or underwritten by a church um it was pretty high i would say back in the day uh versus i would think that yeah um the major you know state-funded universities or private universities um yeah what were some other things that you noticed yeah you know just in general um it is a real male centric video um i i actually chuckled um the first time i watched it the the tennis playing um roommate his body language is so it's so macho it's so [Music] you know he's a he's a conqueror he's always lifting that leg up and putting his chin on his head because he's looking out of his future into the distance um yeah so i remarked yeah it's uh it's very male dominated um there's also something though about the um the environments that they show in the video you know those campuses uh that we see in the video i'm presuming for the the period are state of the art but they're also something um how how would i phrase it you know those buildings are our version of like the buildings around the court of carolina it's like right but they're but they're new and they're um you know they are whereas we see them as sort of like those are the foundational buildings those are the cornerstones of of the campus environmental identity um yeah i i there's something interesting about that yeah those are those are the everyday sort of um for us they're everyday sort of buildings but for them it's like those are you know the foundation yes somebody commented on the comments that said that the dorm rooms basically look the same from the 50s to the 80s um and that's absolutely nothing has changed that's certainly the case um the outlets are different but that's about it um there was something else i was thinking about keep going oh i'm just just saying that um you know the so is there a version of this that's that you show to your scholars or that you show to incoming freshmen is there or do you have like a youtube link that they like here click on this and watch the experience and you know and that's honestly more a function of the fact that the office that i work in served you know a smaller subset of the the overall college population but i think there is understandably in the in the modern age more of an emphasis on not the unity of the college experience but the diversity of the college experience like it could be literally anything you want it to be that if you really sort of take the time to put things in motion it can be almost anything you want it to be and so i think it can be difficult to find the common thread outside of you know academics and and some type of work experience but you know they mentioned study abroad in this video and that made me smile because in the 50s they're talking about you know studying abroad in western europe but now study abroad is everywhere you know you can go well when there's not chronic parts i mean you can go to africa you can go to parts of asia um [Music] so so no we we don't have a a common thread video that we share with students because our emphasis is it can be as different than uniquely tailored to your experiences or your interests as you want it to be so i think that is different between now and then so i have a question for you about the university scholars program um i don't know if that really existed when i was in college in the mid 80s it might have but um is it a situation to where you're helping the students explore beyond just the class classroom experience like explore the other things that a university can offer and kind of bringing in much more than just sitting in a classroom yes yeah absolutely and we do that in a variety of ways one is through a class that all the scholars take called scholars forum where we bring in guest lecturers guest performers you know a variety of experts from different disciplines to talk about what it is they're doing or what they've achieved or accomplished so that's sort of one way to broaden students you know i guess disciplinary perspectives because we have students from all majors but these talks are being led by artists and scientists and politicians and you know trying to help students make a connection between what they're learning in the classroom and what it's like to be in a in a larger world outside of the education bubble that you live in for so long the other thing that we ask all our students to do are these high-impact experiences before they graduate and a lot of those things that that any student on a college campus could do you know an internship a co-op study abroad um volunteering those sorts of things but the difference is that we're really our students with this purposeful reflection piece again to help them understand how to make the connection between what you learned outside of the classroom and what's happening in the classroom how those two interact how they overlap and how those skills are transferable back and forth um i mean i one of my favorite mottos and any any student that travels with me or takes a class with me knows is that school gets in the way of education a lot of the time that's my opinion i hear your brother i would say that gets in the way of education yeah my my career in my college career was it was a long time it was like seven and a half years because i changed majors and i went from computer science into school of design where you had a regimented you had to take one studio a semester and i was i was basically paying for it you know working part-time jobs and things like that but uh i ended up taking a lot of electives of things that i just thought that you know you look at my transcript and it's like a giant pile of stuff that doesn't really apply to my degree but i was just so fascinated by it and i would say that those are the those are the things that that shape my path like my interest in what i do now is totally related to what these extracurricular classes that i took and these other experiences that i that i was doing because i realized this is a phenomenal way to see all these people and do all these really fascinating things yeah no and there's something really to be said about um i mean yes college and classes you know it is important and that's why you're here um but it's also the first time that you really sort of get to choose your own adventure right you get to pick and choose how you're going to spend your time what you're going to focus your attention and your energy on and i think that can be really liberating if people really pay attention to it all right um so this next film we're going to watch we rock it ahead maybe 20 or so years um and this is another film that kind of talks about what your job is as a student it's called occupation student and i want to say came out in 69 or early 70s i can't remember the actual copyright year on it but this is a little bit more hip um and it's more diverse there's there's more diversity as far as gender at least uh yeah and so here's occupation student the older you get the faster time flies in grade school the days may seem endless in junior high they go a little faster and in high school the temple picks up even more with sports and driving and dating but it's not until the first year of college that the pace of life hits its frenzy peak that first year is a big step on the way from boyhood to manhood [Music] every student and every campus is different yet they're enough alike so that what happens on one campus can show some of what's happening on most campuses and can provide an important look during a time when the public's view of the university is often as confused as a new freshman's first impressions this is the story of richard bain smith a bright young man from san diego california but it's also the story of every college freshman it was filmed at the university of california riverside but it's the story of changes taking place at every college [Music] it's about the relationships between faculty and students the use of beer and barbiturates the search for a new pattern change on campus and change in an individual it's a look at a demanding full-time job the occupation of students well the first day i got here you were supposed to come about three i got here about 11 o'clock in the morning and i walked around just all around the campus i'd never been here before so i just took myself on a complete tour you know and so i really you know i was really looking around and you know exploring seeing what was around the first few weeks are lonely and hard and maybe that's good because there's plenty to learn who hands out meal tickets what the professors want how to find your way in the bookstore [Music] you come to this place and you realize well i don't know anybody there was one girl from my high school who goes here and i didn't even know her you don't feel at ease really you know i would go out because i didn't feel like sitting around a room doing nothing [Music] billy or john or something of this sort in class richard finds himself with some of the brightest students in the state and the teachers expect them to perform at mimi's thanksgiving turkey dinner more math is a lot tougher than it was in high school so there's a lot more studying for that you don't go home and do your homework in maybe 5-10 minutes anymore when you have an integration problem you work and you work and you work if classwork with the only pressure on them students like richard would breeze through college like fire through an old christmas tree but there are other pressures away from home often for the first time freshmen have to make decisions about classes and actions that may affect their entire lives there's just nobody that's going to tell you how to live your life anymore and you know you depend on yourself a lot more you learn a lot you wouldn't learn any other way and here's the whole thing about drugs and liquor and all that you just learn to make your own decisions i think that's the whole thing about college everything kind of relates to that i know where i want to go like i want to be a business administration major definitely i hope to go to law school and minor in computer sciences that's what he wants now when he's not worried about boosting grades or booting footballs the school that richard chose is not a party school it has a high scholastic rating and over half of its graduates plan to go on toward advanced degrees but six thousand healthy young men and women don't live just for their studies students today are aware of what's happening and they want to be a part of it no matter what this is donna saint-amande one of richard's friends i want to experience a lot of different things and i'm going to just do anything different and then i'm going to find finding out what i like in life you know and exactly i don't really care people don't matter that much you know sure i want them to like anything but it doesn't matter anymore so much what they feel because i feel that everything's going to be changing eventually you want to get married i want to get married i don't know i thought i wanted a career when i first came here were you gonna be live technicians that was currently at first i was gonna be a doctor i didn't know yeah i was a doctor until i started filling out the applications and it was a lot easier to put down math richard's experience with adult activities was pretty limited when he was home and now that he's on his own he's beginning to learn sometimes the hard way that too much partying can mean grief in the morning [Music] still when there's work to do you've got to get up no matter how you feel [Music] richard is doing well in a computer course this quarter the computer has become such an important part of civilization that the graduate who doesn't know how it works and what it can do will soon be as out of date as an engineer without a slide rule students here use a computer in many regular courses they write and punch cards for their own programs and if they've asked the right questions in just the right way they sometimes get useful answers from the machine richard's success with a computer doesn't help in calculus he's still having trouble that could mean real trouble if professors are concentrating on research and publications and don't have time left for students but richard is lucky the major emphasis here as at many schools is still on teaching and professors schedule time to work with students individually after richard pulled a d in one math quiz and flunked another he asked for help from his professor now the volume would be what in terms of the various dimensions would minus the inner part okay fine we're going to have the volume of the entire disc minus that conference cleared up some key points and helped richard recover enough to pass the course with a c no one gets athletic scholarships at this school that kind of scholarship is going out of style at many schools so its teams will probably never make the big time but it hosts a major tournament every year and does have a pretty fair swim squad the sports that really attract support though are the ones in which a majority of students can participate [Music] this campus is located an hour from the beach an hour from a major music center about 50 miles from a desert resort and not far from fairly good mountain skiing [Music] in his first year here richard wants to try it all which he won't be able to do and he won't make the ski team either but at least he keeps trying [Music] like most college towns riverside has no sunset strip or times square so most of the entertainment takes place right on campus some of it has drawn praise from critics [Music] well let's check oh where are you going are you going out to find the yw will i'll come too right i'll come as well where to find it what the yw richard even tries medieval music he's polite but he still prefers the sounds of his own times [Music] the exciting thing about a university is that there's always so much going on everyone is concerned with his own things and yet somehow most are seeking similar goals knowledge the ability to think clearly and critically and a workable developing philosophy of life a good university doesn't just confirm conventional knowledge it opens up minds to new and better ideas so it should be expected that bright students questioning old established ideas in math and science will ask some penetrating questions about society too these questions have taken the form of loudly voiced student dissatisfaction about some courses and policies these arguments often produce changes in the way things are done because at this school there is a tradition of loudly airing and listening to opinions on every side of almost every question this is philip lewis an outspoken conservative they kept espousing a very strong left-wing position and they were never censored invited speakers at the regular wednesday noon convocations are selected by a joint student faculty committee the opinion of the speakers ranges all the way from the conservative loose through charles evers to timothy leary the popularizer of lsd and other so-called mind-expanding drugs there are still a lot of people around who are feeling tight i submit to you that the hedonic gap is the only conflict in human life many in the operation speakers such as timothy leary proposes potentially disastrous action to bearded blue jean-garb students but these college men and women don't believe everything they hear they know the dangers as well as the supposed benefits of drugs he he turned it around and played word games with us the guy that answered them i mean he turned the question around so that everybody laughed and he never really answered the question but you can screw up your life well at a bull session in richard's room following leary's talk the subject also turns to the problems of black power and violence in the nation like a lot of guys have never been in the ghetto and they don't know what violence real brute violence is like many schools uc riverside has been recruiting black and mexican american students for several years the idea is to make the number of blacks and chicanas in the student body more representative of the general population an active black students union here persuaded the administration to help publish a black literary magazine black students were elected homecoming queen and student body president but they are far from satisfied what we're asking for now is the black studies department most black people and specific black people are going on notions that have been handed down to them by white people who didn't really understand what they were studying about or looking at and so chancellor ivan hinderaker discussed the ethnic studies program with other administrators i think that we should have been at this a long time ago i think that every campus where this has not blown up is living on borrowed time after long and sometimes heated discussions the faculty and administration created both a black studies department and mexican american studies program one way to ensure that the school responds to the needs of all the students is to appoint members of all groups to responsible jobs arthur martinez for example is in charge of special programs booker williams is director of financial aids richard doesn't care whether mr williams is black or white he wants to know whether he'll get a short term loan or not and he's worried about how he'll fare in the difficult courses of this last quarter of the freshman year there are other things to consider besides flasks and forensics and formaldehyde it's springtime spring is a cruel time at college the smell of new moon grass and the warm breezes are relaxing flowers are blooming and there's an almost overpowering desire to do nothing yet it's in springtime that the whole year rushes to conclusion richard is still troubled about his grades his girlfriend draft status and plans for next year his goals are changing too he now thinks he may go to a theological seminary when he graduates but he's not at all sure and the fact that he is still undecided is not necessarily bad because the purpose of the university is to arouse interest and help put new ideas into play and that is just what has happened richard bain smith has changed since last september he's more confident he understands the world a little more and he is beginning to see where he fits in and richard whose occupation for at least another three years will be that of student is beginning to see what the job is all [Music] about [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so um the credits got a little psychedelic there at the end um uh you were saying thanks to timothy leary showing up in the middle of the film yeah that guy um so um folks who are tuning in if you have questions for uh chester brewer either about uh his what he does with the university scholars program or uh that he's a certified wilderness first responder uh please feel free to mention it in the comments and i will uh relay them to him so yeah i think jason forgot to mention that actually oh yeah uh he was trading me some interesting stories about about being a certified wilderness first responder um but so what's your impression with this film compared to the last one i mean we jumped ahead so this was 1969 uh the last one was probably mid 50s so we jumped ahead um plus years the first thing that yeah the first thing that jumped out is you know it is indicative of the era in terms of um some of the content inside of the subject matter that they they're they're trying to make sure that potential students know it's sort of a coded language right it's like a hey we're hip because we understand that current students might be thinking about activism they might be thinking about diversity related issues they might be thinking about um frankly in this video drugs and alcohol um are mentioned in a way that uh that video from the 50s was certainly not going to be talking about right um yeah so those are those are probably the three main things that that jump out is unique to this this time period that this video was uh coming from yeah the um and i was wrong by the way barbiturates are actually uh downers they're not speed um so but the fact that they mentioned that barbiturates and beer um it's it's fascinating um yeah that those are the things you know and and now now when students come to college we talk about it in a really different way you know different colleges take different approaches but one approach is you know the the complete abstinence-only shame approach and one is the you know learn to be responsible you're you're an adult you're learning to make decisions for yourself you know if you're going to do these things be responsible about it um and this video was just like i mean there's there's beer there's barbiturates there's lsd on campus there's all these things happening um and and we know that and you probably know that so just be aware right um yeah um go ahead go ahead oh so marion uh posted as a question uh talking about student activism uh certainly this film addresses that and has it uh mentioned the fact that there at that time there was a lot of social issues um is that something that you talk about with your students and kind of encourage them to participate in or is it kind of just you know that i love that question um so part of it part of it is sort of the the really um in between the lines sort of like pc is not the right word but like there's an overarching university you know principle right which is like we're not here necessarily to instigate those sorts of things but as they arise you know the university wants to the university as an entity wants to stay uh neutral in many regards um but a unique part about my position is like i get to interact with student leaders in a way that more often than not they come to me and tell me you know this is what i'm passionate about this is this is where my activism lies i will say you know in my almost 10 years on campus there's definitely a resurgence of that and i think there's a new conversation around what it means to be an activist um when i first started on campus i think it was in sort of a a lull period i think that activism looked like tweeting your opinions and ideas about certain subjects and and that was sort of enough but i think that the level um that students are engaging in a variety of issues they begin to critique each other right and how people participate and what activism is and what it means to be truly engaged in those things so um i think that you know it has increased i think it's going to continue to increase um and that it's going to move that the pendulum of involvement is swinging back to a more in real life involvement away from uh you know i could make a change online well you know maybe you could for a period of time but now these things are they seem more visceral and more um involved in the real world right um so uh one of the things that we talked about uh while we were watching this was the the challenges you know the difference between the 50s 1969 70 and now well and well like what was happening like a year ago two years ago well now okay so now everybody's college experience um for the most part is or is going to become them watching college and having that experience through a laptop screen um what are some things that you think and i i asked this because a lot of people that we have here that are watching this have kids and the challenge is like how do you get the kids to not just you know immediately go to youtube after they've done their studies what are ways to maybe engage or interest students in some of the things that you were interested in them in before by having them physically attend these things um i have a couple of ideas about that um you know the first one i think the first my initial gut reaction is that i think as administrators and teachers we actually overthink this a little bit um i don't i don't fully adhere to this idea of digital natives but what i will say is that students of common interests and common likes know how to find each other and that in either encouraging that as an educator or finding ways to enhance that um is is a natural simple path to integrating this sort of experiential education outside of the screen um so you know if a student is really jazzed about wind instruments they know how to find other students that are into that but that part's not hard i think the challenge becomes you know currently you know do you meet up in person do you have online jam sessions do you um but i think that there's sort of a step ahead of us and then as educators were like oh we could formalize this process i just don't always think that that's necessary i think sometimes it's just too much um the other thing that i was going to say something that i'm really passionate about that i think helps students in all of those facets is mindfulness i teach a mindfulness course to a small group of students each semester and [Music] i think that that's a way to bring them it's funny because we're the class is being offered online this semester but even through that format they're still walking away after each session going oh i was i was really fully aware of my surroundings today or i was really fully aware of like how i felt today um so i think turning the the lens so to speak the opposite direction and having students wherever they are um be mindful of themselves of their surroundings um i think that's a a cornerstone to bridging the gap between the screen and your real life you know um yeah nice i'm looking to see if there's any other any other comments that people have had what do you think that these films that we just watched um missed that or just didn't talk about that we now we do talk about to students who are coming to college um a big one that we talk about a lot right now is mental health um you know i think mental and personal health are something at least at nc state we talk about that a lot in a lot of different ways you know um both before and during coronavirus you know nc state in particular has this huge push for physical education and physical movement physical health and mental health has been very close behind in the last couple of years so i think that's probably one thing um i think another thing you know something that i think has gone in the opposite direction and i could be wrong but from where i sit something that has gone the opposite direction has been um town and gown relationships i feel like in the video from the 50s like you probably could get more of a sense of like where where a college is situated and how students interact with the larger community you know universities don't exist in a vacuum they're surrounded by people who live and work in a town either they work for the university or they don't um nc state does have you know town and gown relations but it's not a focal point i wouldn't i wouldn't say not in not in a really broad context there are lots of little tributaries that leak out from the university into the community in a variety of ways but it's not a cohesive feeling if that makes sense right and another difference um um well those are really the main ones you know another one really would be diversity i think that we saw that happening progressively you know the one in the 50s has a bunch of wipeouts in that video um and the video in the 60s and 70s the narrator makes a really specific point to say you know at this university there are african-american students they're chicano students look at us and now now you know every university that's doing anything with anybody really wants to emphasize the importance of diversity and making sure that all voices are heard so that would be probably the third difference i think right you know with coronet i think it was a little bit of laziness on their behalf in that they their studios were based in a white suburb of chicago so that's who they just pulled from and they were like oh this little college is near us and that happens to be white too so they didn't really um have people of color in their films for a while uh yeah that changes again in the 60s when it's obvious that's important um right but yeah it's kind of a little lazy on there on their behalf um somebody did ask a question here uh both of the films we just watched are structured controlled representations of of campus life have you seen any other representations say real genius of college life that you like they're talking about the feature film real genius with uh val kilmer which is actually i really like that film a lot it's funny you mentioned that it has a lot going on yeah belle kilmer has a lot going on in general in his life right now if you haven't if you haven't heard about that lately yeah it's a it's a great film um and surprisingly i actually have the woman who made the film the director i actually have a film that she made in early film that i got that i've been trying to contact her to get back to her but that's an aside um i mean i gotta say that my impression of college was very much influenced by animal house and then all the tv shows that followed that were basically rip-offs of the animal house and not that i was a partier but i i love the whole concept of a college prank a lot and i read an article about these these elaborate college pranks at caltech and just thought that that was an amazing that that was the college was a a playground for doing stuff like that um yeah and maybe did some bad behavior because of that that's all i'm going to say that's all i'm going to say statues of limitations have passed but i'm not going to go into details about that but um i don't know what about what about you guys chess yeah well now i'm realizing um [Music] you know skip and i went to college in different eras but you know when i was in high school the films i remember are about high school i don't remember many films about college like i remember clueless which is that's a high school film and i remember like 10 things i hate about you that's a high school thing i don't remember a really standout i think they burned out on that whole like college thing like revenge just maybe like the last one they were like all right we're done yeah so i don't have a really sort of standout college experience film um yeah sorry that's fine jason what about you what a question uh back to school the rodney dangerfield field movie right that came out while i was in college yes i i was a little too like i wasn't allowed i was too young to watch revenge of the nerds won because it was rated r but i could watch revenge of the nerds 2 because it was pg-13 and back to school was pg-13 and i think back to school really did influence my desire to go to house parties where bands like oingo boingo might be playing right and uh and to be an english major like i said there was something about like the hallowed halls of rodney dangerfield practicing poetry that made me really excited about being in a place where like any loser could get into poetry you know like it actually worked on me i should probably do a podcast about it or something that was a good question yeah i think um you know the films that i watched that i was impressed by about college don't age well um certainly but uh but uh yeah back back to school is pretty good pretty good um all right uh jason you wanna um i wanna i wanna thank both of you for for doing this chester thank you so much for for jumping in this was a last minute idea from the av geeks team like last week thank you so much for being a part of it we love working with you we love working with the scholars program we look forward to when we do get to do this in person of course we get to see so many of the folks that you work with and they're such good participants so thanks for keeping us part of that and then for being an official part of the av geeks team now um and i want to remind everybody to visit avgeeks.com for more info about what av geeks does and also to check out compilations there and also if you can get into the if you um are a student or a faculty or staff member at nc state we do have physical dvds that you can borrow and watch but feel free to be safe too and watch them online um and we're doing our best so come into the library say hi behind the plexiglas and check those out for a couple months and enjoy it um our next show is on friday september 4th so we we're we're really in this now um and it's an early one it's three o'clock little experiment and it's called vo vote and the choice is yours featuring professor natalie bullock brown extremely timely and it features a a single movie an incredible north carolina made movie from the 60s about voting rights i highly recommend tuning in until then you know check out some cool old educational films online or through libraries comps and maybe even stop by at lunch every day to see skip showing 16 millimeter movies while you enjoy your frozen stophers pizza or whatever it is you choose to do there's a very high percentage of people having uh stouffer's french bread pizzas um which is really fascinating i totally forgot about those so but uh thank you chester and thank you jason and we will see you guys again soon take care see you you