CCA Confidential

The latest assignment in my 4D Dynamics class, was to go to World Savvy Jam Session at the SoMa Arts Center on Saturday morning. There we interviewed young high schoolers about the topic of this years Jam Session - Power.

Considering how this classes pass field trips have gone, I expected a few things to go wrong. I didn’t have to wait long. Our professor reserved video cameras, audio recorders, mics, and tripods. However, when the class arrived, we were missing key piece of equipment. My group was given a low quality digital camera instead of a video camera. Another group had no tripod, the media center had run out, though it had been reserved, and another group had a camera with zero battery power. None of us received mics.

We managed to work out many of the problems ourselves, the tripod for the digital camera went to the team who didn’t have one, and we shared cameras when needed.

The second big problem came in the form of time. The Jam Sessions leader, Katina, met with us and explained we would have approximately one hour to meet, convince, and interview the teens. It wasn’t nearly enough. Finding teens willing to be interviewed took up most of our time.

The irony of this whole project was the topic - power. When we interviewed the teens, many of them told us that they had been required to come to this event, or they’d receive a poor grade in their class. Funny, I was their under the same presences. What was that topic again?