MELVINPATHER

Currently I am a Senior Technical Lecturer at the University of Cape Town within the Michaelis School of Fine Art. Within the New Media department I teach students all the design software along with video editing and augmented reality. I also manage and instruct the Fabrication unit which consists of Laser cutting/engraving, Plasma cutting and a CNC Router. I also manage the Michaelis School of Fine Art website.

 

I am currently researching more on virtual reality and 360 degree photography and implementation of these technologies within Fine Art.

 

Why I loved lecturing at Rosebank College?

Lecturing is a natural progression to my career background and it is something that I find renewed enthusiasm for. Over the past

years I have been lecturing at Rosebank College Braamfontein and Auckland Park campuses. I have developed a great understanding for the procedures of the IIE and Rosebank College and have gained insight into how to work within the campuses and lecture the course material required, and getting the students to put in their best efforts into their progress through the course. I love teaching/lecturing at Rosebank College as it allows me to bring my experience and allow me to impart knowledge and insight to students to develop their skills that are needed to be a success in the Graphics and Arts Industry.

 

What I believe I brought to the position?

I have been lecturing the following subjects at Rosebank College - Desktop Publishing, Intro to Publishing, Art and Design, Intro to

Conceptual Techniques, Digital Photography, 2D Animation, 3D Animation, Drawing & Illustration, Computer Graphics, Design Theory, Visual Communication, Sub-Editing and Graphic Development.

 

With each of these subjects I can directly relate work experience to

and impart that knowledge onto students. I also maintain a level of high work ethic amongst my students by promoting the industry

standards and giving them proper examples of how their work relates to what they will encounter in the various graphic design

industries. From my experience I have worked in the following industries - Publishing, Advertising, Media, Graphic Design, Marketing, Fashion and News. This varied expertise from the different industries give me the ability to direct students to what they will have to be ready for when they enter the working world and use their skills learnt at Rosebank College. I also define myself as a lecturer who can bring out the best in students by developing their interests with a variety of different work throughout their course.

 

What is my understanding of the Rosebank College students and what I can contribute in terms of their growth and development?

I have over the past years met and developed great relationships with many students studying at Rosebank College on both campuses (Braamfontein and Auckland Park). The students and I have shared a great understanding for the prospective subjects they study and have opened up to their different backgrounds and their shared goals for the future. I have often consulted students on a one on one basis when they have requested to meet me and are seeking advice from a variety of topics from Career choices, the workplace and even their home situations and how to deal with life.

 

I have mentored students whenever they have needed advice and always maintained a professional ethos as someone that is in a position to help them. I have also undertaken certain projects to improve their skills and abilities, an example being starting the Rosebank College campus Online Newspaper called The RCB Slice. This has allowed the students to understand how to work to deadlines and teamwork to layout and design each edition of the newspaper. I have also created the Rosebank College Digital Photography Facebook group as a platform for them to showcase their designs and photography and as an arena to get comments as in positive criticism or discussions on how to improve their work. To date over 50 students have joined from DCGD1 and DCGD2.

 

I have often given them comments on their work as a way of how to improve the quality of their work and spur them on to be more creative and practice the skills they learn in the classroom. I have also varied my lessons to appeal to their interests so that they want to be more involved and give off their best efforts. An example of this was during an ICE TASK for the subject Intro to Conceptual Techniques, students were tasked with creating a song/rap on Brainstorming.

 

The type of support I can offer to students

All of my students have my email address and are urged to contact me in any instance that they need advice/find a problem/want

some information or any other issue regarding their course and their subjects that I lecture them. We have also created a Whatsapp

group whereby students have all joined so we can be in contact at any given time to discuss any issue or work that they have. This has

also proved to be a good form of communication when it comes to instances of alerting all students at once on any related material

for their course. ie - change of venues, manuals, student logins and portals etc.

 

What interests me about teaching/learning in higher education

I find lecturing as a “calling”. Something that you find that you are meant to do. This realisation stems from my past experience upon

lecturing at a college in Durban whereby one of my students was deaf/dumb. After months of lecturing him on the various Graphic

Design programmes, often having to find communication solutions such as writing down messages on a page so he could read and

then he could write down a reply.

 

This became our means of communicating his outcomes for the course and the work he needed to go through with the course. He eventually passed all his subjects and qualified. After a few months I received a call from his mother telling me how thankful she was for my time and effort with him as he had eventually got a position as a Graphic Designer in an advertising agency and she was in tears as she had been to quite a few places and they all didnt accept him to study due to his disability.

 

This became my turning point as to where I knew my calling was to be a Lecturer. I maintain my enthusiasm to impart knowledge to students about the specifics of the Graphics and Arts industry and will work hard to keep a high level of success with students and in the role as a lecturer.