As our semester neared its end, there were several different talks scheduled to help us get a clearer perspectives of our master’s thesis, future work perspectives and maybe life in general. And even though all of these topics tend to drive my pulse up, the talks were really helpful, reassuring and inspiring. So I want to reflect on the thoughts and ideas that came up during those last couple of days and how I might implement them into my plans.
First off, we had a talk with Hansjürgen Schmölzer, who was supposed to help us get an idea of what kind of career we might want to pursue after our Master’s and what possibilities we even have. While we only talked briefly about the kind of work I might want to do and my values and wishes, we quickly got into the topic of my master’s thesis, more specifically my practical workpiece. Now, I found out 5 minutes before our talk that Hansjürgen is an incredibly successful Austrian documentary filmmaker and, coincidentally, my practical workpiece IS a documentary. So, naturally he gave me lots of helpful tips, insights and hard truths once I had told him about my plans. I was able to get some feedback about some of the ideas I had and was still unsure about and he gave me some great creative input. However, he also kept me down to Earth and clearly told me if some of my visions were simply not feasible within the time limitations I have set for myself.
My second talk was with Roman, where we talked more about the topic of my thesis and I feel like every time I meet with him, my topic somehow changes a little but also becomes a lot clearer and I leave with newfound motivation to get started. (thank you Romaaaan!) We also talked about my workpiece and my plans for it, and while Hansjürgen Schmölzer seemed to think that 30 minutes were simply not enough time to establish the story in the way that I had planned, Roman was rather sceptical if I really wanted to make the film this long.
So in conclusion, getting feedback and help from people that know more than you and have more experience is incredibly helpful and eye-opening, but can also be rather confusing at times and lead to more of a mess to untangle at first. But I believe that it is worth it to take the time to sit down and go through all of the feedback you have received from different sources, also consider why people might think that way and then categorise it in a way that is helpful to you and your process. Also always stay true to your own opinions and values.
The last talk we had scheduled was with Ursula Lagger, where we talked more so about the written part of the thesis. In this talk I kind of surprised myself with how much I could already say about my topic and my plans and how much thought I have actually already put into it. With the exhibition and everything else that stressed me out lately, the thesis kind of slipped to the back of my mind where it stayed, lurking in the dark and whispering ominous warnings at times, but didn’t concern me enough to actually act on it. So, when it was finally time to face that sleeping dragon, I was pretty stressed, but it turns out that past me had actually already put some effort into taming it and maybe the distance even helped me see the bigger picture now.
So, sometimes we need a scheduled stressor to help us see that what we had been avoiding this whole time wasn’t as bad as we thought, anyway. However, the talk with Ursula Lagger was not only good for stressing me out, but it was also really helpful in clearing a lot of things up where my own thoughts and plans had been rather blurry so far.
To conclude, feedback talks really stress me out beforehand but always prove to be really helpful after the fact, so I am very glad that FH provides an environment where I am forced into them.
