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The Course

When I had first applied to this course, I had wrongly assumed that it was an advanced training course in ergonomics. I have since discovered that it is in actual fact a course on 3D computer animation. In retrospect, I think this is probably a good thing, though my one regret is that I still don't know what ergonomics means.

The official title for this course is the BA in Excruciatingly Painful Techniques for Creating Things That Look Crap Compared to The Incredibles. But that's a bit of a mouthful so we prefer to call it the BA of Computer Visualization and Animation course. It's based in Bournemouth, one of the most picturesque, active and entertaining towns within a two mile radius around it. The French are incapable of pronouncing Bournemouth, preferring Bornmoos or Boornmowt or other such silly things. The technical French term for Bournemouth is “le fin fond du trou du cul du monde” but again, that's a bit of a mouthful.

The BA course is three years long, but there's also an MA which is one year long, and there could also be an Msc for all I know. I don't know. There are other courses at Bournemouth, I believe, because that would explain all the people I see on campus who aren't on my course, but I don't think those courses really count, to be honest.

The campus boasts a bar which, though it claims to be a student bar, charges more than £2.00 for a pint of beer, a sports hall that charges ludicrous amounts of money for the opportunity to sprain every muscle in your body (I've recently taken up badminton again... much to my body's dismay), and a student union shop that, you guessed it, charges stupid amounts of money for bread and cheese sandwiches. I'm not very impressed with the student union, I have to say.

All the people who live in my house are on the same course. The course has taken over my life. I refuse to acknowledge anything that isn't part of the course. The course is my world. The course. The course.

Our lecturers were all cultivated in the Science department, and have become super-human godlike beings who shower us with knowledge and understanding. Unfortunately, for the most part we're either not there or too dense to notice. So we struggle on, trying to get to grips with entertaining things like vertices, and C++, and radii.

I'm in my third year now, which means I have to do a major project. That's what this site is all about: that major project. I've decided to do a major project on people running around. There is actual information to be found on this site, regarding this project. And another related project, because the course is run by sadists who think that there is no such thing as too many projects. Especially in the second year. In the third year they think it wiser to have fewer projects, but bigger, more difficult ones.

If you're interested in seeing what kind of people are on this course, you can venture into the unofficial forum. NCCA stands for something to do with Computer Animation and the fact that this course, apparently, is the national centre of said animation in this country.