FYP SUPERVISORSHIP
Hello, welcome to supervisor-seeking season. You’re receiving this because you’ve approached me about FYPs. Whether for advice or whether its to ask me to be ur supe, it will still be helpful to you.
1) FYPs WITH SAM
I usually take on 2-5 groups depending on my availability that year.
My preference is to use this early opportunity to see if there is a good fit three ways:
- Me + the group
- The group + me
- The project + me(or specifically, my experience/skills).
2) WHAT TO DO
To get enough information to make this decision, please prep a one-page or three-slide proposal for your FYP. This should be something that you have at least spent ONE DAY researching and speaking to somebody in the know. I.e. If you’re going to propose a documentary about sexist skate culture, you should at least have spent a day at the skate park speaking to skaters. And ask them why they don’t let women into their park.
After that, we will do a short zoom meet-up. And both make our decision after.
3) SOME TIPS AT THIS EARLY PHASE
- your group mates are supposed to be your constant companions in this process. If you’ve never worked together, I suggesting keeping the arrangement open for now, work on a weekend project together. and then decide after whether u still want to spend the year together
- for journalism/documentary projects, your advantage when competing against the world of content producers is time. You have a year to see a story unfold. Your advantage is not production value or experience. So pick something that will benefit from that time.
- For any topic that you pick, don’t pick anything that you do not care about. If you do that, you will find your interest waning very quickly.
- Decide on how important this FYP is to you. . Whether you’re gunning for a film festival, or to get first class honours, or you;re just looking to pass and get this over and done with, that’s all fine. Just be clear with your supe and team-mates. False expectations in a year-long project will just wear everybody down mentally.
4) CHOICES CHOICES
I encourage you to speak to more than one potential supervisor at this point in time. It will be wise to do so as this is YOUR project and you are going to spend a year on it.
Also, very importantly, you should feel no obligations to select me as your final supe. I.e. I will not cease to be your friend if you go with someone else.
Lastly, this process I’m suggesting is my own. It has helped both the groups and myself make the best decisions on supervisorships in the past and I believe it will help you too.
5) “PORTFOLIO”
Feel free to browse through my website for some idea of what I do(and do not do). Please also look through a selection of notable FYPs that I have supervised here: https://samuelhe.com/teach-o-folio