The Varieties of Student Videos

As we prepare to open for video uploads, we have been sending invitations to creators of already-published films whose videos we think would be great for UniLives.com. As a result, we have gained a fairly comprehensive introduction to the genres of videos about university life. Here are some of them:

Vlogging To Friends & Family: Students living away from home often make videos of their friends, their accommodation, the landscape, food, and other parts of their life. These videos are great for UniLives, especially when they show people, and discuss what life is like at university. Such videos already expect to explain things to an unfamiliar audience and would fit well into our international perspective. Examples:

• Tour of My Room at Peking University, Beijing (heydude819)
• Dining Hall, Tsinghua University, Beijing (frank5457)
• Working out at the University of Wisconsin (HandelandJ) (also, Making a Peanut Butter & Egg Sandwich)
• Trying to Study in the University of Hawaii Library (josephcfl)

Parties: A large number of university-related videos show, or claim to show drunken parties. Once we filter out the porn and the embarrassing films posted by friends, the list of remaining videos is fascinating.

• US Students opinions on lowering the drinking age. (SevenDaysVT) (great format!)
• Palmer Fest. We blogged this journalistic piece from Soul of Athens a few weeks ago; it’s about student party violence in Athens, Georgia.
• Comparison of American and Korean university party culture (sadly, only the first part) (obee777 has posted several videos about koren students abroad)

Over the next few days, as we look for videos we can invite to the site, I’m going to be posting more examples of videos about university life. Look out for The Event, The Joke, Internal Marketing, and Libraries Trying To Be Relevant.

Before the opening of video uploads on Nov 16, we’re posting ideas and examples of videos about university experience worldwide. Sometimes, simple interviews can make great video projects, especially when you put interviews next to each other. In this series on adjunct faculty in the USA, the Chronicle of Higher Education creates an informative montage about university life.

Why does this work better than the sample videos on Free-D? The Chronicle’s videos are edited by the people who conducted the interviews, not the people who are speaking. Even though the interviewer is not shown, these videos highlight the interests of the interviewer, who asks the questions and edits the final videos to highlight the personality and experience of the person interviewed.

We love how these videos show the background, personality, and motivations of each adjunct professor. We also like that these videos talk about important issues for universities about hiring practices, professor workload, and pay.

This is a photo essay submitted by one of our friends, Pinar Kuzlu, an exchange student who has studied in both the USA and in Turkey. Her slideshow compares experiences in each of the universities where she has studied as an undergraduate. When UniLives.com opens for contributions in November, you can tell your story as well.  Like Pinar, you might share examples of how your education affects your lifestyle and how that lifestlye colours your experience of education. (view slideshow) (flickr set) (to see Pinar’s commentary, click “show info” on the top right)