The Common Student

Texas State University currently as roughly 40,000 students enrolled for the fall semester of 2017. About 57% of the population are women and 43% are men. 98% of students come from somewhere in Texas and 2% come from somewhere out of Texas. 47% of students are white, 36% are Hispanic, 10% are African American, 2% are Asian, and 3% are two or more races. 18% of all students are part time students (The College Board, 2017). As you can see, Texas State has many forms of diversity. Student life involves the way students adjust to college. Texas state has been branded a “party school,” which implies that the students only party here and disregard studies. Although this is true in some instances, there are a portion of the population that takes their studies seriously.

In my photo essay, I travel into many different situations of the common student’s college experience. This will also include high wide shots, wide low angle shots, juxtaposition, tension, and multiple perspectives. Most of these depictions will also be in multiple photos to ensure that the subject is properly analyzed. The photos will go into the lives of students who are all different in their own different ways. Some will be sexually different, others racially different, about everyone will have different majors. I will evoke the feelings of passion, suspense, pressure, reliability, and responsibility. Students will show the ability to overcome tough obstacles such as class work, relationships, and other aspects of life.

This essay will help realize that all students are not the same. I will prove that every student lives their own life and style of living at Texas State. I will do so through capturing students in not only a campus setting, but also outside of campus. My photos include students in a dorm room, the student recreational center, a party, and then ending at George’s dining area. I chose this order to ensure I capture how students at Texas State spend their time while in college. I want to show that there may be a fine line between students who party and those who don’t party. However there is also a middle category that may overlap with both the party scene and the studying life. This middle category will include those who are devoted in their studies as seen in my fourth photo, those who disregard homework for some distraction as seen in my third photo.

Texas state is home to a lot of students who all different. This photo is taken from a left wide angle to capture multiple diverse students who all live separate lives together.

The Student Recreational Center is the most diversely used are on campus. This photo is meant to show how college may be stressful for some, there are those who find was with coping with their stress.

This photo is meant to capture an African-American student disregarding homework for video games at a late hour. This filter was used to show the student’s priorities in relation to the late hour all from an over the shoulder shot.

Here we see an Asian-American female who is prioritizing homework over the need to sleep. This photo was taken in this element to symbolize her light at the end of the tunnel with a flourishing future as seen with the lights surrounding her tapestry.

This photo is meant to show the category of students that do party and go out. It was taken from a low angle on a Polaroid to capture the depth and how a student’s worries fade into the background when they just want to feel free.

This subject may seem alone, but she is not. This Middle Eastern-American student a part of a substantially large group of students who are home sick and just enjoy a small call home to family. The distance from this student is meant to represent how small she feels on campus.

This photo represents how some students spent their free time between classes or just on campus in general. The distance between them represents four different people with their own background but part of the same circle of community. The perspective of this photo is meant to be someone looking from the outside into their group.

All students my be different but in this photo many different students find sanctuary in one common place on campus. From a wide angle I attempted to capture friends, classmates, and couples. Through the distance, objects, and this perspective, we are able to see that all students are different and the campus is home to a diverse student life community.

Citation

Texas State University — The College Board, bigfuture.collegeboard.org/college-university-search/texas-state-university.