A Student’s Point of View: Not a Class but Just as Valuable

Magazine Mondays

This is Ashley Crichton writing again for RITphoto! One of my favorite parts about the RITphoto is the community that exists within the School. Magazine Monday is an event started this year to help enhance our community.   It was started by one of the advertising professors, David Turner. Every Monday, David puts out magazines for all the students to look at in one of academic lounges. He also bring cookies. He brings magazines ranging from National Geographic to Vogue so that every photography student will have something interesting to look at, no matter what their photographic emphasis.

Magazine Mondays are about food, learning new things, and community. David came up with the idea to start Magazine Mondays long before he came to RIT. He spent his life figuring out how to make students and clients look at picture spreads in magazines. David has taught in a number of schools.  When he discovered that current RIT college students don’t look at physical magazines very much any more, he felt compelled to find a way to change that. He realized that if he re-created his Magazine Monday event at RITphoto for students to take a small break from their day and start out the week with a cookie and some inspiration, it could help them become better students and people.

David says his goal is for students to learn, even if it takes tricking them using cookies. Not many college students will pass up the chance to have a delicious homemade cookie. He likes to recruit new students to just sit for a few minutes, eat a cookie, and look at magazines. It seems  becoming aware this way can be inspiring when they are not expecting to be inspired. When I asked Dillon Berrus, a freshman photojournalism student why he stopped, he said he enjoys going to Magazine Mondays because he “really likes the opportunity to look at photographs in one of the original ways pictures were shared for decades.” This informal learning environment creates an open dialogue for students to learn from each other and share ideas with David.

Students from all year levels and disciplines attend Magazine Mondays. This includes seniors and freshman or/and advertising students. Photojournalist and any students can look at these magazines together and really learn from each other. These Magazine Monday events are the perfect way to start out every week , a good cookie, and easy to learn from one of the most incredible people I have ever met. We love David Turner.

by Ashley Crichton
Ashley is a rising junior at RITphoto where she specializes in advertising photography.