Student Profile: Ben Nix-Bradley

Holding on to Focus with Ben Nix-Bradley

Ben Nix-Bradley is one of the most active students on our entire platform. He is currently enrolled in 11 of our 24 courses and he has already finished two of them. In other words, Ben is quickly proving that (at least in his case) common beliefs about low completion rates for MOOCS are just plain wrong.

Corresponding with Ben is a lot like corresponding with a lightning bolt. His interests span everything from music technology to game design and he consistently utilizes our forums to discuss those topics with anyone who can keep up with him. In fact, we first noticed him BECAUSE of his copious forum posts. Ben is quite active in our community for “Introduction to Programming for Musicians and Digital Artists.” There, he spends his time discussing ChucK programming and digital music with his fellow students.

To say that Ben is driven would be a dramatic understatement. Ben is a dynamo – frenetic and unrelenting. But his boundless energy isn’t the product of immaculate motivation. Ben’s labors, like many young students’, are fueled by a desire to attend the college of his dreams. In Ben’s case, his dream is to attend California Institute of the Arts and he has organized his life around that goal – even deciding to move to California as a stepping stone on the way to making it a reality.

In his own words, Ben wants to go to CalArts, “Against all odds.” Such a statement might seem a little odd for one as driven as he is, but (as with all dreams) wish fulfillment is not without its roadblocks. In Ben’s case, past academic debt and medical challenges have made private art school an unreasonable proposition right now.

“I just want to go for it with creative technology,” Says Ben, “It’s good to have a long term goal, but It’s more complicated than that.”

This doesn’t mean that he’s given up. Since June, Ben has found a temporary academic home on Kadenze.

“I’ve been having a lot of fun pretending I’m back home in that class (on the weekends ). Kadenze is the first MOOC that really stuck with me.”

We recently spoke with Ben about his experience on our site. Below is a transcript from that conversation.

When did you first become an artist?

When I was in 4th grade we had an assignment to replicate a painting with color[ed] pencil. I did really well on that project and started taking art seriously soon after. I would get little “Learn to DRAW” books as gifts and do all of the activities where you learn to shade animals and such. In high school, I quit marching band to take the advanced art classes and play guitar. That’s when I decided to be an artist.

What were you studying when you first joined Kadenze And  what encouraged you to learn with us?

I was studying ludology/combinatorics and audio mastering/ production for [a] year leading up to hearing about Kadenze.  I study a lot of things from  DSP to Japanese. I want to attend CalArts –  The first concert I went to was at that campus when I was in middle school (~1998 ). While Kadenze is not that particular school, I want some of that culture. To perhaps meet the people there and learn from them.

What are your plans for the future and what is up next in your education?

I, like any artist, am working on a way to do only what I love because that is when your best comes through. I plan to move back to California in a year, open a studio and find more interesting challenges to overcome. I want to go back to school ( guess which one ) and continue taking Kadenze courses in the interim.

Is there any advice you’d like to share with new ChucK students who are just starting out?

ChucK students! Every week you’re going to struggle with trying to do everything you think up. Watch the session videos and forget about it for a day or so. A couple days later maybe [make] a simple sketch or two of the concepts that you remember. Try different things in small bites but don’t worry about the assignment. Before I do the weekly project, I re-watch some of the session[s] while starting to think about the possible solutions for this week. The real key is to behave in the same way that you understand your tool. [You] can do just about anything you can imagine as long as you do only one thing at a time. 

What has a Kadenze education meant to you?

At the very least, this experience will solidify the technical aspect of what I do. I’ve been able to explain, to my non-technical relatives, the fundamentals of computer science and digital sound. This is very encouraging because I believe, “If you can’t teach it, you don’t know it.”

I also feel like I’m enjoying programming as a hobby much more and really challenging myself each week to make something that’s interesting to me. 

Even with these positive outlets in his life, at the end of the day, Ben is still clear-eyed about the challenges that lie ahead.

“I’ve been trying to make things work,” says Ben, “I’m at the point where I speak with recruiters often, but it doesn’t go anywhere.”

Hope, however, doesn’t die easily for Ben.

“Ultimately, I’ll work wherever I can. I make games and other digital art; Been making music for a lot longer building a path between those crafts… the music technology course is really up my alley and I use my goal to help keep focus.”

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