Getting feedback from the instructor
For those of you who are interested in receiving feedback from myself and my teaching assistants (who work under my supervision), that is an option we offer through our Patreon (starting at $5/month), but these "official critiques" are subject to a number of strict requirements.
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Our students are required to start receiving their official feedback from Lesson 1, and are only allowed to move onto the next set of work once they've had the previous lesson's work marked "officially" as complete. No jumping in mid-course, and getting completion via un-official, "community" critique unfortunately does not count towards this.
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All the recommendations made in the lessons (prerequisites, tools, etc.) are now hard requirements for those submitting for official critique.
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All submissions for official critique must include all assigned homework for a given lesson. Some lessons have multiple sections (like Lesson 1 has Lines, Ellipses and Boxes) - all the sections must be included in the submission.
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There is a 2 week waiting period between homework submissions in order to ensure that students are not being encouraged to rush through their work.
Our goal with these official critiques is to both provide those looking for more structured training a way to receive it, as well as to be able to provide the community with more appropriately trained individuals who can then help others. We want to provide this at as accessible a price as we can. By sticking to these strict requirements, we can help as many people as possible, because each requirement helps simplify the critiquing process. The more time and effort we save, the more people we can provide with feedback with the resources we currently have.
If you're on the fence about whether you want to participate in this 'official critique' program, you have until the completion of Lesson 1's homework to decide. If you choose not to, you can still take advantage of the free community feedback (via the community platform on this website, our subreddit, and on our Discord Chat Server), where the requirements are not quite so strict. Just keep in mind that if you do change your mind, you will have to start over - this is not necessarily a waste of time, as many people have gone through this course multiple times (either in part or in full), and have benefitted from it, but it is something you may want to keep in mind.
All official critiques are done through the community platform on this website. Signing up on the Patreon (in the future we hope to offer other methods such as Paypal) will get you "credits" which are then spent on your submissions. On the submission form you'll just be sure to select "Submit for Official Critique" and you'll be shown the credit cost of the given lesson, along with the various requirements you must meet. Your first couple submissions will cost 1 credit, but later ones increase in cost based on how much more effort is involved in critiquing them. Currently the critiques cost between 1 and 2 credits each.
Just keep in mind that Patreon charges up-front, and on the first of the next month. You'll get your credits for each charge, but if it's the end of the month and you don't want to get charged twice so close together, you may want to wait until the first of the next month. Patreon tells you when you're going to be charged next during the check-out process, but not a lot of people notice it.