Dear SoFM students, Thanks so much for your feedback on the unit. As I mentioned in one of the lectures, the subject was partly shaped by previous results, and your thoughts will help me tweak the course so future students will benefit. Thanks for paying it forward! Given this was my first time teaching this subject at uSyd, I was very happy with your feedback overall—I’m glad to hear you found the content engaging and rewarding. The one issue that appeared consistently was about the assessment design toward the end of the semester. Some of you expressed concerns about the group assignment, and some suggested that a peer review may be a helpful addition. The other concern was that the final weeks of content did not have an explicit assessment attached. The intention was for students to respond to ideas from the readings in the final weeks during their presentations, and the final lecture was intended to offer a summary/overview of the course (and film music history). However, I agree that a more explicit assessment will improve engagement in those final weeks. One of my challenges last year was adapting assessments to fit the new AI era. AI has begun to undermine the use of writing (such as essays) to demonstrate and assess knowledge. While this was the traditional way to assess survey subjects, I always doubted its ability to show knowledge so much as to demonstrate an ability to write. This concern—and the new assessment policies addressing AI—is why I designed the assignments to focus on in-class presentations, allowing you to show rather than write your thoughts and understanding. In the near term, this mode (in-class assessments) will remain essential to courses like this. Balancing this need with time demands (especially given survey subjects are very content-heavy) is tricky. I also believe that having you all speak to one another about ideas is one of the best ways to teach! So, next time I teach this unit, I will (1) review the readings; (2) rebalance assessments to cover the final weeks better; and (3) seek and develop an alternative to the group work assignment. For my part, it was a pleasure to share this subject with you—thanks for your engagement, questions and the playfulness you brought to the classes. I hope you keep exploring the enormous world of film music and use the ideas we discussed to think about other music for the screen (games, reels, etc.). We are in the middle of interesting times—watch this space! Thanks again, and all the best in your future endeavours! Andrew Callaghan