Semester Reflections

Semester 3

As the third semester of my Arts Scholars program experience comes to a close, I feel as though I have grown substantially throughout the course of my time here. This program has helped me develop a strong social network, participate in valuable discussions, and develop several of my own skills. Additionally, colloquium and the living-learning aspect of the program have helped me strengthen my understanding of certain topics. It has also fostered an environment where discussion about art in relation to society is encouraged. This program provides a space for individuals from differing backgrounds to come together to explore the creation and analysis of art.

First, I will describe how this program has helped me develop my skills. Next, I will go over how my Arts Scholars experience informs how I interact with media and my other classes. After that, I will speak on the more social and collaborative aspects of this program. Finally, I will touch on the effectiveness of interactive activities in the program.

During the most recent semester, gaining experience with planning a large-scale project has helped strengthen my time management skills, work ethic, and communication abilities. Throughout the fall, I have worked to advertise my proposed project, gather information from various sources on and off campus, and work out logistics with various campus programs. Advocating for myself and this project has given me opportunities to step out of my comfort zone and work deeply to improve my interpersonal and professional skills. Overall, I believe that this semester in Arts Scholars has helped me develop the most, partially due to the necessary communication and the increased responsibilities of planning my own work schedule.

Outside of professional skills, the Arts Scholars program has helped me develop my creative skills through the introduction of several helpful methods. The rapid iteration process is especially helpful for me as it enables me to get past any mental blocks and allows me to get all my ideas down on paper. This provides a solid foundation to expand and refine, leading to more solidified and developed iterations.

The discussions about art and its relation to personal and societal values, beliefs, and issues during this and previous semesters have furthered my understanding of the connections between the arts and other subjects. In the past, I had thought of art as a superficial thing – more like a hobby or simply for visual appearance rather than to enact change in a community. Of course, I recognized that art played a part in various social and cultural movements. However, the Arts Scholars program solidified that connection in my mind and helped me understand the depth of the impact art can have on people, communities, and the world as a whole.

Art is a powerful method to advocate for issues and increase public understanding of difficult social topics. The arts help to make complex information more digestible while also creating something that is beautiful to experience. Additionally, individuals can express their personalities, cultures, backgrounds, and lived experiences through art, which can help convey their ideas and unique perspectives. Through art that explains our selves, we can understand each other better, conquering our biases and shaping our beliefs.

Moving on to present issues in art, an example of art-related news I’ve heard recently is talk about the music platform Spotify and their usage of AI, especially in the creation of the yearly “Spotify Wrapped” reports. Many users argue that the new usage of AI in these platforms negates the artistic value and curation of these reports. The intertwining of art and AI is a touchy and difficult subject, but through my experience in Arts Scholars, including our discussions on what art is, I find it easier to consider multiple viewpoints and make informed personal judgments on issues like these.

My understanding of art’s societal impact also extends to historical contexts. I recently took a class on ancient and medieval European art history during this time and learned a lot about how the development of art affected communities, beliefs, religions, conflict, and trade. In this period, art was a vital tool in developing civilization, and it’s interesting to see how this has developed over time and continues to influence modern society. My time in Arts Scholars helped me to understand this class more deeply, allowing me to apply the things I had learned during colloquium in respect to the context of the time.

Moving on to a more social aspect of the program, I’ve made many strong connections during my time here. It is interesting to interact with people from a wide range of backgrounds, since we have differing ideas and perspectives. The closest group of friends I have on campus are all part of the Arts Scholars program and they, along with I, have lived in Bel Air Hall for the entirety of our time in college. It’s great that they’re all interested in art like I am and that we’re also all STEM majors. This gives us opportunities to study together and allows us to discuss the relationship between science and art. It’s a wonderful and unique opportunity to be able to meet people who have many things in common with me on such a large campus.

These peers have also helped me develop my project through feedback. I ran some of my ideas for potential mural locations through them to gauge their knowledge and awareness regarding those programs. This was incredibly helpful to my planning process, allowing me to focus on the most important aspects of these locations and what I needed to know and convey in relation to them. In return, I also provided feedback and assistance with their projects. This method of idea generation and refinement was particularly useful.

In terms of backgrounds, it seems that this program typically attracts many like-minded people: usually more socially liberal, invested in public welfare, and interested in the arts. This means that I don’t often encounter many severely differing opinions in my art-related discussions with peers. There have definitely been small things that we have disagreed about, but our fundamental values and beliefs are relatively similar. Overall, the people in this community seem to be very open-minded and welcoming to learning more about topics they don’t know about, open to changing their stances on issues, and kind and welcoming to others regardless of personal identity, appearance, and other outside factors.

Although I don’t often have discussions in the community that directly challenge my beliefs, there have been instances where someone’s unique perspective has aided my understanding of a topic. It is valuable to explore perspectives different from your own because it is easy to be blinded by your own personal biases, values, beliefs, and ideas. It is also imperative that we facilitate communication between people who are studying different things to help improve the overall effectiveness of brainstorming, projects, and advocacy in the arts community. This can also significantly strengthen the effectiveness of peer feedback by potentially uncovering weaknesses or blind spots in one’s perspective.

One thing that I do wish was different about the program is the number of opportunities for guest speakers and interesting field trips off campus. The performances at the Clarice that make up the majority of field trip options are nice, but I believe more interactive and exploratory history related field trips would help us become more well-rounded in our knowledge.

The in-class visitors like the vogue workshop and African drumming were great because they were more interactive and helped us understand the cultures and history behind these practices. It would be nice to explore even more of these in the future. It also feels like outside of the spring workshops, not a lot of actual art is created in the Arts Scholars colloquiums, which I believe could supplement our learning through further experimentation and exploration. Any time we had an interactive activity in class, I felt more like I was developing my skills and expanding my horizons.

As a whole, my experience in the Arts Scholars program and living in Bel Air Hall has helped me develop interpersonal skills among peers as well as authority figures and other faculty on campus. In addition, it has helped me to develop time management and planning skills and has improved my ability to write professionally, advocate for myself, work out logistics, and practice critical thinking skills. I believe that this program has made me a more well-rounded individual and has significantly supplemented my education by supporting my learning and skills in relation to my other coursework. In relation to the artistic creation process, this program has helped me develop improved planning and creation methods. Additionally, I believe that it is important to build community in this way to foster discussion between individuals with similar ideas and interests in order to form strong networks and facilitate brainstorming and idea creation.