Semester Reflections

Semester 2

After my first year in the Art Scholars program, I have been provided with many amazing opportunities to connect with my professors and peers which has helped develop an Arts Scholars Community that I am super grateful to be a part of. 

Harold and Heather were extremely helpful professors that helped make the transition into college go a lot smoother for me. They hosted one on one semester check-ins to make sure everyone was on track and to see if anybody needed any help. What I liked about these check-ins was that they extended beyond the Art Scholars course. Heather and Harold were concerned with my workload from other classes, and with what other ways I was getting involved in campus. These check-ins were very personable, and it’s very comforting knowing that I always have professors that I can count on if I ever needed any help. It can be challenging for me to make these connections with other professors, especially in my classes where the lectures have more than 200 people. It can be easy to feel like you’re lost in the crowd, however I could try to overcome them by attending their office hours and engaging more during their lecture classes.

Freshman year has also provided me the opportunity to meet many new people from across the country. Through clubs, classes, and my dorm living I have connected with a lot of peers who have made my freshman year very enjoyable. I’ve met people in my lecture classes who I can study with which makes the course load a lot less stressful. I’ve met people on the club basketball team that gives me the sense of community I was looking for after I played basketball in high school. Also in my dorm, I have created very close connections to people on my floor which makes my dorm feel like “home”. What’s challenging in pursuing these relationships is maintaining them. Freshman year, you’re meeting so many new people it can be difficult to create deep, meaningful relationships. However, I’ve learned it’s up to you to put effort into the relationships you wish to pursue. In order for next year’s freshmen to make the best use of their connections with their peers, I would suggest that they really get involved on campus. It’s a typical thing that many people say, but when you join clubs, you meet a lot of people with the same interests as you which can help you create connections a lot faster. I would also suggest that they get close with people in their lectures because it is very helpful to study with them or get any questions you may have answered.

The Arts Scholars Community has also helped me create a lot of connections. Our class is composed of around 80 people but I have been able to get close with a lot of people through how the class was structured. First semester, we broke up into mini groups of around ten people and worked collectively on a group project. I learned how to incorporate my own ideas into our project, and how to make sure my work meshes well with other people’s ideas. We had a showcase at the end of the semester, which allowed me to see what other groups did with their time together. Second semester, we had a workshop that was led by two sophomores and was with around ten other people as well. We worked on different historical art mediums and had a showcase at the end of the semester to see what other workshop groups did and show our own work as well. This helped foster a sense of community because I was able to get close with the groups that I was put into, and also got a chance to see what other groups did. This program also allowed me to engage with various mediums of art that I had never done before. From vogue dancing to slam poetry to improv, I learned of new things I had never really considered of “art” before, and it was interesting also seeing peoples own touch to it as well. This year, I joined the Arts Advisory Board as a treasurer. With this position, I was able to plan out and budget events with other members on the advisory board. This position taught me a lot about the behind the scenes of event planning. It was really cool seeing the events come to fruition after all of the planning we would put into our meetings. In the future, I would hope to maintain this role for next year and learn from our mistakes and successes and implement them for AAB events next year. 

The role of art in my own life and in my community has been greatly impacted by the Arts Scholars Program. One of the overarching questions that was asked this year was “What is Art?”. Prior to this program, my main perceptions of art was simply paintings, music, dance, and drawing. However, after this year, I learned that there is really art behind everything that we do. Especially after seeing the Capstone projects made by the sophomores at ArtFest, I realized there is art that goes into research, writing, and presenting. I got to see how are using art to better the community around them, which inspires me to use my art with a purpose in the future.

During the Arts Scholars course, I found workshops and the advising meetings to be the most impactful. Like mentioned earlier, the advising meetings helped me grow my relationships with Heather and Harold. After the advising meetings, I also felt more on track and it was helpful to get any questions I had answered. The workshops were also very impactful because it gave me insight as to what I would be doing next year as a sophomore. It was also a smaller class, which made me develop closer relationships to people in the Arts Program. Arts scholars can get the most out of their experience in this program by connecting with others in their classes and also stepping out of their comfort zone in the arts aspect. I experimented with mediums (vogue dancing) that I never would have thought I would do, but it made me a lot more comfortable taking risks which is a helpful skill to apply to my overall life. 

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