Semester Reflections

Semester 3

As I am now well past the halfway mark of this program, it is crucial to be retrospective of my time here in the arts scholars program so far. To begin, I asked myself a series of questions that correlate to the message and mission of the program overall. When asking how the arts can reshape and reform our preconceived beliefs and values, I immediately thought about our recent capstone proposals, where many of my peers shared topics that were providing critical perspectives on gritty histories, political ideologies, and perspectives of looking at the world. Specifically, Helen’s idea to critique the story of Adam and Eve with a spin on personal identity as well as Ashna’s proposed stories on the parallels to violent political regimes and modern idolization of politicians both seemed to be very complex and meaningful messages that brought up contemporary topics that I likely would not have not have thought about otherwise. Additionally, by raising questions surrounding the creative process, I came to the conclusion that inspiration is not something that simply strikes you. You must put in a considerable amount of effort to have these ideas. This was made most apparent to me when trying to pick the generic concept of my project. For the longest time I had no idea what I wanted to focus on until we did a series of mind mapping activities, at which point I suddenly had idea after idea, all stemming from a simple picture on a page. One final thing I considered was how I improved on my skill of receiving feedback. Every activity and step we took towards refining our final project concept included some degree of communication with peers, staff, and ourselves. I was given many opportunities to practice asking meaningful questions about the next step, with the most useful time being my one on one conversation with Irene after the initial research phase. Simply having a conversation allows for many ideas to be shared and ultimately is the quickest way to unpack the work being done.

During the semester, shortly following the election, I went to Washington DC with my girlfriend and her friends to participate in a protest for women’s rights. At the event, there were many signs and posters made with the intention of making the message reach wider audiences. I found this experience to be really insightful in that my time with the arts scholars community allowed me to more appreciate the variety of calls to action being made by the rest of the protesters. Even a simple slogan was obviously personalized and meaningful to the person who brought it, and I think it was an excellent application of the arts related literacy we practice in the classroom.

Outside of the arts scholars classroom, I have been applying this semester’s gained knowledge to other courses. In my ENES220 Mechanics II course, we worked on a group project involving the designing and optimization of a wooden I-beam, which was tested to determine the max loading it could hold. Due to arts scholars, I feel as if I was better equipped to more effectively provide feedback to my group members when a portion of the design was maybe done incorrectly, or the math and subsequent analysis was maybe not done correctly. Secondly, the ideation process we used in colloquium was applicable in this case by allowing me to think out different kinds of designs and cross section geometries during the optimization process.

One of the best things I have gotten out of this program was the friendship I made with my roommate Carlos. I met him solely because my random arts scholars housing assignment placed us together, and we have been friends ever since. One thing that is especially helpful about this is our similar majors, allowing me to reliably have someone close to ask questions or clarify something if I am not entirely confident, and vice versa. Additionally, this program’s lack of a strict requirement of capstone project subjects also provided me with the opportunity to pursue technical skills that interest me and are applicable to my major, but I would not have had an in class opportunity to pursue otherwise. However, I would say that this program falls short in my in-major learning simply due to a lack of overlap, though I do not see this as a problem as there are plenty of valuable skills I can get out of the arts scholars.

This semester saw my introduction as a peer mentor, which has allowed me to become involved with the new cohort of scholars. I have truly enjoyed my role in this position, as I know from my own experience last year how helpful having someone to ask questions to can be. One thing that I wish went differently with this would be the engagement from the mentees. While I understand that not everyone particularly cares for having a peer mentor, outside of the initial week or two of class I feel like my presence was not really needed by the freshman. Regardless, I would say it was a positive experience overall and I look forward to being a resource for them when they need it going into next semester.

When it comes to values and beliefs that are different from mine, I would say that largely this program is full of people with similar values and mindsets to me in many ways. The only thing I can really think of is how this program provides me with an opportunity to hear the opinions and feelings of others towards contemporary issues who may present a different identity than I do. While this does not necessarily indicate differing values, I believe it to be extremely important and interesting to see how different perspectives reach the same conclusions and values as me with different reasoning and rationale. Overall I would say that the main benefit of this program is the opportunity to connect with others that I would not in my major otherwise.