Semester Reflections

Semester 4

Now that I have reached the end of my time here in the Scholars Program, I have learned quite a lot about how I have grown as an individual, artist, and student. Specifically revisiting my first semester reflection, it is clear to me that I have improved my ability to think metacognitively through completing assignments like these. My earliest reflections, while not terrible, do not think as deeply as a more recent one might. In the first one, most of my reflecting focused on simple things like how I should not have been as nervous as I was about starting school, or liking how close my classes were to my dorms. In my opinion, these more surface level deductions do not hold nearly as much value as more recent ones, like semester three’s which touched more on grand scale issues that I likely was only able to consider due to my continuous practice with reflecting over the four semesters with the Art Scholars.

My time with this program has undoubtedly affected the way that I view art. Before, I would say that I lacked the sophisticated analytical lens that is needed to truly understand and appreciate the messages held within the arts. One specific development came from my second semester two Tryathalon, where I went to a Q&A session with musician Meshell Ndegeocello. Hearing her talk about her motivations and experiences making music and art helped me to better understand how a wider level of thinking, as well as a bit of research into a piece's rhetorical situation was absolutely essential to getting each statement of meaning and social commentary out of something. I also learned quite a bit about the role art plays in community building. I have always been somewhat reclusive, but by attending 12 separate Tryathalon events, I was placed in an opportunity to engage with the community and art more. These experiences helped me to learn to think about how my art could improve through the input of other creatives around me, as well as discover how much more enjoyable these creative outlets can be when their planning is done with the input of a greater community. The Tryathalons certainly helped me to view the idea of collaboration in art in a more appreciative light.

In the application of my capstone project, all of the skills I built relating to community were integral to my success. Had I not taken the effort to learn how to communicate and collaborate with my peers, I would not have been prepared to give and receive feedback in the CPSA250 course. This feedback in itself was even more crucial to the completion of the project as it helped me with idea generation, finalization, and implementation. These skills extended beyond art scholars as well, as they also helped me with various group design projects I completed in my engineering classes over the past few semesters, such as the autonomous robot, truss bridge, supportive I-beam, and home refrigeration system.

I have always had an appreciation for both visual art and performance art, though I did not ever try to combine the two before this program. I treated both of these as separate entities, with painting, sculpting, and drawing starkly different from music in my creative applications. It was not until I began my capstone project, however, that I tried to combine these worlds together. When making my guitar, I considered just leaving it as a block of wood much like the bass was, but my desire to experiment with both kinds of mediums took over and I decided that I should combine them. Despite adding more work than I ever would have imagined, I believe the decision was crucial not only in my satisfaction with how the final result came out, but also in facilitating my motivation to continue the project through every stage before completion. Moving forward, I would love to continue similar projects in instrument making, perhaps with more obscure guitar variants like a resonator or 8-string. What is definite is that I will always continue to blend visual and performative art whenever possible, as I now truly understand they are not as separate as I had previously thought.

One of my favorite aspects of the two workshops I was able to participate in was the variety of majors of the students that populated them. Each and every student had different passions and views on art, school, and life in general. It was especially interesting when collaborating for the final arts fest display when we needed to pick a central theme to connect all of the works together, instead of just throwing a bunch of unrelated pieces onto a board and calling it there. In this most recent workshop, “Raiders of the Lost Art,” the central connecting theme of revisiting and exploring historical art mediums was already sort of baked in, so this collaboration of ideas and perspectives was more pervasive in Ren’s “Alternative Art” workshop from last year. In the end, after lots of discussion and collaboration, we were all able to settle on a theme of UMD campus life, which I think did an excellent job of finding a common ground between all of us while still leaving plenty of room for individuality to shine through.

I would say that the two most important things I have pulled from my time in the Art Scholars has been the ability to manage my time in a project setting and engage with a collaborative community effort. Both of these I imagine will prove to be invaluable in my professional life as an engineer, as so much of what they do is based on completing collaborative projects timely and efficiently. Even before this, I am positive these skills will be able to find their way into future collaborative projects in coming semesters and courses. Outside of academics, these skills are also incredibly important for me simply as a member of society, with so much contingent on communication and teamwork.