Bridge 5 – Reflecting on your work

What learning/learning topic or learning process did you find yourself using throughout the semester?

In my first semester at Parsons I learned about how much time really effects our daily lives. I was taught Time Management and how to incorporate it into our daily schedules. I found myself constantly going back to that learning process throughout the school year. It’s vital for students, workers, and people who have a lot on their plate to know how to properly manage everything without getting too overwhelmed. In my second semester at Parsons, I was taught about Inquiry. This learning process can completely change how you view everyday tasks and projects. I was taught to question everything. Before having someone teach me this learning process, I didn’t question anything as much as I should have. These were the most influential learning processes I was taught through-out my first year at Parsons.

 

Where did you use it (in life, in class, in other classes)?

I used Time Management throughout the school year in many different ways. One of the major ways I used it was when scheduling my schoolwork and class schedule with my job. I am a full-time student and I work part time. This can get extremely stressful. You need to be organized, have ambition, and know time management. I had the first two down, but I never really knew or cared about time and time management. Certain tips and tricks I learned about time management really helped in the scheme of work and school. Once I was taught about inquiry and how and why to question everything, I incorporated it into my daily routine. Things that I wouldn’t think twice about before, I started to question. This learning process proved successful. I acquired many new skills just by questioning people and things.

 

What learning did you make about systems or strategies (in society, in making, in research, etc.) do you want to bring into your future semesters, dig into deeper, or explore with other people?

I learned how much work and process goes into simple everyday things. For example, advertisements. The process of how an ad is designed, what colors, how many words are shown, where it is placed, and how it is placed all effect the success rate of an ad. I never knew how much thought and effort went into a simple advertisement that we see at the train station or on TV. I was extremely intrigued by this as a BBA student because this falls in my category. For future semesters, I’ll be using this tactic to get my point across in a clear simple way.

 

What is one ah-ha that you had? What did you learn?

One “ah-ha” moment I had during the school year was when I was in my studio class with Patrick Hughes first semester. We had to work in groups for all projects that we did. I had never worked with so many people before. I was having some trouble doing so, so I asked to speak with Patrick privately. He explained that this is the real world, as it may be more comfortable to do things your own way, different people have different ways of doing things and just because there different than what your used to doesn’t mean that there wrong. As simple as this sounds, hearing him say this really resonated with me and helped me work on group projects better.

 

Select two highlights from your first year. These highlights might consist of major projects or papers. A highlight could also be a productive class debate, a journal entry, a materials experiment, an illuminating course trip, or a new skill. This is a deep look at your work.

One of my highlights from this year was a research paper I wrote for my Seminar Class. It was over 8 pages long and I’ve never written a paper that long before. While it most likely won’t be my best research paper I’ll ever write, it was my first and I’m proud of myself.

To prepare, I first came up with my topic. My teacher’s advice was to pick something that means something to you or interests you. This advice helped a lot, to write such a long paper you need to be interested in your topic. After choosing my topic, I met with a librarian to get advice on how to choose sources and then I created a story board and outline. From there I was able to write my rough draft, and finally my final copy. Next time I need to write a research paper I will follow these guidelines to a T. They made the writing process much easier. I also know next time that while your rough draft will be very similar to your final copy, in reality it won’t be. A lot of adjustments need to be made and its best if you change any little thing that you think needs to be changed. Don’t leave an parts of your paper questionable.

Excerpt from Research Paper:

“While Instagram, a photo sharing app, is used daily by millions worldwide, studies have linked the use of the social media app to depression and low self-esteem in adolescents. It causes low self-esteem and depression because it allows people to create online personas that are often not reflective of real lived experience; and consequentially, an element of comparison by others to these fake lives. When people don’t “measure up” to the experiences of these heavily edited and filtered accounts, they feel inadequate and their self-esteem is therefore lowered. In analyzing personal anecdotes and scientific studies, it is clear that more awareness needs to exist around this issue, and a solution needs to be put in place to avoid further devastating consequences to such a vulnerable age group.”

 

My second highlight from this year is the first film that I recorded myself and edited myself. It was a short abstract film that had to show a simple, everyday event taking place and we had to edit and create it into something interesting. This assignment was for my Time Class.

 

To prepare for the film I first had to come up with an idea that was ordinary and make it extraordinary. I decided on recording my grandpa who does absolutely nothing but listen to blues and jazz music and drink wine. After choosing the topic of my film I needed to get movie lights, and a camera. I organized recording dates with my grandfather and from there the film was making progress. I filmed over the course of two afternoons and started out editing the next day. The film was completed within a week. Next time I record a short film like this I know now that the editing and effects process is crucial to whether the film is a hit or miss. I’ll put more effort into the editing process next time.

Clip of Short Film:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12DnznHnMdUQEuQl_NNmULDLFMKlWBV2V/view?usp=sharing

 

Thinking: Show your thought process. What do these two highlights represent? Why are they important to your learning? What is most successful or interesting about this work?

These two highlights represent the time and energy I put into my first year at Parsons School of Design. I tried a lot of new things my first year here. Everything I learned is essential to my college career regarding my major. I feel that the two highlights show two different mediums of work that I completed completely by myself for the first time. That to me is an accomplishment.

 

If you could tell future students anything from what you learned during this year, what would it be? (Not just in this class – but overall in life about first year at college.)

If I could tell future students something that I learned my first year in college, at Parsons, I would tell them to accept the negative emotions that come with going to college and specifically, this type of college. There will be days that you feel like you don’t belong, and you want to just quit. Instead of trying to hide how you feel, accept it and see what you can do to turn it around. I felt extremely out of place and uncomfortable my first semester as a more business oriented and student color at Parsons. Instead of hiding how I felt and trying to conform to the crowd, I accepted my feelings and took the courage to see what I could do to change them. I spoke with many of the student counselors at the school and joined clubs. When people tell you to join a club in college, you should. You will find people who have similar interests to you and will make friends quicker and easier. These two aspects changed my experience immensely for the second semester. I enjoyed my second semester much more then my first. I had people around me that I related to and I had a support system.

 

Write a conclusion that looks toward future interests, questions, and courses. This is where you’re heading.

Next year, I want to learn more about how to market and brand correctly/efficiently and more about entrepreneurship. I love fashion, but I’m more interested in the business side of it. I hope to learn all the ins and outs of how to properly run a successful fashion-based business. In the future, I intend to own a high-end boutique. I won’t be making any of the clothes myself; I will purchase from a buyer. While this is may seem like the easy route, in reality it isn’t. I will need to have the knowledge that a fashion designer has to make sure I am getting quality clothes, along with the knowledge of a business owner, as I have to know what to purchase, when to purchase, and from who. Along with clothes I want to have beauty products on sale at the boutique as well. I intend to create all makeup that I sell at my boutique myself. For this I will need education on how to create and make cosmetology products. FIT has the program Cosmetology and Fragrance Making,which I will be enrolling in. As a makeup lover, learning how to create my own makeup is a dream come true. In the terms of what courses, I will take in the future, all of the ones I will take involve marketing, branding, entrepreneurship, psychology, and business. Parsons has many great marketing and branding courses that go extremely in depth. Next semester I’ll be taking those courses along with my required classes. I’m excited to be heading in the direction of what really interests me.

 

 

Stephen Rose – Emptiness

Sitting in my dorm with my suitcases surrounding me, I’m packing to go home for the summer. I stop for a few minutes to see how I feel. No emotions come to my mind at first. I close my eyes and try to relax and not think about anything. Emptiness is the word that comes to mind. It’s hard to describe but I don’t feel anything, and even when I do, I really don’t. Im not happy that I’m going home for the summer, but I’m not sad. I don’t feel anything about having to transfer schools, while most students would either be extremely happy, or extremely sad. I’m not interested in most things. When I really sit back and think about how I feel, I realize that I’m empty inside, like something is missing. When searching up artists that relate to my keyword, I came upon Stephen. His paintings, resonate with me and how I feel at the moment. I appreciate the empty spaces and negative spaces in his paintings.

“Born in 1960, Rochford, Essex, England. Stephen attended the Medway College of Art 1979-80, Cheltenham College of Art 1980-83 (BA Hons.), The British School in Rome 1982 and The Royal Academy of Art where he took his diploma in Fine Art 1983-86. He trained at the Medway College of Art, the Cheltenham College of Art, the British School in Rome, and the Royal Academy Schools. Such a long and varied apprenticeship has given his work a depth and resonance beyond what can be found in most of the work of his peers.”

http://www.stephenrose.co.uk

 

https://www.markmitchellpaintings.com/blog/eloquent-absence-the-use-of-emptiness-in-art/

https://www.markmitchellpaintings.com/blog/eloquent-absence-the-use-of-emptiness-in-art/

https://www.markmitchellpaintings.com/blog/eloquent-absence-the-use-of-emptiness-in-art/

Featured Image –

Featured Image Source –

http://www.stephenrose.co.uk/

 

 

 

 

Bridge 4 Reflection and Process Model – May 2019

  1. I am most proud of the research and data analysis part of my project. The topic I choose was extremely intriguing to me, so conducting my research and creating a project that is essentially a scientific study was something I am proud of. It shed light on an issue that isn’t taken serious and made people stop and think. I liked the fact that anyone viewing my project saw that I had a diverse group of participants. Diversity is an important factor for a project like mine. Im proud that my project incorporates everything that matters to me.
  2. If I had all the money and time in the world to complete this project, I would have conducted a larger study. I would have had at least 50-100 participants answering my questions about social media. I then would have hired a filming crew to record all the participants. I would have video be posted on social media, Instagram and Facebook. I would pay to have it pop up as an advertisement on both social media platforms. This would generate a larger viewing for the short film and allow it to possibly go viral via social media.
  3. If I could rewind back to Spring Break I would have recorded my participants way sooner then I originally did. I would have planned for obstacles to occur and I would’ve set aside 3-4 days for filming. This would have left me more prepared. I also would have used my own film camera. Trying to use a camera that I haven’t used before wasn’t the smartest for a final project.
  4. Studio   (Process Model)

 

Artist Discovery Reflection – May 2019

Taking a look back at all my Artist Discovery Posts I realized a few things. I seem to have a few patterns that I tended to follow. For each Artist Discovery Post your mood is suppose to connect to how you choose your artist. Looking back at my mood for each post, I noticed that they mostly seemed to be negative. Since I’m not usually a negative person, this concerned me. I dug deeper to see if I could find out why I was choosing such negative mentions to find artist. I realized that every Artist Discovery Post was due on a Wednesday at 12pm, the day before class. I would try to complete them on Tuesday night. Tuesdays were my long days. After work and class, by the time I sat down to do my homework, I was usually in a sour mood. That explains why many of my Artists Posts had a negative emotion tied to them. The other pattern I saw in my posts was the type of artists I picked. Many of the artists I choose did abstract work. My favorite type of art is abstract. Since I wasn’t googling abstract, I was looking up my emotion I felt, subliminally when I was looking at the different artists that were linked to my mood I must have chosen the ones who created abstract work. I find that very interesting.

All in all, looking back at my Artist Discovery Posts I learned that while I believe I handled this school year pretty well, it was harder for me then I realized. I appreciate being able to look back and see how I felt at a certain time. I really appreciate all the new artists that I dug up when completing these assignments as well.

Process Documentation “Social Media vs. Mental Health” – May 2019

  1. Project Statement:

Social media is like a drug. It comes with many side effects, ranging from bad to worse. The overall promise is that it will help keep friendships and relationships strong, while also connecting you to millions of people worldwide. While it does do this, the side effects that it comes with are disastrous… Social media and social media use intrigues me. Billions of people are active on social media sites daily. While in hind site, social media seems innocent enough, it deceives many.

My project allows you to peer into the minds of adolescents and see how they think. Filmed with an iPhone, this project is ironic in many ways. I am an Instagram influencer. I use Instagram and other social media sites every day. I would never openly speak bad on social media. After going in-depth on the history of social media and how its use has changed drastically in the past years, I realized many things. Most of them negative.

For my project, I took a group of diverse participants ages ranging from 17-20 and asked them questions about social media use and how they feel about it as a whole. Prior to this project I did intensive research on social media and how it negatively effects adolescents mental health. I found in multiple studies that it is a proven fact that social media can cause depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. When I completed my research, I realized that, while my research was extremely trust-worthy and creditable, I wanted to hear my peers’ opinions. Filming this project, I found something extremely concerning. All my peers knew, and some had experienced the negative effects of social media, but they weren’t interested in doing something about it.

 

  1. Inspiration:

My inspiration stemmed from Instagram and social media as a whole. I was intrigued with the formats of BuzzFeed and Vice videos. Their formats were an inspiration for my film.

Inspirational sources- Exploringthe Relationship between Frequency of Instagram use, Exposure to Idealized Images, and Psychological Well-being in Women – by Sherlock, Mary and Danielle L. Wagstaff andPlugged In How Media Attract and Affect Youth –by Valkenburg, Patti M., and Jessica Taylor Piotrowski

  1. Research Thesis:

While Instagram, a photo sharing app, is used daily by millions worldwide, studies have linked the use of the social media app to depression and low self-esteem in adolescents. It causes low self-esteem and depression because it allows people to create online personas that are often not reflective of real lived experience; and consequentially, an element of comparison by others to these fake lives. When people don’t “measure up” to the experiences of these heavily edited and filtered accounts, they feel inadequate and their self-esteem is therefore lowered. In analyzing personal anecdotes and scientific studies, it is clear that more awareness needs to exist around this issue, and a solution needs to be put in place to avoid further devastating consequences to such a vulnerable age group.

 

  1. My studio project goes more in-depth to my research thesis. It is the Part 2 to my research paper for seminar. It presents my peers, in real time, answering questions about social media and social media use. I question how they really feel about social media. My previous research shows results from many studies, proving that social media can be extremely detrimental to adolescents. My project takes adolescents proves that this is a real problem, that social media is really affecting one’s mental health, and that’s its happening to people we know.

 

  1. Bridge 3 ELP Post:

 

http://portfolio.newschool.edu/thomp182/2019/03/28/bridge-3-process-documentation-2019/and http://portfolio.newschool.edu/thomp182/2019/03/28/bridge-3-project-statement-2019/

 

  1. Visual Documentation:My choice of medium is video. I wanted to capture real time reactions and facial expressions for my project. A film seemed most fitting for those reasons. I needed a lot of materials that I didn’t have, so I made reservations at the Equipment Center to rent a backdrop, lights, and a camera.

Storyboard of main points and important ideas for project.

 

Photo of completed written up project outline.

Photo of movie light that I reserved from the Equipment center that wasn’t working properly on the day of the shoot (one of the many problems that happened on my multiple filming days).

  •  I do not have documentation of the actual days I filmed because I encountered many obstacles all three filming days and wasn’t able to properly document while trying to film and fix multiple problems.

 

Featured Image –

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11L6YeOjYcAsRJZcjxxxH6YBZxtdSy0Ch/view?usp=sharing

IS2: Social Media vs. Mental Health – 2019

Social media is like a drug. It comes with many side effects, ranging from bad to worse. The overall promise is that it will help keep friendships and relationships strong, while also connecting you to millions of people worldwide. While it does do this, the side effects that it comes with are disastrous… Social media and social media use intrigues me. Billions of people are active on social media sites daily. While in hind site, social media seems innocent enough, it deceives many.

My project allows you to peer into the minds of adolescents and see how they think. Filmed with an iPhone, this project is ironic in many ways. I am an Instagram influencer. I use Instagram and other social media sites everyday. I would never openly speak bad on social media. After going in-depth on the history of social media and how its use has changed drastically in the past years, I realized many things. Most of them negative.

For my project, I took a group of diverse participants ages ranging from 17-20 and asked them questions about social media use and how they feel about it as a whole. Prior to this project I did intensive research on social media and how it negatively effects adolescents mental health. I found in multiple studies that it is a proven fact that social media can cause depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. When I completed my research, I realized that, while my research was extremely trust-worthy and creditable, I wanted to hear my peers opinions. Filming this project, I found something extremely concerning. All my peers knew and some had experienced the negative affects of social media, but they weren’t interested in doing something about it.

Featured  Image –

Project is a Film. No photos to show.

 

Robert Carter – Depression

Over the weekend I had quite a dramatic experience. this experience has toppled over and has tainted my week as well. While straightening my hair, I burned it complete off. Seeing all my hair attached to the hot iron and looking at the bald spot on my head really traumatized me. The feelings of sadness, angry, and regret where obviously extremely evident the first day. They are still very evident three days later. Every time I look into a mirror I am reminded all over again. It is still very fresh so I am expecting to feel these emotions for another week or two. Depression is the main word that describes how I feel right now. Robert Carter has some interesting pieces that relate to exactly how I feel, regarding the word depresssion, 0n a deeper level then my hair being burnt off…

“British born artist Robert Carter is an award-winning illustrator. He combines a strong foundation in portraiture with a unique sense of visual and conceptual problem solving to create his striking, vibrant and textured illustrations and portraits. Robert now lives and works in Baden, Ontario Canada.” http://designinspiration.blogspot.com/2007/06/robert-carter.html

https://www.deviantart.com/carts/gallery/

https://www.deviantart.com/carts/gallery/

https://www.deviantart.com/carts/gallery/

Featured Image –

Featured Image Source –

http://designinspiration.blogspot.com/2007/06/robert-carter.html

Workshop Notes and Reflection

The most helpful feedback that I received from my peers today was that I needed to rearrange two of my paragraphs. after listening to there feedback I felt confident that my rough draft is well written. I got advice to fix grammar and other small things such as citing sources in Chicago instead of MLA. So, when I am fixing my paper I will be focusing on two big things, grammar and organization. I feel confident that I have enough evidence and that my argument is strong. I am confident that i will be able to adequately adjust my paper to achieve my over-all goal of a clear cut argument.

When looking at my peers work, I see lot of growth. Organization of paragraphs seems to be a common problem (me included) that still hasn’t been resolved yet. Other then that I am happy to work with and read my peer’s work. The topics are intriguing and I was actually drawn in to the writing. The common goal of the paper is for it to be clear and the argument to be addressed with a solution included. Reading my peers’ work, I saw all these things. I think this is because of how well Samantha explained the writing process with break downs as well. Organization is the only thing that I would say needs to ben addressed.

Leon Zernitsky – Determination

When taking a deep breathe and really thinking about how I feel, the first word that came to my head was determination. Finals have just started and I am still feeling fresh and determined to complete them to the best of my ability. Today, I have to complete my research paper rough draft. It’s not due tomorrow, but next Tuesday. Im choosing to complete it all tonight because I put myself on a schedule. That way I know all my finals will get complete in a timely fashion and won’t be rushed. Determination is my keyword because of this. Leon’s paintings convey my keyword perfectly.

“Leon Zernitsky graduated from Moscow Fine Art and Design University, one of the country’s premier art colleges, where he earned his MFA. Zernitsky enjoyed a successful career as illustrator and fine artist creating art for international magazines, book publishers and major corporations around the globe. His work has been exhibited at art galleries and fairs around the world and he has received numerous awards including: Communication Arts (USA), Print (USA), Applied Arts (Canada), CAPIC (Canada).” https://www.leonzernitsky.com/about

 

“Although he is well-versed in classical methods of painting he likes to paint in tune with the spirit of great Russian avant-garde artists. The influences of Chagall, Kandinsky, and Malevich that inspired his art is complemented by the diverse imagery, harmonious compositions, and intense colours. Leon enjoys experimental art, and is continually expanding and developing his style and creative vision.” https://www.leonzernitsky.com/about

 

https://www.leonzernitsky.com/about

https://www.leonzernitsky.com/about

https://www.leonzernitsky.com/about

Featured Image –

Featured Image Source –

https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/leon-zernitsky.html