Which assignments helped you to grow and in what specific ways? What interests sparked? List at least two.
The assignments that have helped me grow as an individual the strongest were Bridge 3 and Bridge. From those two assignments, it provoked me to think a little more about the topics the bridges revolved around and applied it to my Seminar and Studio assignments.
Bridge 3 allowed me to think more critically in clothes. The ideas set upon me from the introduction of this bridge triggered a switch in my perception of clothes, an everyday object, in society, in a different life. I guess I can proclaim I was aware of the clothing stereotypes but I never gave any critical thought to it until reading articles, visiting an exhibition in the MoMA, and making the actual project. In Studio, my group and I shared the same ideas and with these ideas, and we wanted to play around and poke fun with these common themes found in our ideas. We planned to make a Little Denim Dress – parody to the Little Black Dress – to display a point that the material of denim is just as versatile in terms of style, as a black dress is to portray the wearer.
Bridge 4 made me aware of gentrification. Every street has a history it’s just that some are more boring than the others. But Broome Street sort of made me ponder about how much it has changed since history’s times. In fact, some of the histories still remain today, at one side of the street. The other side has totally changed. This makes me want to wonder.. what’s going to happen in the next couple of years on Broome Street? How are immigrants moving to NYC shape the neighborhood?
Which early projects seem connected to your research project?
I’d like to say that my Bridge 1 was the most connected to my research project, if Bridge 4 was the “research project” as questioned above. I think it’s because Bridge 4 was centralized around a location in NYC, and the fact that I grew up in NYC myself makes me kind of reflect… how residents who are and aren’t involved in that street are somewhat related to the ideas of the street. Even there probably is no connection whatsoever, it identifies with self, which is the ideas of Bridge 1. How does the fact I live in this city shape up my self? My avatar?
Where were there moments of synchronicity between Seminar & Studio, when your work seemed truly integrated?
Despite not having much of a memory of past projects, I do believe there were moments of synchronicity between my Seminar & Studio projects. But whenever one has happened, it feels as if I “know” what I’m doing, or that I reach a deeper understanding of the point between the assignments between Seminar & Studio.
Throughout the semester, how has your writing ability changed? Cite some examples to illustrate your point.
As the semester comes to a close, I’m aware my writing still has ways to go. First of all, I still need to fully adapt to the Chicago Style format, as I’m still struggling a little bit with the citations and the bibliography. But that’s just a minor issue. Many of my arguments lack strong citations and evidence to support my claims, and many of my pointers still lack in clarity. My writing is still as vague as the fog but I’ve been struggling to work on clarity and description to my work. Despite those struggles, I felt as if I’m slowly improving on being descriptive to certain areas of whatever I compose, and I think it’s because I’ve somewhat found my own style (or rather I’ve come to figure out some of my strengths in my writing. One thing I’ve found strong is my use of questioning in certain ideas to provoke both myself and the reader to think deeper and look at what is in front of us from a different perspective. Otherwise, I have yet to identify some strong points in my writing.
Throughout the semester, how has your approach to reading progressed? Or how has text changed your work?
Before this semester started, when I was given long readings and passages, I always ended up skimming through the text as they sort of overwhelmed me. Now, at least after developing the habit of annotating, I start to question my readings instead. Through this method, I felt as if questioning and annotating allowed the text to sink in deeper into my mind than before. It allows me to so to speak, embed whatever I read into my brain.
Throughout the semester, how have your making skills progressing? Include allusions to projects to illustrate your point.
Although I may be still slightly afraid of touching power tools, I felt that through these projects, I learned more about these tools and how using them can positively affect the outlook for results. I guess making something “big” is deemed to be more impressive than the latter. I became more aware of shaping the process in my mind and making the iterations have helped me improve.
Which assignments proved particularly challenging? Why? How did you meet that challenge?
Bridge 3 was definitely challenging. At least for Studio, it was. We had no fashion design major, and none of us really knew how to ‘design’ or construct a dress. It was really such a struggle at first but we were able to overcome that by making our dress design to be “clever”. Instead of making a “full” dress, we cut up patches of denim and connected them together using tiny rings. There was little sewing necessary for the project, or rather we only needed to sew certain areas together to prevent the corners and the edges of the dress from limping.
Which assignment(s) that you completed might you consider a kind of failure? Why? How can you learn from this failure?
The assignments that I have considered to be a failure are Bridge 1 & 2. For Bridge 2, even though my partner and I did get along; there was a heavy lack of communication. In Seminar, this lack of communication was not the biggest problem as our assignments required us to interact with one another in class, but in Studio it was terrible for the both of us, that we needed an extension in order to complete our project effectively. From this failure, I learned that I must push myself to create some form of communication with my partner, and even if there are some factors that block us, we must push to make it work. To communicate is such an important factor in group projects, that if there’s no communication, there’s no success.
Both in your writing and making, do you see common threads or themes? What ideas occurred to you again and again?
Unfortunately, I’m not too sure if I do see some sort of connection between my writing and my making but I guess I like to try to keep things as simple as possible. But, of course, that doesn’t do the deed all the time. I do notice that there are many times when I question many things to provoke a deeper thought in myself and the readers.
How can you use what you’ve learned in Integratives this semester and apply it to next semester and to your focus at Parsons?
One thing I will definitely do is to conserve the idea of being open to ideas into my focus of next semester. Another thing is to retain the traits of curiosity when certain ideas spark. One idea will always affect others to spark other ideas, and that’s what really made this class strong and effective.
What questions or interests sparked this semester would you like to pursue in more detail next semester?
I’m not too sure, really. I guess I would just like to see what sort of ideas will pop out next semester. How one idea can inspire another, or shape one’s mind and thinkings to such different mindsets.
