Seminar and Studio Brain

LS Seminar and Studio were human brain for me. The left side of the brain performs tasks that have to do with logic and the right side conducts creativity, which are different but make harmony and function together. At first, I thought the subjects as black and white that would not balance each other and thought producing art is more important than writing. For me, Studio felt more about art that requires creativity and to produce an artwork, while Seminar felt like a course that requires to use objective skills to put our free-flowing subjective thoughts into writing. However, as I complete more assignments, my perspective changed: art and writing are equal because they reinforce each other by being opposite as water turn off fire and fire boils water and therefore allow students to clearly present and express their thoughts. 

I was especially satisfied by bridge 1 assignment because it allowed me to think more in depth and explore more about myself. To be specific, I realized that I’ve underwent various changes and my life had lots of fluctuations as I look back at my life and write down memories, but I was part of the changes; those changes were accumulated and made my current-self. This gave me an inspiration and contributed heavily to create the book cover in Studio, “Carousel of Waves.” Waves represent fluctuation, but it is still part of the ocean (one). I truly enjoyed writing I Remember because it was a creative writing assignment that allowed me to look back to my life and I was able to learn how to describe using our senses that gives power to the writing to make the writing look alive. Moreover, this project allowed me to find myself being interest in sensory writings and to learn my strength of exploring and understanding myself through memory.

The challenging part during the courses was to express all my thoughts on just few papers and language barrier since English is not my first language, I had difficulties on finding appropriate words to express my thinking process. Moreover, I had difficulties completing the bridge 3 short story assignment because it was my first time to work as a group and it was hard to come up with an equilibrium that satisfies everyone. Each group members had different writing style when creating story and it was hard to combine them to look like one piece. Thus, I had to change my style of writing and was placed in a situation where I had to write in a style that I was not interested. From this project, I realized I lack experience with collaborating with other people, therefore should strive to make the balance between my desire and others opinion.

The second last project, annotated bibliography, was also a new experience for me. I have written a research paper for art history final during my senior year in high school, but it was different in many ways. First of all, I did not used reliable sources because and moreover, no one taught me how to research step to step like we did during Seminar. Therefore, the research question that I’ve created, the difference between Realism and Modernism, was too broad that made me to have a hard time organizing information. However, by learning how to research reliable sources and to create more specific question, I became more confident in researching and could grasp which direction should I lead my research toward and came up with a question about work-family balance policies in South Korea and Sweden that I pursue to write next semester.

Throughout the semester, I found myself being interest in creative writing using sensory description and found that having a guideline and/or outline is effective. The one thing that I realized the theme memory of both Studio and Seminar is not only about individual, but could be a source to connect and interact with others as bridge 1 and bridge 3. Thus, Seminar and Studio allowed me to explore myself as well as opening my eye to look at the big picture by projects that first focused on oneself and further expanded to the community. For the future, I hope to create artworks and writings that connects people, culture, and environment rather than just focusing on myself. LS Seminar and Studio were brain that allowed be to go down to the rabbit hole like Alice in Wonderland, but also enabled me to broaden my perspective to look around my surroundings.