Integrated Seminar has taught me to use critical thought in order to analyze situations, places, people, and societies. I am surprised at how much I learned about the gentrification of New York City, the history of AIDS, drag culture, and Anna Wintour. This class helped me develop opinions on political and social issues of relevance today.
This class forced me to escape my comfort zone of my bed and desk, and explore the depth and diversity of the city. Not just Manhattan, but two other burrows of New York state: Brooklyn and Staten Island.
In addition, Seminar forced me to accept challenges and most importantly defeat. For example in my B3 essay with my Central Park group, we failed to describe the concept of our garment through research, citations, and analysis of our research. This was a wakeup call for my B4 essay, in which my partner and I both chose to focus on the research part in the early stages of our project in order to make sure the concept stayed just as polished as our studio work.
What surprised me was how well we all worked together, all being from different backgrounds. The openness of the class fostered a comforting learning environment that I was more than happy to join to every Thursday. I liked that the organization of the syllabus: there were separate sections for assignment due dates and descriptions of said projects. However, I would have liked some help ameliorating my technical writing skills, such as in-text citations, punctuation, and organization of essays.
