Zenith Project Progress

Even though I did not get all the ideas I wanted out there, I am pretty satisfied with what I finished with. I challenged myself outside of my comfort zone when it came to writing and creating my own website. There are plenty of amazing things that I talked about and showed for each country, so I definitely have no room to complain on that part. There were a lot of complications like losing a lot of work, having no motivation, or simply having to look back on a lot of information I was forgetting. I love traveling the world and my goal as a creative thinker is try my best to show everybody how to be more open minded. Below are some drafted sketches I did while creating this travel blog site.

 

Where in the World Would I Be?

Reflection Essay

Outside of artistic work and school, I travel the world with my parents. I am ready for any unknown future plans I have ahead of me because I have been preparing for it with all the traveling I have done with them. Both of my parents are originally from Ukraine and came to America for a better, safer life. As a child of Ukrainian immigrants, my parents sought ways to both acclimate me and help me remember my ancestral roots. My father especially knew I needed a cultural connection, so he exposed me to the different perspectives, beliefs, and traditions of different countries. Both of my parents felt that exposure to different ways of life would truly open up my mind to realize that the world does not revolve around one idea. People have different backgrounds, beliefs, traditions, and perspectives.

My goal as a traveler and creative thinker is to spread my knowledge of world travel by telling some of my most memorable experiences in different countries on my travel blog site. I decided to dedicate my Zenith project to my parents, my friends around the world, and the Freestyle community because these are the people who shaped me into the person I am today.

All of the 21st century skills were applied to my Zenith project, however, a significant goal in this project was for me to improve in technological literacy and social responsibility. With technological literacy, I learned how to create a website in a new manner by using WordPress and exploring how to customize the site to my liking. I also wanted to teach other people of what my travels had me go through, so for social responsibility, I used my travel site to educate people on how important it is to learn about different cultures. Self direction was a 21st century skill I struggled with. Even though I might have not followed the calendar or rubric properly, I at least grew in this  area because of how I managed to accomplish everything I wanted with my new vision. This means I properly delivered the message I wanted my audience to receive, even though I might have not met every requirement I promised.

Even though I was working independently on this, I still managed to reach out to my parents to look back and remember the hundreds of different things we did together on our trips. They helped me pick through thousands of photos and choose what places I should put a light on in the stories I wrote for each country. Plus, if I have to be honest, this project really brought the family together since we got to remember a lot of experiences we all endured.

I feel like something I accomplished the most out of all the objectives for this project is testing my skills and experiences that I have learned throughout my career at Freestyle Academy. It is quite obvious that this project also sparked up a lot of self discovery throughout the process since I learned a lot more about the ten countries I chose for my travel blog site and how much I have grown as an individual after all these trips. There was just so much learning throughout the process of this project’s production which can be categorized as quite of a challenge for me. There have definitely been elements I will use in the future since I am very much interested in narrative storytelling and web design. I strengthened my writing ability with this diverse collection of cultures to create stories from while also playing around with WordPress to make this website look the way I wanted. Even though I am going into animation, I see these skills useful later on in my life because of what I have in plan for the future with my portfolio. Also, for animation, you need to be an excellent storyteller to visually portray your idea.

My research kind of had to do with my final Zenith project. My research was based on how visual storytelling should be treated with the same amount of respect as written storytelling. Even though this is not exactly what I was aiming for with my Zenith project, I still managed to incorporate storytelling as one of the main factors to show what I did in each country. I think it is definitely okay that I did not stick to my research paper and I branched out to reflect on another part of my life that nobody really knows about. I definitely would give myself a more reasonable amount of work since I loaded myself with too much for this project, but I still got away with creating a beautiful final product for my Zenith project. I am happy that I changed up my project from the research part of the process since I really felt the need to dedicate at least a big chunk of my work to my parents. Sure, I could have done something that made me more excited or even have more motivation with this project, but I wanted this website to be a sign of gratitude for my parents showing me the world and opening up my mind to how unique and beautiful every culture is in its own way.

I think the number one, most meaningful thought I have about my Zenith project is that it was a challenging yet absolutely once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Like traveling, this project opened up my mind to think outside the box and taught me to challenge myself even if I am not too comfortable with the content. That is what life’s all about, and I am so grateful I got the opportunity to create something that means so much to me and my parents while confidently showing my peers what I created in the end despite all the hardships I had to go through to make this look the way it does today. The Zenith project was like a stepping stone for me since I plan to continue this project even after graduating Freestyle Academy by adding in all the countries I visited and maybe even adding different elements like more of my art to make the site more interesting and personal.