Introduction

The reflections unit aimed at exploring the main question of “Who am I”. By incorporating various assignments across all three classes, we reflected on ourselves, our morals, and views. It was also an opportunity to reflect on growth and our own value. In English we worked a person essay. Digital Media was a perspective piece, and Design was Aboriginal inspired painting.

Personal Essay

To help us with our tedious college process, we worked on a “Personal Essay” about ourselves, that we could use to send to colleges. The question “who am I” allowed us to really pull out meaningful pieces of information about ourselves. By doing so, we were able to write something meaningful and raw. However, another part of the process was sharing our essay with the class, so if we were not comfortable with doing so, we had the option of writing a second supplemental piece on a topic of our choice. This applied to me, so I wrote about my experience in my sociology class, in which I took over the summer.

Over this past summer, I enrolled in Intro to Sociology. In all honesty, it wasn’t the class I thought I would be taking. Unfortunately, the other classes that I applied to were full. I was ultimately searching to take a course in which wasn’t all based on memorization and spitting out unoriginal ideas. Alas, there were many spots open for Sociology and on a whim, I applied for a spot. What soon followed was a slow descent into my passion for a subject I would have never expected to learn.

Sociology is the study of humanity at its deepest root and is hence unlike any other subject that I have taken. Since the basis of human life is dependent on the interaction between individuals, I feel as though this makes the course extremely applicable in the real world. For example, one of the key lessons I learned in sociology was power dynamics and the psychological effect that power can have on the individual.  When watching individuals at my school push others down for no perceivable reason, I understand it is because of a social power whispering in their ear. I recognize that it’s important to not involve myself with people like that and stand up to them. Furthermore, through sociology, I garnered a respect for opposing viewpoints. At our school, there is a heavy prejudice set on those with opposing political views, specifically conservative ones. When others shoot them down, I make sure to let them speak up, because we have to acknowledge the fact that everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Even though we may have countering viewpoints, we can still learn from their viewpoints.

Sociology guided me to break down, not build up the social walls that surround me and my peers at school, home, and even in our thoughts. It has allowed me to discover a nuanced meaning on myself and the relationships around me.

Perspective Piece

For digital media, we were assigned to write something that we had strong feelings about. After writing this, we needed to record ourselves, and then use After Effects to add visuals along with the recording. This offered us an opportunity to share an opinion and essentially “rant”.




 

Reflections Design Work

In design we learned about the Aboriginal tribes of Australia. The main purpose of doing so was to analyze their native artwork. They used neutral, and earth color-tones to create paintings. What makes their art so interesting and unique is their style of work. All aspects of the painting are composed of dots. Though this may not seem like a difficult task, do not be fooled. It was very tedious and took a lot of patient and determination. For our assignment we had to choose something in nature that we wanted to paint. Furthermore, we had to decide the color scheme and tones we wanted to use, and get it approved by our teacher. I chose a turtle along with blue, green, and brown colors.