I felt like this class was helpful in giving students advice about how to manage their time when attending classes. I also felt like the presentations were inspiring and motivating.

Kennedy’s presentation was very interesting to me. I like the way he deconstructed his images into something completely different. He said that he saw his work as research for the next thing. His images were taken in New Mexico and he used inkjet printer. He said that he works 2-3 days on a single image. Hollis had very large 3D artwork made out of wood. Her images and sculptures were inspired by her experience of her house burning down when she was a child. Her sculptures contained items from her home. Robinson had very minimalistic work. She said that her work changed after she had kids and that she couldn’t focus on her art. Her work was linear based. Tammie had sculptures made out of ceramic and used the slip cast technique. She made her art very tactile because she wanted people to want to get closer and touch it so they could see the detail. Joe’s art was photography. His photographs were of western life and rodeo life on a ranch. He used a film camera and a digital camera.

My five year plan is to get a stable job and make enough money to pay rent by myself and to pay for everything myself.

Part 1: The first speaker in the presentation was one of the co creators of Spacetime Studios. The three presenters talked about their different roles at Spacetime and showed us slides of their work. Spacetime studios makes massive multiplayer online games and created several mobile apps that were first launched on the iphone and ipad. The first presenter talked about the gaming industry and how there are long hours, competitive people, and challenging customers. The second speaker was Bryant, who is a designer at Spacetime. His role is to mold the players experience. He controls the system and content design. He keeps track of everything going on in the game using excel spreadsheet. Bryant also gave some advice for future game designers. The third speaker was Eva who is the live art lead at Spacetime. Her role is to make the characters aesthetically pleasing to the player. She started out playing games and telling makers what they could do to fix them and then worked her way up. She talked about the different roles of an artist in the game industry. Artists will start with concept art, then go on to character modeling, and finally passed on to the animator.

Part 2: My one question for the faculty presentations is; why did you want to become a professor?

Monday’s presentation was very inspirational to me. To see someone who lives in Austin take pictures of such famous people and places was very interesting to watch. I looked up some internships in Austin and found three that looked like a good match for me. The first was an unpaid internship at Snappening where I would be responsible for creating visual content concepts for social media channels and electronic newsletters. Another was a media intern at the GEMS, which is also an unpaid internship where I would assist in photographing and filming in a studio and field setting. The last one I found interesting was Phox Charge, which is a digital media internship. It includes social media management, blog content creation, etc.

For my sequence project I chose a park by the house I grew up in to take photos of. The park was an outlet for me to relax and walk my dog. I want to take pictures of the trails and streams, wildlife, etc. The park is a place that I went when I was dealing with depression and anxiety during my senior year in high school and is an important place to me.

My future is in no way planned. I mean I plan out my day to day life my in the case of my future, it isn’t that planned. I know that I want to graduate college and eventually get a stable job that that’s all I know. If I could travel abroad it would probably be London or Paris. I have been to both places and think that they are beautiful places with a lot of history. I am not part of a student group so I’m not involved in any student activities. The only extra curricular activity I do is photography occasionally.

For this assignment I chose to watch movie number 4 which was called “Last Year in Marienbad”. For me, the movie was about about a man and woman looking back on a past meeting. The scenes would repeat themselves but from different points of view and different angles. The words would also be repeated, it was almost a dream-like movie. It started out telling the listener about the hotel and the empty hallways and things. A man was trying to get a woman to remember a time when they met and she says she doesn’t remember. Again, the main thing that I noticed in this film is that the scenes would repeat themselves over again from a different camera shot and usually from a different point of view.

Based on the two alumni presentations that we watched in class, I most related to the Woman (I forgot her name). She mentioned that she suffered anxiety and depression which is something I suffered as a senior in high school. I think that her box of tools to relieve stress would have been a useful thing for me when I was anxious. Her work was very inspiring and I loved to hear about her making her own business and putting her own original work out there.

SKILLS INVENTORY

For each class ask yourself the following:

1. My greatest strength in Spanish 2 is my class participation. In Comp 2 I would also say my class participation. For Photo 1 and Visual studies I would say my greatest strengths are my efforts to never miss a class and to always be on times and prepared for class.
2. For greater success in Spanish I definitely need to study more outside of school. For the rest of my classes I would say I would have greater success if I didn’t put off all of my assignments until the last minute.

Computer skills:

1. My computer skills include: Photoshop, powerpoint, word, a little bit of garage band, and typing.
2. I still need to learn: More advances in photoshop and also how to use excel diligently.

Research & writing skills:

1. My greatest strengths as a researcher/writer include: I think my humor. I’m not the best writer especially when there is a strict format to follow.
2. I need to work on these aspects of research and writing: Putting in more effort to research to the fullest to actually learn something about the topic rather than just trying to meet the requirements.
3. I learn best & accomplish most when: There are zero distractions, and have the motivation to learn.

ACTION PLAN

Choose one class that you are struggling with or are not doing as well as you could.
Now make a list of 10 ways you could improve your performance in this class.

I chose my Photo 1 class.

1. Put in more lab hours outside of class time.
2. To not put off my assignments to the last minute.
3. Pay better attention in class.
4. Not feel so timid about coming up with creative ideas.
5. Get more sleep.
6. Drink more coffee
7. Take more notes
8. Be more creative
9. Make a better homework environment.
10. Ask more questions in class.