Reflections of an Education

Hi everyone ^_~/ Welcome back! 

As you may know from my first blog, I’m currently taking a Concept Development class at California State University Los Angeles (CSULA), with Professor Jimmy Moss.  I want to share, once again, what I’ve been learning in his class ^_O

Tuesday’s topic was about reflecting from our education as Prof. Jimmy questioned us about our majors.  He asked how many of us went to see the Student Show from last quarter.  The show is displayed in the first floor of our Fine Arts Building (FA Bldg).  Very few saw it.  Then, he asked how many of us are Graphic Design (G.D.) majors, many raised their hands, including me.  He then asked what was our excuse for not seeing it especially if we are majoring in the field.  We were burnt with our own torch for success.  Even if I wasn’t a G.D. major at the time, I was still an Art major in Animation, so I have no excuses ‘^,~\ Since almost all of us aren’t involved in pursuing more than outside of class, he advised us to, “Think seriously and explore, eat as much design as possible… each day seek out rather than opportunities to come to you, be able to grow.”  I felt it’s time to get serious with my education, to get involved not only outside of class, but also outside of school.   I need to start getting fat with both knowledge and creativity.

We then had to reflect on the difference between a game and a test.  According to us, both are a competition and give rewards, but the word game is positive as it’s fun and the word test is negative since it’s stressful.  Prof. Jimmy approached this activity by saying, “We’re going to have a small test,” and we responded with pessimism, so then he changed the word ‘test’ to ‘game’ and our mood changed drastically to optimism.  His purpose was to teach us the power of words, and that although he used two different words, the concept didn’t change.  In addition, he informed us that an image is an idea that communicates visually, so words are carefully chosen as they tell a story.  Furthermore, he said that designers have to combine words and images, so they have to be sensitive when choosing the size of the words, image(s), the colors of both the image and words, and so on.  This was a warm up for the slideshow he was about to show us.

The presentation started with a photograph of a family.  However, the activity was not to interpret who and what were in the photo, but to be like a detective by providing visual evidence.  One of my classmates said, “It’s a group of people,” that was good, then someone else mentioned, “there’s a woman with a smile,” that was an interpretation.  Prof. Jimmy corrected my classmate by saying, “The third figure to the left wearing a pink suit…” that was providing visual evidence.  The activity was for Visual Intelligence (or Literacy as some people call it) and Application.  It was interesting but somewhat difficult since we’re used to interpreting and not analyzing the photographs like detectives do ^O^ LOL!!!  The first couple of photographs were about Prof. Jimmy’s family,  was an entirely red photograph.  We had to say what we thought red means. Some of our answers were: “Warning, stop, urgent, passionate, hot, dangerous, sexual, and etc…”  Prof. Jimmy pointed out that the color red provokes, it gets attention, as it is not quiet.  Therefore, the octagon stop sign is red, and it gets our attention even though if it didn’t have the letters “S T O P” in it.  He also pointed out that was the reason why many fast food restaurants, such as Jack in the Box, have red on their signs and logos.  The color red calls for customers.  What was the point of these two images?  I believe it was an introduction to prepare us for the following photographs. 

The next photo was about our home planet from out in space.  Thanks to the first man who landed on the moon and took photographs of Earth, we are immensely fortunate to exist in this era because we were able to see how our world looks.  After a few minutes from looking at the details our blue, white, brown, and green planet, Prof. Jimmy displayed another photo of Earth.  The calm feelings that I was experiencing from looking at Earth in the previous photo were disruptive with the new one.  What I thought I saw at first was a special effect of Earth exploding, but it was thousandths of satellites covering the outer part of our world.  As if global warming wasn’t enough.  I didn’t even know how many satellites were out there.  I felt a huge impact.  It’s true, it’s not all that bad like Prof. Jimmy mentioned, without all those satellites we wouldn’t have the Internet and all of the benefits of fast communications… but, I feel guilty.  I was already concerned with Al Gore’s documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” and that’s when I learned about the problems concerning global warming, and now I learned in this class that there are even more threats?  Prof. Jimmy informed us that one of the satellites recently crashed into Earth.  That’s terrifying.  Just imagine if all of those satellites were to crash all at once into our land?  It’ll be like comets destroying everything and everyone they hit.  I worry for all of us and for the health of our planet.  What will happen to our future generations?  We need to reflect and take action.  I wish Nasa could invent some sort of vacuum & clean up most of those satellites, that way, we can all still have the Internet and protect our planet as well.       

Our class ended by taking a homework assignment, “My Life as a Graphic Novel: How I Made it to College.”  We have to reflect by deciding four main events and answer the prompt in a visual communication manner.  That means, we have to draw in four rectangles how we got here.  Look forward to my four chosen events on my next blog ^_~/ Thanks for reading.

Vocabulary-My Own Definition of Adjectives:

1.) Fat: Over eat, exaggerate, take more than enough.

2.) Sensitive: Delicate, careful, professional.

3.)  Calm: Peaceful, relaxing, at ease, state of meditation.