Over the course of this semester, I had the opportunity to learn and grow in Mr. Poole's Engineering class. Here, I will reflect on my growth in the content, cross-disciplinary, and self- identified goals of this semester.
I have seen personal growth in the design portion of the content area goals over the course of this semester. In this class, we’ve had a lot of freedom to use our resources to create something original. I think that at first, I was really lost with this notion, because even at HTH we often have much more structure for our projects. Due to this, I’ve grown in being able to narrow my goals and adapt what I know to what needs to be done. One of these examples was my leadership during our project.
I had been gone for a week in the time leading up to exhibition, which made me a little bit disconnected from the process of creating and refining the dance. When we started practicing more, I took the opportunity to be a leader and really helped our group refine the dance and the intricacies of it’s choreography. Specifically, I helped lead refinements in the moments of the dance when we were waiting the tables and talked about “brain freeze love”, when we became the car, and when we became the photo booth. For this portion, I brought my group to the commons, played the voice over through the speaker, and practiced these moves. I have some background in dance, so I found myself being the one starting and stopping the music and bringing everyone together to have our cohesive movements. By practicing this and bringing my prior knowledge and experience to our group, I was a valuable component and I was able to unify us to make them more powerful.
I also took a lead during the refinement process of cutting down our narrative. I was able to practice visualizing what the final product would look like so that everything fit together, something that I had learned after working with so much freedom for a bit in this class. I facilitated the process, which consisted of everyone editing down their portions to the bare minimum, then reading through the entire piece again together and giving each other suggestions.
I have also grown in the collaboration and social and emotional health portions of this class's area goals.
I felt very challenged in working with this particular group. I hadn’t really talked to any of my group mates before this project, so it was interesting to now be working together in a dynamic where I didn’t yet know anyone’s work styles or work ethic. It took a significant learning curve for me to be able to reach the point where I knew that Rafa V. and Melissa were strong in exploring and using VSXu, that Rafa U. was very animated and took his acting role seriously, and that Jesus brought a unique, comedic spark to our group, and be able to use these observations to delegate jobs and move the team forward. I also took a role in mentoring Melissa in some sorts, in the leadership and communication in our group.
In terms of social and emotional health, I found different areas of growth. Again, speaking to the fact that I didn’t know any of my group mates very well, I was pleasantly surprised with the personalities that I came to know through this project. One of the most significant changes in my relationships was the friendship that I formed with my classmates. Melissa, Lucio and I were constantly joking around toward the end, and I was humbled by Rafa U.'s commitment and drive to make a meaningful product. Rafa V. surprised me with his deep love for music and inner peace. I learned a lot from him and his mindset of constant positivity. I left this group with a few more friends, and I worked with people who valued peace, and happiness- something that I hope I can bring to other teammates in the future.
I felt very challenged in working with this particular group. I hadn’t really talked to any of my group mates before this project, so it was interesting to now be working together in a dynamic where I didn’t yet know anyone’s work styles or work ethic. It took a significant learning curve for me to be able to reach the point where I knew that Rafa V. and Melissa were strong in exploring and using VSXu, that Rafa U. was very animated and took his acting role seriously, and that Jesus brought a unique, comedic spark to our group, and be able to use these observations to delegate jobs and move the team forward. I also took a role in mentoring Melissa in some sorts, in the leadership and communication in our group.
In terms of social and emotional health, I found different areas of growth. Again, speaking to the fact that I didn’t know any of my group mates very well, I was pleasantly surprised with the personalities that I came to know through this project. One of the most significant changes in my relationships was the friendship that I formed with my classmates. Melissa, Lucio and I were constantly joking around toward the end, and I was humbled by Rafa U.'s commitment and drive to make a meaningful product. Rafa V. surprised me with his deep love for music and inner peace. I learned a lot from him and his mindset of constant positivity. I left this group with a few more friends, and I worked with people who valued peace, and happiness- something that I hope I can bring to other teammates in the future.
Additionally, I witnessed a lot of personal growth in my self-identified goals for the semester. In January, I had no idea what I was walking into when my semester in Engineering started. It was only my second time in an engineering class, the first having been in the 8th grade, which is very different from a senior class. I specifically remember beginning this class thinking “I’m just going to try everything”. My biggest self-identified goal has been to step out of my comfort zone and jump into new material that I may have never encountered before. Having said this, I wouldn’t by any means consider myself an expert in any given area of the content we covered it is, however, an enormous personal success that I went forth, had an open mind, and tried a little bit of everything.
I learned about PureData, and although it was really challenging to wrap my mind around the way that the frequencies and energies transferred and interacted with one another, I developed one of the final performance patches on my own. I also worked with VSXu, and helped to make two of the final patches. In this particular area, I focused on trying to work with people who were more experienced or understood it more clearly than I did in order to improve. This particular program tested my patience and resilience because of how many times our patch made it crash and required us to start from scratch. However, because of this, the repetition made me not only appreciate the process of creating a patch, it also helped me learn certain portions, specifically the importance of an oscillator.
I also participated in the general organization of this project, and really challenged myself in this respect. Instead of simply taking lead, I worked alongside Melissa to help with the organization and execution. Working with this group on a dance and music project definitely brought me out of my comfort zone, and I never imagined that it would result in such a moving, meaningful product.
See the performance here
This semester, the biggest challenge for me was having the opportunity to dive into a course that had me working with essentially new languages that I’ve never seen before. With every new experience, it’s difficult to feel enthusiastic and continue with your motivation when you see little progress. It was often challenging to be able to report specific examples of my growth, when a lot of this said progress was simply in getting closer to being able to understand the content of the project. Again, another challenge I faced was in working with a new and particularly unique group, and being able to manage this project together.
I wish that I could have grown more in the content area of this project. This last semester required a lot of experimentation, organization, and coordination in many areas that I had never experienced before. When I reflect on this project, I notice that I wish that I would have had more time with each program primarily because I didn’t have the experience of becoming proficient with them. With the learning curve and it’s combination with a group-work dynamic, I wasn’t able to truly fulfill my potential with what I could create.
I deserve an A for this class because despite the fact that it is the second semester of my senior year, which is traditionally notorious for laziness and apathy, I came into this class with a positive attitude, a willingness to learn, and a drive to push myself out of my comfort zone. Not only did I do this by myself, I did it alongside a group of individuals that I had never really spoken to before, and worked with them as a leader from behind. I was honest with my challenges, found help when I needed it, and brought my best abilities to my team. I’m incredibly proud of the work that I have done this semester and the amount that I have seen myself grow, and for these reasons, I believe that my performance deserves an A.