Semester 1

When I got my acceptance letter for Maryland with an announcement that I was also accepted into College Park Scholars, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. However, going to an arts centered high school I was used to taking on new experiences in stride and was looking forward to it. Though Scholars has been different from what I expected, it has been a positive part of my first semester at university and I look forward to having more experiences with it throughout the rest of my time here. Having a community of people and a support system on campus has been extremely beneficial, especially a built in one.
I have made many connections between CPSA and my other courses at university, especially as an Art History major. The concepts we have learned about visual art in colloquium are ones I am familiar with from class, and both work in tandem to give me a broader view and wider range of ideas. One example of this was in the class where we discussed Marcel Duchamp in our debate about what art is and what it means. It was not long after that that we studied Duchamp in my Art Theory class while discussing the era of Modernism. It was so cool to make a connection in two classes and get a more diverse idea of Duchamp and his beliefs, as well as how they affect art now in the Postmodern era. Duchamp was absolutely against visual, or what he called “retinal” art, and believed art should be based on beliefs and ideas, not just what looked pretty. This is so important in Art Scholars as we consume art from all sorts of different mediums and places, and I felt this was really pushed in colloquium to think widely.
I have also enjoyed all of the activities and community building exercises we have done in and out of class. The field trip was pretty much what I expected, as I was visiting an art museum and we are Art Scholars. However, there were a lot of other things about the class as a whole that I wasn’t expecting. The fact that we have studied and experienced workshops about kind of niche topics in the art world was unexpected but so cool and interesting. Things like voguing and spoken word poetry were not topics I was nearly as familiar with, but feel lucky to be now. The only thing I was a little surprised about was the fact that we haven’t really zeroed in or focused more specifically on a certain arts topic, but I’m assuming that will come in due time.
The grading structure in this class is very different from my other classes, but I think it keeps things low stress in the long run as I’m less worried about points and grades dropping than I am in other courses. I like that scholars takes into account the effort put in, and not just what is “right” or “wrong.”
I think that when I thought about college in high school, things were pretty consistent in reality. However, I did think the transition would be harder, especially since quarantine. I was very worried about being homesick and anxious all the time, but I have actually been really steady for most of the semester. I of course have moments of missing my family, but I also feel lucky that I live close enough I can come home if I need to. I think that as I continue living on campus things will get easier. I am looking forward to not having communal bathrooms (hopefully) by next year, as my friends and I are considering living together. Though the bathrooms and laundry, which is always broken, are not ideal, I think I will have some interesting stories to tell later on, and I look forward to the time I can look back on it as a fond memory. It is all part of the college experience, at least for me. I have also felt pretty good about covid and precautions while I was here, which is something else I was also nervous about. It is a relief to know vaccinations are required, and it makes me feel safer. I wish the mask policies weren’t quite so lax, but I also understand that people don’t want to wear them anymore. I just worry for students who are put in danger by others choosing not to mask.
Overall, I have loved my first semester of college and Art Scholars. I think the most thought provoking scholars project so far has definitely been the field trip to the National Portrait Gallery in DC. It really taught me to change my definition of a portrait, and I learned so much about the stories behind the portraits I saw. I think going forward in my major I will use this information to change others' slightly narrow ideas of portraiture and art in general, something that much of the art world needs a major revamp in. I cannot wait to see what's to come.

Semester 2

Over the summer before my Freshman year of college, I was extremely nervous for all of the challenges college might throw at me. One of the biggest things that was causing me anxiety was attending a university as large as UMD. My entire life, I had always gone to small schools. In fact, my high school graduating class was ninety seven people in total. Though I chose a large school intentionally, I still was hoping to get a smaller community within it. College Park Scholars was the perfect way to achieve this. Being able to connect with instructors and fellow students on a more intimate level I truly believe made my introduction into college much easier. I think my best advice to incoming students would be to take advantage of the instructors’ open nature and the resources they provide. I think that I did really well with communicating with my instructors, but I think I could have done more to connect with them one on one. Even just an email their way or the setting up of a meeting can be extremely beneficial.
It is also great to be in a community full of other artists and creatives. I went to an arts high school, which though enriching was also very rigorous and stressful. I knew when I came to college I still wanted to immerse myself in art, but not quite on the level as I did before. Art Scholars was great for this, and the workshops especially introduced me to a new art form I had never tried before: photography. Through the program I was able to connect with other people also interested in art, and have made lots of friends through the classes, field trips, etc. One way in which this was able to happen was when we went to the Van Gogh Immersion and I met other people who loved Van Gogh’s work just as much as I did! I definitely recommend taking the time to talk to people, even if it's just for a few seconds in passing, you can meet life-long friends.
As I mentioned previously, Art Scholars really has helped me continue to engage with art even in college. I have been introduced to so many new forms such as voguing, screen-printing, and more. I have also been challenged to try new things such as with voguing, which made me step out of my comfort zone in a very positive way. I really think that Art Scholars is what I needed to regain my love for art, because of its less stressful and engaging atmosphere. I feel like I am finding my way back to what used to be the thing that brought me the most joy. I truly believe that being in scholars has improved my college experience so much, and I cannot wait to see what the future brings.

Semester 3

After a semester full of not only hardship on campus but also in the world, it can be difficult to look back and remember all the good things that happened. However, while there were a lot of painful parts, there were also many full of joy- and since art depends on acknowledging, this reflection is a perfect time to do just that. Art Scholars has been an incredibly important part of my life for the past three semesters, and the connections I’ve made and the opportunities I’ve had are invaluable.

This semester has also been an excellent time of reflection about my life and those of people around me. A big contributor to that has been my capstone project research. My experience with learning specifically about collage and its emotional and political ties has recontextualized my learned history and beliefs. Learning about movements within collage such as Dada made me understand that collage is more than just gluing paper, it is a political and emotional statement. It taught me to be more thoughtful in my art, as art always is intertwined with personal belief and expression.

I also found mind maps to be very helpful when working on my capstone. Being able to throw ideas down and then connect them after was so important to conceptualizing my final idea. It is definitely a theoretical model I will use again.

Besides that, getting peer feedback at each step really enhanced my final result, and made me feel supported in making my project the best it could be. Getting hand written questions instead of criticism made me actually think about how to improve my work, instead of just shutting me down.

In the world art has always been an important part of humans and politics. There are many examples of this throughout the past few months, but I think that the war between Israel and Palestine is one that has impacted me the most. In Palestine, forms of art such as graffiti have become signs of resistance within one of the most horrible genocides in recent history. We’ve learned in Art Scholars about how art is a way to leave the world better than when you found it, and to make your mark. This is what these artists are doing, showing that even in the midst of so much pain and devastation, they will continue to be heard and seen- and they will not be forgotten by the rest of the world.

When it comes to my supporting courses, a lot of them are tied directly to my major of Art History. However, when I took ARTH200, which is a class on ancient art, I was able to make many connections between Scholars and Art History. In Scholars we have learned about what it means to immerse yourself in art and interact with it, such as when we went to the Van Gogh experience- and ARTH200 showed that art has been interactive in similar ways for thousands of years. For example, in Ancient Rome Trajan’s column was built with the intention of viewers getting close and looking at the delicate friezes carved into the sides, which told stories of Rome’s victory. It was designed in a way that encouraged people to circle it, soaking in every detail. Art has always been about connecting with others around you, and what I learned in both my supporting courses and Scholars have synthesized that for me- and given me a broader view of how interactive art looked in the past and present.

One of the greatest gifts of Art Scholars is the community that comes along with it. This was exemplified to me this semester many times, but the pottery workshop was where I was truly reminded of it. Getting to spend an hour and a half with my classmates just playing with clay was such a fun time, and showed me how many people I have in my corner. I think we all lean on and support each other throughout these years, and I definitely experienced that with the amount of times that I got to just talk over projects or just commiserate about our out-of-whack sleep schedules. At such a big school, Art Scholars has made my community feel small and tight knit. The only downside to being in a living-learning community this year has been living so far from the community center, which has made it harder to access said community.

I think that everyone makes important contributions to this group, and this year I believe I have contributed my perspective to the class. What I mean by that is my comments within my TA group as well as my discussion comments and posts. I wish that this semester I had had more opportunities to do hands-on work within the larger scholars community to improve it and support others. I hope that I can do more of that in the future.

I am not sure if in this semester there were any times I felt challenged in beliefs I already had, but I do think I learned about new perspectives and beliefs many times. One of these times was with the West African djembe. I got to learn so much (again, through interaction with art) about culture and spirituality, and how music can fit into that. I think it's so important to learn about cultures and peoples you are not a part of, and this was an excellent opportunity for me to do that.

It has been an intense semester, but I am very proud of myself and everyone else’s hard work, and cannot wait to get started on my final capstone project and finish these two years out with a bang.

Semester 4

As someone who has grown up doing all kinds of art, I knew when I was invited to join the Scholars program that Art Scholars would be my choice. Scholars was a chance for me to hone my professional skills as well as my creative ones, and to be a part of a smaller community on a big campus. I can’t believe it has already been two years, and that my time in the program is coming to a close. I feel I got all I wanted out of Scholars and more, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to be a part of this close circle.

When looking at my e-portfolio, I can see how much growth I went through in a relatively short period of time. I didn’t have a ton of experience with professional writing and resume building pre-college. However, through my website I was able to grow and develop my writing and networking skills, something I will carry with me for years to come. I think the biggest example of this is my capstone. Not only am I incredibly proud of my final art pieces, I am also proud of all the research I put into it. I really delved into the uncomfortable topic of grief and was able to synthesize my own feelings and the research I did into a project that displays this care and this process. I feel much more comfortable with my writing and research skills after this project, but most of all I feel more confident in my ability to produce quality work in a short amount of time. As someone with ADHD it can be difficult for me to focus in on the bigger picture. I felt overwhelmed by my topic when I first started, but using the strategies we learned in Scholars such as “kill your darlings” helped me refine my research into an actual capstone.

I also think my perception of the ways art and science can work together has changed, as well as my perception of my own capabilities. We had guest speakers come and teach us art forms I never would have personally tried on my own, such as the ballroom dance workshop freshman year and the African djembe presentation sophomore year. I tend to get very self conscious but these workshops showed me that it's okay to not always be a hundred percent comfortable, and that that can be worth it in order to explore something new. It helped encourage me to be curious about other art forms even if there is anxiety in the unfamiliarity. Art is rarely comfortable for everyone, so it was a good way to remind me that it's okay to make mistakes, because mistakes are often part of the artistic process. Through my capstone I was able to better grasp how much research often goes into art pieces, and that they can coexist with each other in a way I didn’t think fully possible before. I think my perception of art has become more open and broad through both of these examples.

This also ties into the ways I drew from Scholars when doing my capstone, as I was more comfortable with the critique process. I used to get really nervous about showing my work because I thought people would judge me, but all of the feedback I got in class from my peers during critiques was never judgemental and helped me improve and build my final project. As I said before, mistakes are part of art, and you also have to put yourself out there to learn new things, which scholars taught me through the critical response process and the guest artists I spoke on above.

Through working with my classmates in CPSA250 I was able to become more confident in my ability to collaborate with people who have different perspectives and life experiences. Working with other artists in this way was so incredibly impactful on my final project, which would not be as successful as it was without that opportunity. Critique throughout my capstone helped me synthesize and siphon my work into an even better final product, which wouldn’t have happened without it.

Art Scholars has taught me how important it is to open yourself up to new experiences, and how important it is to foster a community of people that build you up, but also challenge you to be a better person and artist. I also think the methods we used such as the pomodoro method will be things I will continue to use in my academic and professional career. They help me to feel more productive, streamlined, and focused in all aspects of my life. I am so grateful for everything that Scholars has taught me. I am sad to see this chapter of my life closing, but also am looking forward to what comes next and applying the skills that Art Scholars has taught me.