- The three lessons that were most helpful for me to see were those that both sparked by interest in them and, by doing so, engaged me into their topics. No matter how distant from my passions in life these topics may have seemed at first, they all took me on a ride through different fields I would never have thought much of in the past, unless they came through in an article posted by National Geographic. These three topics taught me valuable lessons that I will be sure to use when I am presenting my own, so that one day, a rising senior may be writing about me and my milestone on a similar blog post. The first of these was the lesson on Imagineering presented by Cesar Ponce, which I had the privilege of viewing during my first week engrossed in senior presentations. Before hearing Cesar's presentation, Imagineering was nothing more than a creative combination of engineering and imagination locked away in the vaults of Disney. Upon hearing his EQ, this being based on what factor makes going to a theme park a memorable experience, I was immediately curious and thought of the many times I have been to a theme park with my family or tight-knit group of friends. The last time was for my Sophomore field trip and the trip was to Disneyland, where pineapple ice cream and many enlightening roller coaster adventures made the experience one worth a neural pathway every now and then. After my initial emersion, Cesar smiled and right away went into three answers to this question, intertwining each with strange and interesting facts, as well as anecdotes that appealed to the senses, such as one where Walt Disney himself had enlisted the help of an imagineer in helping to define what a restaurant should have to be considered, well, a restaurant. Cesar's package indeed taught me a valuable lesson: to relate to the listener is to be able to grab their attention and do wonders with that, perhaps igniting a laugh or two every now and then. In this way, a once foreign and untouchable topic was made accessible and not muddled with confusion and voodoo. The second presentation I wish to reflect on is that of Desiree Zarate, who presented on the art of culinary endeavors and one's quest to define the meaning of 'tasty'. What made her lesson memorable was her activity, one that harnessed one's desire to experiment and used it to make pico de gallo salsa while understanding the salsa's components as they were being combined and stomached. As the word 'umami' came into my mind upon tasting the first bite of my mixture of tomato and mango, I realized Desiree had utilized my passion for food and my passion for trying out new methods of doing a certain something to her advantage and had therefore transformed her senior presentation activity into a culinary art in and of itself. Indeed, Desiree taught me that giving responsibility to the viewer for an activity made it interactive to him or her, and leaving a question open-ended (finding my own preferred taste) instilled interest in the viewer that would keep him or her engaged. The third senior presentation that sticks out as I write this sentence out beyond the midnight hour is that of Micah Chambers, who invested her senior project on the subject of film production. Although she chose a subject that could easily be complicated with bundles of terminologies, Micah chose to navigate through her presentation according to what she had been through with mentorship and all. In this way, she brought screenplays she had worked on in ROP as props, cited a film she appeared in, and listed more than one experience as having shaped her answer to the essential question at hand. In this way, Micah helped me realize that at one point, the presenter in senior project was in the same spot as the listener. Thus, to look at an essential question from the perspective of the viewer and walk them through dissecting it and eventually answering it crisply and clearly is important in making the listener know that he or she is important to the presentation. It also gives the listener responsibility in being able to understand the subject matter at hand, keeping him or her engaged and resisting the urge to nodding off to a dream or limbo.
2. List one thing that you learned about the senior project in interviews that will help you get off to a good start?
- Sitting down with my classmate Jake Taylor and the senior Sachin Suresh was an eye opener to say the least. Each time Jake gave me a nod and then a break of silence, interrupted only by Hedman's sly laughing in the foreground, I quickly searched for a question to ask Sachin, who I saw as a prisoner who had escaped a cave and has thus a story to tell and truths to behold. One thing Sachin said that will surely give me drive during my senior project experience is that I must start early and prepare my components early, so that putting them all together as minutes tick closer to senior presentation date will be straightforward and an opportunity for enjoyment in seeing all that I have accomplished by that time. Truly, that feeling of satisfaction is what makes a culminating experience a culminating experience and thus one for both reflection and nostalgia. With Sachin's advice, I know now to read up on my chosen topic in my free time, familiarize myself with its key terms, and so prepare my nerves for many days of stress, jubilant frolicking, and a pursuit of interest. In this way, I will be able to associate senior project with good memories and will be able to better concentrate on each obstacle that lies in my path during it.
3. What topic(s) are you considering, and why?
- I am considering topics under the umbrella of ecology, simply because I am in love with observing the inner workings of the world around and am obsessed in protecting them from harmful intervention. In this way, two topics have been haunting my dreams and daydreams rather often: that of marine biology and that of urban farming. Urban farming, intervention in the environment with a positive conservation outcome for once, has been sparking my excitement a bit more than marine biology given the ocean science's certain impossibilities including me being able to directly observe what I am studying in an environment hard to navigate in without the proper equipment.
4. What EQ do you think might be interesting to consider in guiding a project like this? (Please don't worry about any sort of formula...we want this question to come from your genuine interest).
- Can urban farming have a truly positive impact on an ecosystem?
--> This essential question would mostly be aimed towards studying how urban farming can have a huge influence on the way the natural world works despite it being a manmade endeavor. In this way, I want to experiment with how urban farming can be a way in which the human species conquers environmental issues plaguing the Earth today, such as the decline of bee populations worldwide through a phenomenon know as colony collapse disorder (CCD).
5. What are some ideas you have about finding summer mentorship?
- I definitely, if urban farming is my chosen topic, wish to mentor at a farmer's market of some sort, a prospect that would not be hard to get at given how many such markets and grassroots organizations are present in my hometown of Pasadena. I would also supplement this hands-on emersion with another mentorship that has more of an environment much closer to the ecological issue, whatever it may be, being treated. One such environment could be a bee keeping farm, where bees are being humanly farmed and where they are also being given a sanctuary from a variety of threats they would face in the wild, such as disease and pesticides. In this way, I want to approach urban farming as process similar to a medicine that must be delivered in stages, just so that the topic can be made relatable to both the viewer from iPoly and the viewer from a university ecology class as part of a PhD program.
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| This picture my mother Martha took of my dog Kaia reminds me of the important responsibility we humans have to this Earth. Just like my dog pictured here, we must overlook our dominion - this Earth - and see it as our only indispensable home that must be understood and protected, in the same way my dog protects my backyard from swooping birds and frolicking squirrels. Urban farming could be compared to my dog's canines - as the tool with which we could bring balance to Earth; after all, we are the ones who partially took it away in the first place and so more than 50% to blame. |
