In the beginning of the semester I wasn’t sure how it was going to go. I had to learn to use different programs but for this class I had to learn Openlab I was confused about how this class would go. I barely knew where to go in order to find where I had to do the next assignment. I’ve struggled a lot through the semester but I have learned a lot in the time I had with this english course. While doing these projects I definitely could improve in my writing, ask more questions to get a clearer understanding with the task at hand. This is something that I’ve been avoiding “asking questions”. I say this because I feel like I could have done better and improved more and while writing this I realized that I shouldn’t be afraid to ask. I’ve also learned more about being a reader and analyzing details and developing an opinion about the topic. In the beginning of the semester I wasn’t sure how I would do mainly because we wouldn’t have these conversations in person we would only have to check in Openlab not really getting that conversation with many people and widening the ideas and actually discussing the project with the professor. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to fully understand the topic but as I worked on the projects I was able to improve my ideas and become more clear into the topic at hand.  

In project one we were to write about what education meant to us. What leads us to the path we are headed, and what caused you to go through with it. With this project I thought of many ideas and memories to how I got to where I am today. It was a replay of thoughts and emotions. A reminder of how the process of education was for me in the beginning as well as that education comes in many forms. For example the “Allegory of the cave” there are three prisoners who have never left the cave and have always faced a wall since birth and one is let loose he discovers the outside of the cave and he becomes the student to a world he’s never seen other than only being able to see shadows on the wall he was able to grow his knowledge even though the two other prisoners in the cave refuse to come out and see what is outside. We all have our way of learning, our own education. Education can be all around us it’s not just school itself we’ve always had education since young learning to speak learning to walk, run and more. This project showed me how education is not just in a classroom it’s constantly with us in our daily lives “we learn something every day” and that is a clear fact. 

What got me thinking the most I would have to say would be Project two. We had to make an annotated bibliography searching for articles, videos, etc. to find information about “A space of reflection” what does it mean? And how is it used? As I did my research I found different spaces of reflection whether it was with a school, a person and a space itself. When I researched about a youtube named Xolani he brought up a great example of how it is important to have that time to reflect over yourself. You realize how much you have been go blind for a long time. He mentions how he started his business and once the quarantine happened he’s reflected on himself of how unhealthy he has been living and seeing for the first time. It took staying home to realize all sorts of problems that were going on while your eyes were closed. I’ve always known that having time to yourself especially in a space you feel most comfortable is important for someone because in that time you have a chance to actually reflect on yourself. This made me think a lot about my spaces and the places I use to reflect on myself and what I feel in those times. It helped me focus and think of what I could do to improve myself. That being said, project three project two helped me think more in depth about the spaces of reflection and how I would come across to my audience. “Everyone has had those moments where they have overwhelming feelings and emotions that take over as well as different thoughts and different situations that cause others to really think about what they are doing.” I want to incorporate how people feel in certain situations to create a connection between my young audience because in times like these a lot of the time you end up feeling alone and I feel like that would be important to include that into the conversation.

I enjoyed working on these projects and it helped me really think about how it’s used in everyday life as well as thinking about these spaces as an architect. These spaces are so significant and are important areas we think about and go into to really face into your reality and or move away from it. This semester has brought challenges but I have enjoyed the things I learned and that I’m more aware of and will use as I continue as a writer, reader, an artist and as an architect. I enjoy creating writing pieces with full detail especially when I describe a building of its shape, elegance and spaces and with what I learned in this semester’s English course I will include the ideas that we have talked about through the projects and discussions we had and hopefully many more to come. This has also helped me with a lot of the architecture projects I’ve had during the semester with creating words and descriptions for the spaces I have created within them and what the spaces would be for. I appreciate everything I learned in this English course.