Semester takeaway

3 things I took away from Seeing Sideways

1. A greater understanding of how I think compared to how other people think.

We did a lot of sharing in Seeing Sideways. By doing so, I learned that many of the traits, fears, and thoughts that I believed to be unique to me are shared by many. By the same token, some traits I thought were common now seem less so. I feel like this has given me a greater sense of understanding myself, other people, and the complicated, if subtle, exchanges that happen in human relationships.

2. The importance of starting small.

Many of my projects in this class would never had been finished if I hadn't started somewhere. In particular, doodling, which seemed silly at first, made me realize that by doing something small and seemingly insignificant, you could have a dramatic change in the way you think. It freed my mind up from worrying about the final picture and allowed me to start with the beginning. Likewise, sometimes the smallest phrases said by someone can have drastically different meanings to different people.

3. An increased confidence in what I'm doing.

It is readily apparent that nobody trusts we PR folk. Things to this nature were expressed numerous times over the course of the semester by the majority of the class. It is also something I see every time I tell someone my major and get *that* face. That said, communications in the modern world is a chaotic beast of a mess, and someone has to make sense of it. Because a few of my peers cut corners or use subversive measures in lieu of earning any kind of real understanding of their public, it gives the rest of us a bad name. I intend to expand the way people think in a way that makes my job harder.

Fear Factor response

1. The fear project that I responded most strongly to was the one about being afraid of not living up to the expectations set for you by yourself and others. This was an underlying fear that many people seemed to share, but the one that hit hardest for me, was the guy who talked about his fear of sacrificing his own personal creative goals to meet the "success" goals his parents set for him.

2. I responded strongly to this one because I share a similar fear. I also have parents who expect a lot from me professionally and a lot of my own goals that contradict their's. They don't see the purpose of my specialization in entertainment and technology and I don't see the purpose of living a meaningless life on a mountain of money. This creates a rift between us that is the root of a lot of anxiety.

3. It makes me wonder if by (sort of) saying "fuck it" to the assignment, and to many parts of school at large, I'm expressing a rebellion that I've always had trouble with at home. It seems like some of my best work comes to be from when I subvert an overwhelming pressure by abandoning the rules and thinking outside the box.This is perhaps a skill earned by growing up under strict rules and learning how to use them to my advantage.