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Reflective Question 3

How will CTS-A help in my learning and professional journey?

I would like to be a content creator or product designer.

The reason why I want to be a content creator is because I enjoy creating content that can connect people of different walks of life to a common topic and enjoy about that topic together, and maybe even connect with them on a deeper level.

Apart from being a content creator, I’m interested in being a product designer, to create either merchandise or products that people with issues in activities of daily life can use. Or rather, to create products that are more empathetic to people’s needs . 

I would like to collaborate with different disciplines of fashion brands such as makeup or clothing to share more about their brands through content creation and review their products to people of more common social status so that they can make the best out of their money in their purchases and rave together about products that we all love. I would also like to collaborate with them so that I can make merchandise of my brand with their brand as a cross brand collaboration kind of project.

For my final project, I would like to do a branding project for a product, preferably a product that is an empathetic item that helps people with issues in achieving their activities of daily living. I would like to achieve making different types of marketing materials for the branding project.

For Community Engagement and Professional Skills, I would like to focus on helping the Silver Ribbon, together with the White Ribbon and the foreign/migrant worker groups. These are the communities that especially hold special meaning to me due to my past experiences and I would like to give back to them.

CTS-A will help me equip myself with collaboration skills and the ability to accept and give constructive criticism to my teammates whilst setting realistic goals within a time frame to achieve a common goal. 

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Reflective Questions 2

For week 1, I can relate critical thinking to embracing failure in craft, as I need to do multiple prototypes to see which is the best design I can come up with that fits the prompt the best. It also helps me think about each prompt at a deeper level in Studio, and interpret the same image with different points of view for Photography.

Week 2 Collaboration Skills taught me to be able to utilise each other’s strengths and weaknesses and set realistic goals as a group so everybody in the team is on the same page in Studio, and manage time as a group in Craft, and set realistic goals as a group so everybody in the team is on the same page.

Week 3’s Emotional Intelligence taught me how to express emotions through visual means, show empathy to group mates who have difficulties in understanding the task, and know when to seek help after processing your emotions for both studio and craft.

Week 4’s Assertion and Conflict Resolution taught me to be able to give constructive feedback and learn how to receive one as well, especially in Studio and Craft sessions. Knowing how to deescalate creative friction between group members including myself and addressing early signs of unhappiness between group members to prevent outburst of anger applies for all group projects no matter what module it’s for.

Week 5’s Growth Mindset helps us have an open mind in trying out different media and different design theories in Craft, take criticism professionally and decide which to work on and which to take white noise, which would be useful in Studio. Lastly, it helps us embrace failure and find ways to continuously improve our craft and ourselves in all modules past our school life.

Week 6 and 9 taught us about Citation, CPJ documentation, and research, and the importance of noting down the process to show proof of our workmanship and integrity in our work.

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Reflective Question 1

In week 1, critical thinking taught me that it can be used in any fields, not just science and politics, but in arts and design as well, as mentioned by Pooja Nansi. There are certain questions that we have to think about that requires critical thinking that will eventually decide what kind of designer we will be in the future.

In week 2 ,it taught me it’s needed in collaboration skills as we need it to think when negotiating and finding ways to work with different people and team members. Finding a common goal and what motivates everyone to work together using negotiation skills is important so that we can find common ground to work in a realistic time frame to achieve productivity.

In week 3, it taught me it’s necessary to read the room with emotional intelligence to understand personal boundaries of the people around us and also understand our emotional needs. Without it, people will refuse to work as emotional needs are not met and motivation is lost.

In week 4, it taught me it is needed in conflict resolution as we find a common ground to agree on to negotiate to compromise to work together toward a common goal once again.

In week 5, it taught me the growth mindset, where in order to achieve a goal, I need to be realistic and act on building habits and making consistent progress to eventually progress and achieve my goal one day. Also, I need to be open to criticism and self-development. In week 6 and 7, it taught me how to be honest with my creative process and fact check my research so that what I build my work on is base on facts, and I can show that my work is original.

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Week 5

Week 5

An eventful moment in the class I experienced was being surprised by the instruction to draw with my non-master hand, as I’ve never been instructed to do before. This allows me to experiment with different ideas and methods that I’ve never thought of before. The repetitive action of drawing different logos with my left hand again and again helped my left hand get used to drawing and eventually gain slight proficiency in drawing.

Learning this skill will allow me to open new doors to new design ideas from 1 prompt in different modules, especially in Studio research. It also teaches me to keep practising a particular set of techniques repeatedly to master proficiency.

This is one of my favorite sketches as it plays around with different language variations of i.Jooz and different possible design.

This is another one of my favourites where I was able to push the limits of language and design of i.Jooz, although I thought it was too simple.

Frankly I do not know what I was doing here, so I do not like this design at all. I think I was trying to draw a hand squeezing an orange but it looked too messy and the negative space is too complicated looking.

Frankly I do not know what I was doing here, so I do not like this design at all. I think I was trying to draw a hand squeezing an orange but it looked too messy and the negative space is too complicated looking.

Word Count: 234

Citations:

Damaris Carlisle, D-CM101: CTS A - Growth Mindset ( with Damaris

Carlisle), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=761mokSDTvk . Accessed 20 September 2023.

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Week 3

With “Self-management” being “the ability to control impulsive behaviours, manage your emotions in healthy ways, and adapt to changing circumstances”, and “Empathy” meaning to understand one’s own “emotions and needs, and concerns of other people, and pick up social cue” (Cervera, 6:53), I think my self-management skills have improved over the years. My empathy skill is the strongest among all that have been mentioned. 

However, I think “Self-awareness”, meaning to recognise my own emotions and understand their effects on my behaviour and thoughts (Cervera, 6.53), needs more work as I usually only realise the graveness of my emotional needs at the very end when I’m breaking down or spiralling bad. I can improve by writing down the telltale signs of my spiral and from there, notice the signs whenever I have one and take actions to relieve stress or do some self-care to help with the spiral. 

The activity I did in class that made me act as the bad student forced me to think from their perspective for a moment. Could it be a language barrier? Mental exhaustion? These factors could make someone act in a way we deem negative in a classroom and reacting negatively in a rash manner could cause them to in return, have a negative relationship with us classmates and their learning journey all together. 

Regardless, it made me more empathetic to their possible struggles and changed my first reaction to their bad behaviour. I can apply what I’ve learnt to any situation that involves group activities and rally better relationships with classmates that I may have soured relationships with.

Word Count: 267

Citations:

Felipe Cervera, Emotional Intelligence Dr Felipe Cervera,  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD4Zs_0De_o . Accessed 20 September 2023. 

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Week 1

Before class, I understood critical thinking as something that was untrainable and an impossible feat for me personally. However, after going through Pooja Nansi’s thought process on her critical thinking process as an artist, I realised that critical thinking might be more attainable than I had imagined initially as it just requires a more methodical, step-by-step approach.

I also learnt that critical thinking can be used in design and not just in politics, survival, and science-related fields, as you have to think about what makes a good design and what kind of impact you want to leave on those who see or experience that particular design.

I learnt that mindfulness is useful in bringing oneself to the present moment from whichever time period our brain may be living in. This allows us to be aware of our surroundings in the present moment and plan accordingly based on what is happening in the present moment. 

I can integrate this into my learning environment by doing things step by step, looking at what I can do now rather than what needs to be done in the future, and stressing myself out for the potential future that has not happened yet by making to-do lists of small tasks. Not only will it help me stay focused in the moment and on the task, but it will also encourage me as it makes me feel productive.

I learnt more about everyone’s interesting facts and made friends with fellow designers around me based on similar interests. 

Word Count: 250

Citations:

MACAT. “What is Critical Thinking?”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnJ1bqXUnIM .  

Accessed 15 August 2023

Nansi, Pooja. “Critical Thinking Skills A Week 1 Film Pooja Nansi”, 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAHqOIuCsUs . Accessed 15 August 2023