Bringing a tear to my eye

Camille Santander's blog post evaluating her experience in my class this semester literally made me cry. This has been the best semester yet and I can't wait to see all the amazing things that each and every one of the students from this class go on to do. 

Camille is a student who watches carefully and reserves her judgements until she has enough information. She took quickly to topics like critical thinking and communication skills. She penned out a SMART goal and bam, had completed it within weeks. Camille embodies tenacity and brings a smile to the face of others. Camille doesn't quite fit the cookie cutter molds already available at the Academy of Art - her dream is to be a Public Relations guru in the Fashion Industry, so she's got her work cut out for her as far as getting the most out of her education here. A smattering of classes from Merchandising, Journalism, and Styling, this girl will definitely reach some great heights. Check out her blog and final project here. 

Cook Delicious Food, Do Great Design

Kaicheng goes by the moniker Kitchen. I LOL'd when I read the caption underneath his business card here.

Kai is the experienced street artist among us. He would rather be out painting walls than listening to a lecture, but the thing is, he actually is listening. He never missed a beat on the topics at hand and never wavered in his identity as an artist. He is also the first and only student to ever interrupt me interrupting him and tell me to "Be quiet. I'm not finished." I won't ever forget that.

Above and Beyond

A quick shout out to the students who got their business card prototypes onto paper and into my hand. Thank you for the tactile example of excellent student work!

All the world's a stage

Tevin's big smile and even bigger heart welcomed all to our LA 151 class this semester. She instantly connected with her classmates and helped everyone corral into a dedicated learning team. Tevin is an artist and a filmmaker. She is also an actress. Simply put, Tevin shines.

Yet Tevin has taught us an important academic lesson this semester. Early tenacity and inspiration are not enough by themselves - we must push through and last long enough to complete the final leg of this race that we call life (and school). Per Tevin, her bad academic habits can be defined as a strong start, a petering out, and a weak finish. She caught herself losing momentum as this semester dragged on and on. This summer, though, she has an important audition with a performance arts college in New York. This is a girl who will be a star - but will she be able to keep up the hard work and waning motivation to get things done, even when she doesn't want to? I think it's a safe bet to say that no matter what the future holds for Tevin, she will achieve great things. Here's her blog.

A little bit of everything

Na na na na, hey hey hey... GOODBYE.

I secretly sing that song in my head everytime I say Nae's name. Nae, of course, is our very own Annette Orduno, a connoisseur of art and design, an Advertising major, and a future cutting-edge curator of that which is and will be art de rigueur. Nae has brought a cool and introspective head to the class and helped push the other student's past their own academic blocks, unblocking her own creative aspirations in the meantime. This young woman wants it all - expertise, composition, technique, inspiration, collaboration. She has some really rad project ideas and all the potential in the world to get them done. Check out her blog here and especially her business card design. It's simply awesome. 

The Great Motivator

When group project time rolled around this semester, there was one student who wouldn't stand for anything less than excellence in his group. Promising to get our perpetual latecomer, Adam, to class on time that day, Karl Muller made it is his personal mission to ensure that his group's project was the best that it could be. And it certainly was.

Karl not only worked his motivational magic on Adam, but on the entire class. He constantly and consistently pushed the students in our class to work harder, be better, and recognize challenges in order to confront them. Karl shared so much of himself, I am sure we will always remember him as the great motivator of LA 151. Here is Karl's blog and final project. I recommend that all of you keep an eye on Karl's photojournalism from here on out. This accomplished US Army veteran is going to be part of some great things.

Business Card

As you may recall, one of the requirements of this blogging project is to feature a protocol of a business card - the ultimate currency of professional identity.

After showing the class my own past brainstorming ideas for a card design, I promised I would make my own protocol this time around as well. Here is my best effort after about 2 hours of trying to figure out how to get a picture underneath text using Microsoft Word. What do you think?

I hope (and expect) that the students' business card protocols will turn out a lot better. I look forward to seeing everyone's creativity and professionalism!