Reflection on the first UAYSFA session

I was really looking forward to the first day of UAYSFA. I had been thinking a lot about it the prior week, trying to envision how the day would go. In our post class discussion, others had mentioned their surprise at the age range of the students. I was defiantly expecting that the students interested in the program would be older high school students who probably had some idea or expectation of what they wanted to do in our program. There are a lot more younger-aged students than I had thought there would be, and their expectations seemed to be much more social driven. I don't think that this will have any affect on how our projects develop, I was just unexpectedly surprised.

I was concerned about how much would need to be prepared for the first day. I was most concerned about finishing my example project and making it look really polished and a desirable project to make. I knew the artist trading cards would be an easy project for the students to work on, but I was concerned that there would be a lot of extra time. I’m not sure if we were unorganized, but I think the time the students had to talk and meet the other students was really positive. I think that in future SFA programs that providing students with this extra time on the first session would be very beneficial.

My developing concerns regard the timing of building our structures. I really hope that our group can finalize our concept and imagery early so that we begin designing our boxes and masonite cutouts. The sooner we can assemble our structures, the more time we’ll have to thoroughly explore our concept and make a really cohesive final piece.