Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Letter to Future Students

Hello future students,

My name is Michael Hicks and I was a proud member of the Seeing Sideways class for the Spring 2011 semester. This class is hard to explain, but I'm going to give it a shot. Seeing sideways is about finding how, why, when, and where you are the most creative and exploiting that place to create some fun and unique projects. To be honest, you are not expected to make the best thing ever, but simply to make "something". Of course, Ms. Lykins would prefer it to be amazing, but its more about making the actual thing than impressing her. I believe that it is more important, even to Ms. Lykins, that the person who made it stands behind it and shows it off. That leads me to another objective of the class, which is to present and show off what you make from project to project. This is a hard one to get used to at first, at least for me, because you are showing stuff off that you are probably not used to showing people. I finally realized that the projects are usually odd and everyone has to show them so it is better off just sharing.

I believe that I got quite a bit from the class. I learned how better to harness and exploit my creativity. This is a really important lesson, considering that I have to be creative quite often in this major, and usually under a time limit. It was also enjoyable to see what everyone else made for projects. I felt like this was really inspiring in itself. It's good to know what your peers are capable of, especially the ones that you share the program with.

As to how this affected my approach to future classes, I think that it will make them all a little less stressful and easier. I really do think that I'm more connected to my creativity than I was before I took the class. When I do need to be creative under a time frame again, I believe that things will go a lot smoother. I have also learned to trust myself a little more, which is very important. I don't make something and automatically think it's crap. I now can look at my own work more objectively and am better at finding ways to fix a problem. All I can say is that this class is fun, and unlike anything you will ever take in college. It's at least worth a try.

Sincerely,
Michael Hicks

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