Comments on My Fifth Semester

Hello friends! Today is the first day of my sixth college semester and the official start of my senior year since I\’ll be graduating in December. With the beginning of the new semester on my mind, I realized that I never updated the blog as I have with my other semesters. 

For the Fall 2020 courses, all of them were either online or remote due to the ongoing pandemic, as will my Spring 2021 classes. And I had some mixed feelings about this: of course, I love the online course set-up that allows me to create my own schedule, but I found that I was increasingly lonely as the semester progressed. With the exception of two classes, all of them were asynchronous or partially asynchronous with a live check-in every couple of weeks. In hindsight, I did enjoy the majority of my classes. 

This past semester I took 6 classes. They included Zumba Toning, Product Development, Florence Field Study Tour, Fashion in the Media, Marketing: Advertising and Promotion Management, and Intro to Justice Studies. 

Starting with Intro to Justice Studies, I took this course because when my Florence study abroad experience was cancelled, I need classes. Almost all of them were full so I started with Zumba, Justice Studies, and the marketing course. New sections for the other classes were eventually added. I decided to take this course for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I really enjoy true crime stories and media. I listen to podcasts, watch documentaries, and occasionally follow the news, too, as these stories are unfolding. I also really enjoy crime-fighting television shows and movies. But all of the media forms I just mentioned, can only get you so far and provide you with limited knowledge. Particularly with everything going on in the world, I felt as though it was important to really learn about the criminal justice system to make me a more well-rounded individual. But also it\’s something that interested me. 

The next class I took was the Florence Field Study Tour to make up for my inability to study abroad. Of course, it was devastating that the trip was cancelled, it was potentially worse to learn about all the places I couldn\’t visit. It was interesting and cool to learn the histories though. We did various projects in which we roughly designed products that would be designed in Italy. You can see my designs below:

Fashion in the Media focused more on the creation of magazines. We as a class put together a a magazine for Kent\’s New York Fashion school (you can click here to view the online preview). We also had other assignment that involved looking into other magazines, styling and planning shoots, and looking at the work of famous photographers. We also dabbled in creating a website on Wix. Click here to see mine. The outfit above was the product of one of our assignments. We had to create a look inspire by a famous piece of art. Below was my commentary for the assignment, as well as the original flat-lay and artwork. 

\”Originally for this discussion, I decided that I wanted to create a look inspired by Vincent van Gogh\’s Cafe Terrace at Midnight. It\’s one of my favorite paintings and my mind was coming up with looks inspired by the art but ultimately, I felt like they didn\’t fit the Vogue Italia viewpoint. Because of that, I though a variety of Google searches found Gustav Klimt\’s Country Garden with Sunflowers, which inspired this gardener-chic look. Initially, I went with this green jumpsuit because of all the green present in the painting, and went with this floral neck scarf because of the yellow pop and how the other florals tie in with the flowers in the painting. I finished it off with some vintage-style lace up boots, a straw hat, and this rectangular purse that would be perfect for hold flowers, gardening tools, or the necessities for a night out. Looking at the final look, I can\’t deny that part of me thinks it\’s kind of odd, but also I  kind of want to wear it out one day… I guess we\’ll just have to see!\”

The marketing course I took this semester was Advertising and Promotion Management, and in all honesty… it wasn\’t my favorite. In fact, my favorite part of the whole class was the final analysis in which we analyzed an integrated marketing campaign. I chose to analyze the Starbucks UK, #whatsyourname campaign. Otherwise, I felt as though the class was a lot of textbook work and assignments. 

Product Development was a surprisingly easy class. I really enjoyed the set-up of the class because almost all of the assignments were things that we needed for our group projects. As a result, the projects could easily be completed because we could just copy and reformat the information into a powerpoint. It took a lot of stress off of having two group projects. Below are some screenshots of the final project: 

The last class I took was Zumba Toning. This was a synchronized course that I took for similar reasons that I took Zumba last semester. Not only did this class keep me moving, but it required me to move. I had the same instructor as last semester, and it was a lot of fun. 

I hope you are all doing well. Stay safe, stay healthy, and live your dreams.   Jacquelyn

Outfit Details:

Jumpsuit: Gal Meets Glam

Scarf: Thrifted 

Shoes: Thrifted

Hat: Thrifted 

Purse: Thrifted