Freshman Seminar Fall 17 LC10

Month: October 2017

Museum at FIT

On Thursday, October 12th, 2017, my friends and I went to the Museum at Fashion Institute of Technology. The walk was not too far from Baruch, which made it very convenient and not too tiresome! It was located next to the university called the Fashion Institute of Technology. No tickets were needed to enter the museum so we just walked right into the museum. Once we entered, we came face to face with mannequins dressed in different styles of clothing. Those types of outfits on the mannequins were not something that people would usually be seen wearing outside today.

One piece of clothing that was displayed which I found interesting was this nice little hat. It caught my attention because it did not look like your standard hat. It was made up of leaves and it looked like a well put together pile of leaves on top of the mannequin’s head. The description was: “A single red rose blooms at the back of this whimsical hat, as a sprawling bed of leaves shapes the crown. Roses come in an array of colors, each of which has been assigned a unique meaning. The ubiquitous red rose, for example, has been a long symbol of love.” I really liked how the hat had a deeper meaning to it. I sure wonder how people got that had to stay on because it seems like a gust of wind would just blow it right off!

This activity didn’t really assist me during my first semester at Baruch. It was, however, fun to go to the museum with my friends and to experience the museum together. I wouldn’t even have thought of going to the Museum at FIT if it wasn’t for this blog post assignment, so I am grateful that I was able to experience a new place with my friends.

MoMA PS1

Since there was a blog post that was due soon, my friend and I went to MoMA PS1 on Friday October 6th, 2017. We chose MoMA PS1 for two reasons. One was because it was free if we showed them our NYC ID card and the second reason was because it was closer to go to MoMA PS1 then going all the way to Manhattan. When we got there, we were told that we were not allowed to freely roam/ walk around by ourselves. We had to attend a tour and follow the tour guide because it was still in it’s installation period. While we were touring the place, the tour guide gave us a lot of interesting facts about MoMA PS1, facts such as why there’s a PS1 after the name, the history to the building, as well as some intriguing art pieces that were in the museum. MoMA PS1 used to be a elementary school, hence the PS1 after MoMA and the boys and girls were separated. They entered through different doors and there were 2 stairs that went up/down to the same place but was separated by wired fence. That was cool because it was mind-blowing to know that the 2 stairs cases lead to the same place but it was facing opposite directions. We were also shown the boiler room and was told that for a couple of years, there was no heat in the building since the boiler was built and installed a few years after the building was built. As we walked around, I found that artwork can be very odd. One artwork was a red colored in square on a gray granite wall. I didn’t get why it was considered art because it was basically a hold in the wall. The tour guide explained how the square was colored in; the square was colored by the artist leaving instructions for other artists on how to color it in and finish his work. The instructions came with crayons and the artist coloring in the square would press the crayon to the wall until it was crushed on the wall leaving a mark. There were other artwork that we saw such as the open hole in the ceiling of a room. Inside the room, it was warm and it felt nice to be able to feel the fresh air and the suns rays from up top even though we are inside the building. After the installations are complete, I would like to go back and see what is other pieces are available and hopefully understand why such small and odd pieces of artwork are worth a lot more than it seems.

Academic Writing Workshop – Sabrina Chen

For my academic blog assignment, I decided to attend a writing workshop, titled “Using Sources Strategically”. During the workshop, there was a lot of learning involved with each various source and how they are used indifferent ways to portray an author’s way of providing examples. The instructor there was a tall, bald man who was very articulate with words and explained clearly and concisely the uses of various types of sources in a paper.

The first idea taught was the difference between primary and secondary sources. Primary sources are first hand accounts of a kind of experience, whether it is a poem written by the first person who visitedthe Grand Canyon, or an episode of a show. They are where most of the information comes from, as opposed to a secondary source, there was an analysis of a primary source.

They, the instructor gave us an acronym, ‘BEAM’ in order to remember the types of sources by. They are listed as background, exhibit, argument and method sources. Background sources include necessary information to inform you on the topic, which are undebatable data such as numbers, definitions or years. Exhibit sources include the original object, and usually consists of primary sources. These sources allow for specific examples of wide phenomenon. Argument sources are described as sources interacted with by thinkers or scholars to analyze or provide opinion on. These sources help you as a student to garner authority, credibility or ethos by quoting other scholars whohave studied the field in depth. Lastly, are the method sources, which lend framework for analysis, like theories, concepts or methods. These sources are the structure for the analysis to base on.

Through this experience, I have learned more about the types of sources and I know now where to go when I need help with writing a paper in oneof my classes.

The Museum Of FIT

I never would have thought that I myself would come to the Museum of FIT out of all things. One of the main reasons why I decided to attend was because of how convenient it would be to walk from Baruch to the Museum of FIT. From the outside, the building looked big/enormous. Just another reason why people tell you not to judge a book by it’s cover because once we saw in inside it was clearly not as big as we hoped. The ongoing exhibit was called “Force of Nature”. Looking around, almost all the dresses and suits were had designs on them involving nature as the exhibit’s name. Ranging from floral things to animal fur, everything looked so out of place in today’s fashion. My favorite outfit in the exhibit most definitely is a dress based on a tiger of some sort. It had so much color and definition to it that it stood out the most to me. Comparing what our generation’s of fashion is to the past, there is a major difference of what we would wear. Personally, I would love to wear some of their suits presented in the exhibits and I truly believe that some of the stuff people call “trendy” nowadays, really looks hideous. The exhibit was smaller than any other museums I have ever visited(probably can go through the whole exhibit in less than 10 minutes). I don’t think what I learned from this museum will really help me with anything of my fashion sense in the present because I’m pretty sure if I started dressing like that in the past, I will get flamed and roasted. None the less, I am glad I have visited this museum with my friends!

American Museum of Natural History

On Columbus Day, October 9th, 2017, I visited the American Museum of Natural History. I have not gone to a museum since elementary school. I have been meaning to go, but I just never had the time to. The lines to go in the museum and to buy the tickets were very long, so it is better to buy the tickets online ahead of time. After receiving my ticket, I headed into the Akeley Hall of African Mammals exhibit. This exhibit had many mammals that inhabited Africa. The displays were beautiful and quite realistic. There were large elephant displays in the middle. I went on to the African Peoples exhibit, which I saw a lot on African culture and the evolution of tools, but the most interesting were the masks and costumes for the Dance and Belief section. Some were quite interesting and they were positioned to look like they were in movement. Next, I went to the Stout Hall of Asian Peoples exhibits. I saw a wood carving that looked like a fox, but it was a bear charm. Also, I saw other toy animals and theatrical masks. The ancestral worship display reminded me of my own home because we still practice it and every month we would light incenses for our ancestors. I enjoyed the Asian peoples exhibit because I could relate to it. It was an enjoyable experience minus the weather.

 

This activity assists me because it makes me really appreciate nature and the general beauty of the world, but also, I see how people changed to survive yet keep their own identity and how culture is really imbued into every person. I greatly appreciate my culture and the rich history behind it, but I enjoy learning on other cultures too. Therefore, I should seek to try and to learn new things, but I should not forget my own identity and culture.

 

The Museum at FIT

Today, my friends and I went to the FIT museum. To be honest, I don’t even know out of all the museums, why did we decided to go to this one. The museum, unlike our expectation, is really small. You can literally walk the entire museum in less than 5 minutes. But it wasn’t bad though, we saw a lot of interesting collections of clothes. The current exhibition at the museum is “Force of Nature.” This exhibition shows nature’s relationship to fashion and how designers were inspired by the nature. I was fascinated by the fact that designers can blend nature into a piece of clothing so perfectly. As I entered into the museum, the first piece that caught my eyes was a floral black dress. This dress was designed by Karl Lagerfeld in reference to a flower called camellia. I thought this was my favorite piece until I saw a dress that completely blow my mind. I can’t believe how this dress was right by the entrance and I missed it. Anyway, it’s called the Splash dress, designed by Iris van Herpen in 2013. Herpen used “hot air guns and metal pliers to mold sheets of acrylic.” The inspiration of this splash dress, like its name, came from water.

This is how it looks like. Can you believe this is an actual dress?!

In this visit, I learned a lot about the history of fashion and how basically everything can be related to fashion. Although this won’t really help me in the first semester at Baruch, it was fun to explore the places I’ve never been.

FIT Museum

Today, my friends and I went to the FIT Museum out of curiosity. We decided that we should take a look at it since we were so close to it. The ongoing exhibit is called “Force of Nature,” and there were some stunning pieces of fashion displayed. According to the pamphlet, “the exhibition reveals how nature has historically influenced fashion, and how fashion can serve as an indicator of society’s relationship with the natural world.” One of the first pieces that caught my eye was a beautiful evening gown with a flower-like bodice. It was designed by Charles James in the 20th century, and he was known for envisioning his clients as exotic flowers. Many of the dresses were based on European fashion and designed with the theme of nature in mind. There were dresses with floral textiles, and there were dresses with animal patterns. One of my favorite animal-themed dresses was based on the red tanager. It was a black and red dress accompanied with a hat adorned with red and black feathers. It was quite fascinating to see all these pieces of European clothing featuring different flowers and animals that were found in nature. I was always interested in fashion, so this exhibit was really cool in my opinion. The exhibit was not that big, though. My friends and I expected that it would be a lot larger, but despite its small size, it was nice to see so many different pieces of fashion.I learned a lot of information about the history related to the fashion and the designers who made the pieces. It was trivial information for me, but it provided a different insight on the history from the 18th century to the 20th century, especially on the Enlightenment. Although the exhibit itself did not really assist me in my first semester here at Baruch, it was nice to socialize and spend time with my friends outside of the school. I have not explored the city a lot, so it was nice to go to a new area and familiarize myself with this place.

Club

I went to the eSports club. It was kind of late to go, but I still went. At first, I did not know what to do at school. I did not know many people coming to the school since I came from a relatively small High School. However, when I finally came to Baruch College, I was surprised about how many students attend. I am also not interested in many things. But since I did play a lot of games prior to attending college, I did have a passion for it. I played quite a bit of games and probably more than the average person would. So when I first went to the club meeting, I did not expect many people to be there. Like honestly, who would join an eSports club, I thought to myself. Turns out, a fair bit of people did. I met some people who played the same games as me and they also played other popular games. At first, I didn’t talk to them about games. But, as I learned about other people in the club, we started talking more. Other people who were there started talking about video games that I’ve played as well. I learned that in college, there were other students who played video games like I did. We talked about aspects of the game and what we did when we played. Not only did we talk about the games that I’ve played, but also talked about other games that I have not played before. This helped me get through the first few weeks of college because I didn’t know many people. I also was not interested in many things. It gave me a place to express my interest. Also since coming to college, I’ve gotten a lot more homework compared to high school. The meeting allowed for me to calm down and talk about something enjoy rather than the classes that I take, which are not as interesting.