"IAS students develop their critical and creative thinking abilities by learning how to identify assumptions, and to work out how those assumptions inform results. They assess multiple perspectives, with an eye to understanding why and how they differ, and developing the capacity to engage in controversy productively. Students learn to identify central questions or concerns informing other work, and to develop their own work with an awareness of their own social positions and clear animating questions. Students develop a range of skills in interpretation, analysis, argumentation, application, synthesis, evaluation, and reflection."
- University of Washington, School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences For this learning objective I chose three very different artifacts, but I feel that they all represent different ways my mind thinks about problems and ideas in unconventional and well thought out ways. The first artifact is a term paper assigned for Family in US Society. We had to pick any national policy (or lack of) that affected families and make a well researched argument for or against that policy. I chose to showcase the lack of paid family leave in the US, arguing how the absence of a policy like this hurts families in our society. I compared the handful of existing state-run policies, as well as a few private corporate policies, to one another as well as to foreign policies of this nature and ultimately argued that a paid family leave policy is necessary to ensure family well-being in the US. I was able to look at an area where care of families is lacking and to analyze the problem from multiple angles to make a clear, well-rounded argument. The second artifact is also a term paper, but this one was for History of Science and Technology. We were given the freedom to choose any piece of technology from history that we chose and to analyze how that technology affected society. I had difficulty settling on a technology to showcase, so I decided to write about how the television show Star Trek influenced technology and technology development in the latter half of the 20th century and how it inspired people to think of the future in the middle of the Cold War. This paper is creatively written with lots of primary and secondary sources. It also shows that I can think outside of the box and make projects work to my strengths. The last artifact in this section is a midterm presentation I gave in Creative Writing: Poetry. We had to create a project that showcased a form of activist poetics and to relate it to course texts. Many of my classmates were choosing very obvious and heavy topics, but I wanted to have a bit more fun with the project, so I chose to show how musical theater can be a means of activist poetics through imagination and metaphor. I highlighted the musicals Wicked, Hairspray, and Hamilton as being activist poetics in action by pointing out themes of racism, bigotry, and more. I was able to critically analyze the works in relation to the course context and to effectively prove my point while talking about a subject I enjoy. |