I only participated in the first class of our seminar on Wednesday (I was DAL on Friday) and got a 7. Reflecting on my score and my performance during Seminar 3, I am really proud of myself. Usually, I prepare for the seminar topics and brainstorm my ideas the night before, but this time, due to my tiredness (hhh, sorry about that), I didn’t manage to prepare for the analysis of travel ads. Surprisingly, I scored two “highs” and several “middles” in just one class.
There are a few reasons for getting a high score:
1. Our whole class was debating questions like “Does using more pop-out colors help attract your audience?” and “How connected should your images be to your theme?” Everyone was enthusiastic, and throughout the debate, I had the chance to clearly demonstrate my thoughts (I was really influenced by the passionate atmosphere we had).
2. Reflecting on Seminar 2, I mentioned that I tend to repeat my ideas and struggle to explain them in depth within a short time. However, the leaders in Seminar 3 (Coco and Astro) set up a 30-second timer, which “forced” everyone to summarize their points into short, powerful sentences. This really helped me improve my speaking skills.
Regarding the content we discussed and Ella’s overall performance, our main focus in this seminar was “Travel Ads” (specifically, how to create a good travel ad). Astro, as the leader, guided us in analyzing three posters (made by three different groups, each on a different theme). Ella’s students had an enthusiastic debate about how colored fonts and the use of pictures influence the overall feeling of ads, and everyone participated actively. We also discussed smaller topics, such as the connection between visual content and text, and how creators can draw focus points and create content links in their ads. Ella’s overall performance was amazing (best seminar ever!)—everyone was so intense and eager to share their thoughts.
Great reflection, your point on not preparing and getting a good score was really interesting. And it kinda reminds me of how I never prepare for seminars. This is a purposeful choice because I find that when I prepare for seminars, I tend to read a lot of facts, but not make connections. It helps for me when not preparing because I am forced to think of things in my mind, which produces connections.