Reflection - Attitudes & Actions

Although I don't think that I have necessarily changed over the past year, I do feel that I am finally finding myself as an adult and carving a path towards my career. University has definitely been the defining factor in all of this. I will admit that starting at Solent was single handedly the scariest thing I have ever done, unlike most students I opted to move into a private flat as opposed to halls, which in turn meant I knew no one upon my arrival. Not being a very confident person I found it difficult to put myself out there and for the first semester spent a lot of my time studying alone. I’m aware this makes me sound slightly like a hermit, but I was comfortable with this as it meant I had time to focus on practicing my technique and completing the work that had been set. I spent a lot of time in the library during the first semester and defiantly became fixated on achieved as close to 100% on all my assignments as was possible. Although this may sound like the ideal goal for a student, my obsessive attitude did throw up a few problems for me. 

It was predominately due to this obsession with achievement during my first semester that taught me my biggest lesson by the time i began my second. It brought about a big wake up call in regards to my attitude towards my studies. Its okay to not get it perfect and you have to look after yourself! The constant stress I put upon myself between September and Christmas meant that upon my return to studies in the second semester I was completely burnt out and found it very difficult to get back into the swing of things, so to speak. I found myself struggling with staying on top of the work, juggling extra assignments and eventually found myself feeling rather under the weather to the point staying awake became an issue. This is something I wont be putting myself through again because the most important part of study is the balance between work and yourself. Dedicating 101% of my time to assignments wasn't healthy but i think an 80/20 balance will be much better, for my health and my work as the more stress I put upon myself, the more the quality of my work began to suffer. 

When reflecting back through my work this is something I can notice within the design stage of my final images, although the work is present the passion is visibly missing. I can see my exhaustion through the lack of detail and thought put into a few of my designs and the research seems somewhat less exciting towards the end of my posts. This is when another attitude change came to my attention, I found myself seeking the help of my lecturers and course leaders more because I could not see past my struggling. Admitting I needed help and things were not going well was a huge weight of my shoulders and I found I was then able to get back to producing my work. In addition to this was finding someone within my class that could pull me away for a break every now and then. When I seemed at my most stressed Lily would pull me out for a coffee or lunch to take my mind off of things, or even get me to help her which often brought me an idea in the process. Socialising has never been my best skill throughout my teenage years but this is something I'm seeing improve through University and taking those little personal breaks gave my brain that timeout before it short circuited again. Taking all this into account I can see that the quality of my practical work has improved steadily over the past year. Both my technique in makeup application and design work has come on nicely in comparison to when I first began the course. This is something I am very proud of as I haven’t had any experience with makeup before but from my improvements I can see it is something I am capable of doing. 

Left: Makeup Design 1st semester                         Right Makeup Design 2nd semester

So what have I learnt? 

• Work hard but maintain a balance.
• Nothing’s always perfect.
• Your best work comes through with the help of others.