Julia Schoen

During my first year of college, I found myself signing up for a variety of classes in order to find an area of study that would fit my passions and interests to the highest potential. Although this helped me to see what aspects of my education I was not interested in, I was also overwhelmed at the idea of having to choose a specific major to study for the rest of my college career. However, when I transferred to the University of Washington Bothell, everything seemed to fall into place. I never intended to double major, but I found that the School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences (IAS) allowed me to merge several of my passions into one undergraduate educational experience. Through the incorporation of two different majors, interactions with various faculty and peers, the running theme of representation, and its importance, I have found that my time at this university has helped me to grow into the capable, understanding, and compassionate person I am today.

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One half of my undergraduate experience is within the Media & Communications Studies (MCS) department. Through my passion of creative arts, I was able to gain many skills in the areas of video production, creative writing, and even hands on projects, including an implementation of an art installation. I was able to learn how to take certain areas of fine arts and incorporate them into other areas of communication, both visual and written. For example, within the course BISIA 440: Advanced Visual Media and Arts Workshop, students were asked to create an art installation that somehow involved video-based works. For my project, I wanted to take my passion for fine arts and connect them with the skills that were learned through other areas of MCS, including video production and visual communication. I decided to film the splattering of paint onto a large piece of glass and project the video onto four white walls, hoping to spark a sense of surrounded chaos for the viewer. This was difficult at first, because I had to figure out how to bring my ideas to life in a way that would be understood by the audience. Although this was a challenge, I was able to use skills learned through other courses, including BIS 235: Critical Media Literacy, in order to effectively inform the audience of my initial intentions. This art installation was a major turning point within my MCS experience because I was able to learn how to explicitly use my passions for creative arts and adequately communicate my thoughts, which will serve as very important skills down the road.

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The second half of my undergraduate experience is within the Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies (GWSS) department. Through my passion of human rights and political justice, I was able to gain skills in the areas of analyzing societal concepts, expanding new perspectives, and connecting with communities inside and outside of the UWB campus. There were several courses within the GWSS department that were incredibly rewarding to my undergraduate experience, including the course BISGWS 302: Histories and Movements of Gender and Sexuality. Through this course, I was able to collaborate with an outside organization to learn how people are conceptualizing the ideas of GWSS in the outside world. Through this collaboration, students were asked to generate a library archive of artifacts from the organizations themselves, including pictures, documents, flyers, interviews, audio recordings, etc. This was done in attempt to create a space where future students, or non-students, could learn about the specific organizations and connect them to areas of activism and areas of human rights learned through the department of GWSS. This project was one of the most challenging collaborations I have been apart of due to scheduling conflicts and other archive requirements, but it was definitely the most rewarding to date. Along with my other group mates, I was able to persevere and focus on the importance of documenting artifacts and learning how organizations outside of UWB are connecting to the content learned within my GWSS courses.    

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In attempt to merge the two majors of Media & Communication Studies and Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies, I was able to create works that pertained to both areas of visual communication and concepts of political and social justice. At first, I was not exactly sure how I was going to merge the two areas of studies, however, within the course “Working With Video”, the connection started to make sense. Within this course, students were asked to create a short public service announcement that would convince an audience of the importance of a social or political cause. For my project, I took a political cause that I was passionate about, which was environmental justice, and created a video based public service announcement to convince my audience of the dangers of plastic waste within our oceans. By taking the GWSS skills of analyzing societal concepts and expanding perspectives about the environment, I was able to successfully portray my argument to my audience through the learned MCS skills of visual communication. This project helped me to see the ways that I could use all areas of my passions and create one cohesive outcome. I was able to conceptualize how the merging of all of the skills learned through the school of IAS could potentially be used outside of the UWB setting. I found a passion for informing others about important political and social issues, all while using creative and artistic content to do so.    

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Furthermore, one key idea learned through both of my majors at UWB that will continue to resonate outside of my university experience, is the idea that representation matters. Through my MCS and GWSS courses, it became very evident that there are certain ways in which our society tends to categorize people and concepts, sometimes generating unhealthy or unproductive patterns for the people living within our society. Through visual communication, including advertisements, television shows, movies, books, social media, etc, people are able to see who and what is being represented, and who or what is simply not. For example, within the course BIS 235: Critical Media Literacy, I created a collaborative presentation with three other group members that explained how rap music portrays women throughout different generations. Through this project, I was able to further understand the idea of representation and how it affects the way people function and flourish within a given society. Specifically, as people continue to listen to the often degrading lyrics towards women of several rap songs today, they begin to develop unhealthy thoughts as to how women should be treated in the real world. This creates a whole slew of problems in the end, because it further contributes to the oppression of certain groups over others. These concepts learned through this presentation could be applied to any other area of visual communication, especially advertising. Advertisements are seen everywhere and anywhere, so it is quite easy for people to, again, gain a sense of unhealthy perceptions of people and concepts. This key idea really stuck with me throughout the rest of my studies, as I began to see how crucial authenticity in representation truly is. These thoughts inspired me to critically look at the world around me in order to see where things go wrong and has further inspired me to want to make changes for the better. It has helped me to understand that representation matters in all aspects. We should be creating a society that is built upon acceptance and understanding for one another, and I hope to aid in this process by creating artistic and creative works that visually speak to an audience in positive terms.    

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Overall, there is so much that I have learned throughout my time at UWB that will continue to resonate with me outside of this educational environment. I have learned to be an active and open minded individual, which will help me to flourish in any work setting of my choosing. The running theme of representation is something that I will take with me in all my future encounters, as I want to make sure every person feels they are being authentically and accurately portrayed. There have been several turning points within my university experience that have helped to shape me as a student and an active member of society, and I am grateful for the skills that were gathered throughout my time within both MCS and GWSS departments. I am confident that I can succeed in whatever field of visual communication that I choose to partake in, and I hope to help change the way people are portrayed in all areas of this. As mentioned earlier, representation matters!