Cover Letter & Resume Reflection

               Upon completing drafts of my personal cover letter and resume, I was able to improve on certain writing skills, as well as achieving a few course learning outcomes. For this assignment, I had to find a job posting in my field of study or practice that I would be qualified to apply to after graduation and tailor your resume and cover letter as though I were applying for that job. I was also required to use the several resources to help me format my resume and cover letter. The field of study and practice of my choice was the film/entertainment industry (which includes filmmaking, production, directing, scriptwriting, screenwriting, video production, and screen acting, but NOT theatre, theatre design, theater acting, sound design, costume design, and/or stage design). The job posting was for a junior scriptwriter position for an educational web-series and infomercials based in Manhattan and Berlin, Germany. The cover letter assignment allowed me to a well-rounded intro for myself as a potential worker for a hiring manager or employer. The resume is a very important portfolio of past experiences and abilities. That being said, my resume draft helped me reflect on my past. Furthermore, this assignment allowed me to weigh out the order of my past experiences, in terms of professional significance. The course learning outcome I was able to achieve from completing the cover letter and resume was that of formulating and articulating a stance through and in my writing. The reason being is that in the cover letter and developing a resume I was trying to convince the hiring manager that I am more than qualified and the right fit for the open junior script writer position.

Sebastian Gonzalez-Arboleda – Cover Letter & Resume Reflection (PDF Download)

Interview Reflection

               Upon completing the interview assignment for the Spring 2019 Writing for the Humanities and Arts course, I was able to improve on certain writing skills, as well as achieve a few course learning outcomes. For the Interview Assignment, I was required to write a report based on an interview with an individual who works in the humanities. Alternatively, it was to write a report based on an interview with one of my peers who plans to work in the humanities. I also had to have a clear purpose when I set out to interview my subject, whether it was to understand what inspired them to create a certain exhibition or how working in their field has transformed their life, or any other focus that is topical and relevant to the subject’s current work. When I approached my subject, I had explained to them who I was and why I was requesting the interview. I also had to make sure to explain what the focus of my interview was, and why I was interested in their work. Furthermore, I also prepared my questions ahead of time. I had to decide whether I would do my interview in person, over the phone, or by email. I was aware that each method had different advantages and disadvantages, which were discussed in class. I also had to decide how I was to record my interview as either a tape recording, through note-taking, or email. The interview was conducted through direct messaging (iMessage) of the emails of both parties. The subject of the interview was my family friend, André Orta. He is a multi-disciplinary designer with a focus on UX, product development, and brand strategy. He has brought several years of experience as a full-service marketing manager and copyeditor to his own design practice, having worked as a UX/Product Design Intern for Normative, a Product Design Intern for Birsel + Seck, a Marketing Manager for Acorn Paper Products, Co., Marketing Manager for Bambino, Social Media Strategist for Tiger Pistol, and a Content Marketing Strategist for LittleQuest.com. In 2013, he earned a BA in Writing & Rhetoric from Pepperdine University. He is currently enrolled as a graduate student at the School of Visual Arts where he is pursuing an MFA in Products of Design. What I hoped to learn from this interview, were the many benefits of pursuing a career within the humanities, as well as the importance of the humanities as a field of general study. The course learning outcome I was able to achieve from completing the interview assignment was that of negotiating my own writing goals and audience expectations regarding conventions of genre, medium, and rhetorical situation. The reason being is that for this assignment I was required to take into the consideration the impact of the humanities as a study of someone that is involved professionally in the humanities, as well as taking the opportunity to learn from their perspective.

Sebastian Gonzalez-Arboleda – Interview Reflection (PDF Download)

OP-ED Assignment Reflection

               Upon completing the Writing for a General Audience: The Op-Ed Assignment for the Spring 2019 Writing for the Humanities and Arts course, I was able to improve on certain writing skills, as well as achieve a few course learning outcomes. For the Op-Ed Assignment, I was required to write a good op-ed piece or a topical, offering a perspective on a current item of interest to the readers of a publication. This ‘publication is theoretical and based on the following description: “The headline reads “op-ed” piece, a term referring to the “opposite editorial” page of newspapers, a page traditionally reserved for columnists, letters to the editor, and other guest “opinionators.” It operates as a complement to the newspaper’s own editorial positions, usually expressed in an unsigned article and offering the official opinion of the newspaper’s editorial board”. As the writer, I was required to offer a unique, focused look at the subject, using both logical and emotional appeals to persuade readers. My writer’s tone had to be balanced and consistent and keeping my voice unique–humorous or cynical, angry or sorrowful, objective or contemplative. This Op-ed piece was the product of an individual, not a committee. I did my best to keep the Op-ed piece lively, informative, and let it present itself as a good piece of writing. My assignment overall was to write an op-ed piece on something humanities-related that I was passionate about. The Op-ed topic I chose to write about was about the border feuds between Venezuela and its neighboring nations of Colombia, Brazil, and other neighboring Dutch island colonies. More specifically, my focus was that on the potential use of military force to punish humanitarian aid into the country of Venezuela as noted in my assignment as follows: As mentioned above, the United States, Argentina, Canada, Chile, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Colombia, Curacao, Puerto Rico, and Brazil have all attempted to provide humanitarian aid, just to be received with threats, attacks, raids, and murders at the entry points of both the Colombia-Venezuela and Brazil-Venezuela border. If Venezuela (knowing the crisis they’re in and their own inability to provide services) refuses to allow medical supplies, basic commodities, and food to be provided to the starving and suffering locals and families of the country, this is essentially a form of holding your own citizens for ransom (despite Acting-President Guaido’s ongoing attempts to combat Maduro’s military resistance, in a peaceful manner). Military force is in a sense, a last resort but given the events of previous time, it seems likely that the time has forced for a last resort. The course learning outcomes I was able to achieve from completing the Op-ed assignment were: formulating and articulating a stance through and in my writing; practicing using various library resources, online databases, and the Internet to locate sources appropriate to my writing projects; and strengthening my source use practices (including evaluating, integrating, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, synthesizing, analyzing, and citing sources). The reason is that for this Op-ed assignment I was required to make a bibliography (using sources from trustworthy and credible databases such as most of the CCNY Online Library Databases), identify which sources were credible, separate sources that lacked credibility, and lastly, make the argument that pushing for military force in order to allow humanitarian aid to reach the suffering civilians within Venezuela, is a good idea.

Sebastian Gonzalez-Arboleda – OP-ED Assignment Reflection (PDF Download)

Arts Review Assignment Reflection

            Upon completing drafts of my personal cover letter and resume, I was able to improve on certain writing skills, as well as achieving several course learning outcomes. For this assignment, I had to write a short review of an “art project” of my choice. This could have been anything that fell within the arts including visual art, film, literature, music and theater. While I was free to choose something that appealed to my interests, there were several important guidelines to note. Ideally, my review should have been of a recent art exhibition, theater performance, or book reading that you I attended. I was also allowed to review “artistic works” which could include internet exhibitions, radio programs, musical projects, short stories or poetry. My choice was something that fell in the category of art rather than mainstream popular culture. My review was based on a careful and detailed observation and/or interaction with the artwork of my choice. I was able to identify the name of the artist(s), where and when the exhibition took place, some general background about the artist(s), release and publication details (where they were applicable) and some details about how the exhibition or work of my choice related to the artist’s overall career. My opinions, impressions and interpretations were relevant to the assignment. Everything I wrote was supported by details and explanations. The review was based mainly on my opinions and reactions, meaning that I was not required to do any research beyond how the work related to the artist’s overall body of work or how the artist’s work relates to their field, as a whole. The best way I prepared for this assignment with respect to form and style was to have a look at art reviews published in local papers or art magazines, which I did. I was also able to look at examples in class. I chose to write a short review on the Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá. The work of art and landscape architecture of the Republic of Colombia has both historical and artisanal ties to the country’s anthropological history and past. One course learning outcome I was able to achieve from completing the Arts Review Assignment was that of “acknowledging your and others’ range of linguistic differences as resources, and draw on those resources to develop rhetorical sensibility”. I was able to complete this course learning outcome by identifying the connection between the artistic goals of the architects of the Salt Cathedral to the actual Salt Cathedral itself. In addition, another course learning outcome I was able to achieve was that of “engaging in genre analysis and multimodal composing to explore effective writing across disciplinary contexts and beyond”. I was able to complete this course learning outcome by analyzing the Salt Cathedral as a work of art itself as part of an architectural and physical genre.

Sebastian Gonzalez-Arboleda – Arts Review Assignment Reflection (PDF Download)

Grant Proposal Reflection

            Upon completing of my group’s Grant Proposal, I was able to improve on certain writing skills, as well as achieving several course learning outcomes. For this assignment, the group had to do several things. For this assignment, I had to imagine my group and I were applying for a grant to solve a need of our community (whether that be the campus community or a community elsewhere in NYC). We completed (most of) the typical steps of preparing a grant proposal. As a group, we evaluated each other as individuals that each put an equal amount of effort into this project. We kept these evaluations in mind when we assigned individual roles at the end of this unit. For the project, we also created a Gannt chart and wrote a group contract for this project, which each one of us had signed. We were all more than aware that anyone one of us didn’t hold up our end of the contract (ie, you do not communicate, you miss group meetings, you skip class when I give group time to work, you do not do the work you agreed to do, etc.), we would be promptly removed from the group, upon informing the professor. Our project checklist consisted of the following: an abstract – a brief summary of a research article, thesis, review, conference proceeding, or any in-depth analysis of a particular subject and is often used to help the reader quickly ascertain the paper’s purpose; a problem statement – a concise description of an issue to be addressed or a condition to be improved upon which also identifies the gap between the current state and desired state of a process or product whilst focusing on the facts, the problem statement should be designed to address the who, what, when, where, and why; a project narrative – a section of the grant application where the applicant should talk about the relevance of the proposed research project to public concern or issue; a budget – the amount of money needed or available for a purpose; a timeline (GAANT Chart) – a type of bar chart that illustrates a project schedule, named after its inventor, Henry Gantt, who designed such a chart around the years 1910–1915 while Modern Gantt charts also show the dependency relationships between activities and current schedule status; a presentation (slideshow) – in the form of a Google Slides presentation. We decided to call our group Home4Homeless with an elevator pitch of “a home for the homeless, clean parks, and maintaining recreational services”. One course learning outcome I was able to achieve from completing the Grant Proposal Reflection was that of “acknowledging your and others’ range of linguistic differences as resources, and draw on those resources to develop rhetorical sensibility”. This was accomplished simply by working as a group of people that each had different ideas and strategies but shared a common goal. Another course learning outcome I was able to achieve was that of “enhancing strategies for reading, drafting, revising, editing, and self-assessment”. This was accomplished by researching information about homeless in NYC, editing the presentation slides, reading various sources to verify their credibility and value, and writing a reflection about the assignment, as I am doing here. Lastly, another course learning outcome I was able to achieve upon completing this assignment was that of “formulating and articulating a stance through and in your writing”. This was achieved by simply presenting and arguing the importance of our grant proposal and mission through our slideshow presentation.

Sebastian Gonzalez-Arboleda – Grant Proposal Reflection (PDF Download)