The Community Process— The Berkeley Experience
Below are my reflections on ENV DES 131: Community Processes. This is a collection of equal amounts of excitement and frustration. While I do not have any regrets about my participation in this course, I do have reservations about the course’s priorities compared to mine.
Final Reflection:
As I read back the semester’s reflections, I was saddened by how the tone of my reflections went from optimistic and excited, to defeated and indifferent. At the beginning of the semester, I remember seeing this class as an opportunity to mature as a mentor and discover ideas that I can incorporate into NOMAS’s high school outreach workshops. I came into the class with more enthusiasm than I had with any other class, and I was willing to do anything to push the program forward for the high school students. However, with a slurry of family emergencies, personal breaks, and unexpected events in this class, I slowly lost hope for the class as an avenue for my goals. In our final Friday meeting, I was thankful to Professor Frick for providing a listening ear for myself and my peers, discussing the issues we’ve seen with the course and the potential solutions for the future. That being said, I was going to use this final reflection to list off my experiences with the course that should’ve been better; instead, I will describe some of the more memorable moments and takeaways that I received.
The greatest blessing of this course is meeting my mentee, Zem Zem. As a freshman, she is incredibly bright, curious, and fearless. Whenever I speak with her, I reflect upon where I was as a freshman and I am humbled to work with her and learn from her. Although architecture and design isn’t her devoted interest, she still gave 100% into the process, even though I believed that the process didn’t serve her back. There were times that she was frustrated with the program, but despite that, she decided to trust the process and myself. After our last meeting on Saturday, she was still very enthusiastic about the greenhouse, and began planning with Yalitza of how they’ll participate in the construction process.
Throughout the course, I was also able to connect with my peers, especially Quincy, Maria, Tiffany, and Hanna. While I heavily worked with Maria because of NOMAS, I was able to have a second shared experience with her. With Quincy, Tiffany, and Hanna, I was able to learn more about them and work harmoniously with them. Without them, I wouldn’t have had the same productivity as I had.
I am also incredibly grateful for Professor Frick. I’ve never had a professor that was as concerned about my well-being than her, from checking-in with my family-related absences to writing a supportive and thankful email for the extra work I’ve put in. Throughout the semester, she has shown her kindness and support for every student in the classroom, and I wish that more Berkeley professors would share the same qualities.
Against the recommendations from most of my architecture professors, I decided to pursue my graduate studies immediately after Berkeley because there is still so much that I want to develop and learn from myself. My undergraduate experience is very unusual compared to others. I began my college career in the summer before my sophomore year of high school as an avenue to accumulate credits and taste classes of my various interests. In my junior and senior years of high school, I ditched my high school to attend West Valley College full-time. After my high school graduation in 2019, I attended Georgia Tech for one year; throughout Georgia Tech, I took the maximum amount of course credits I was allowed, took a year-long graduate design-research elective, and dual-enrolled online with West Valley to finish my general-education requirements for transfer. Then, in Fall 2020, I transferred to UC Berkeley. And for the past two years at Berkeley, I felt that I’ve learned nothing and everything at the same time. Upon graduation, I was fueled with the most energy and curiosity than ever before, and I had a lot of ambition for graduate school.
Yes, I knew it is wise to gain work experience before applying, and it is unlikely that I would get in anywhere because of this lack of experience AND my regressed GPA from Berkeley. I had two internships, one full-time in the summer and one part-time during Fall 2021, at two very different and small firms; while I learned a lot and received a lot of design responsibility, that experience was meager compared to 2-3 years of full-time experience. But without those years, I felt that I’d discovered what I wanted to do with my architecture career, and I knew exactly what I wanted to bring to graduate school.
This was the same exact concern that my high school advisors had for me in my sophomore year: my grades weren’t terrific, and it was too early to commit to a college major. But at the end of the day, I know myself best, and through trusting my gut and putting myself through my ambitions, I was able to prove them wrong. When I started NOMAS, many advisors and faculty were concerned that we wouldn’t achieve all our ambitions AND maintain a successful academic experience— but we proved them wrong, and now they applaud, cheer, and claim their support from the beginning. With graduate school, now that I am finally going, I can do the same.
All that being said, I am happy to close my undergraduate experience with ENV DES 131. Although the class was nowhere near perfect, its intention was enough to commit 15 undergraduate students to an extracurricular course that demanded time, care, and unexpected skill. I am happy to leave the class with my final conversation with Professor Frick and my peers, as it gives me hope that this class will have a lot of potential for growth and improvement, and that future students will have a greater impact on high school students than we did.
Listed below are a series of journal entries that followed my class experience.
January 29th:
Yesterday’s inaugural session was a great opportunity to get to know everyone– Berkeley and High School students– and get accustomed to the fellowship position for the first time in a while. Throughout the session, I noticed how the high school students began to open up in different ways. During the introductory session conducted by Group 1, our table had one high school student who was quiet at first; being the only high school student at the table, I believe he felt singled out. But after a few minutes of us sharing stories and laughs, he slowly opened up and shared with us his recent projects in school and his career interests. Most of this conversation occurred during the downtime after the Group 3 ‘Community Agreement’ discussion, and I’ve noticed in general that all tables were having natural conversation and banter during this time. It’s interesting how the parts of the session that weren’t planned or designed were one of the most effective.
Quincy and I led the Community Agreement conversation, which also experienced a similar trend of awkwardness-turned-genuine discussion. In the beginning, the discussion felt one-sided, as if we were laying down a set of rules instead of encouraging the idea brainstorm. But the last question about expectations broke the ice and gave some of the high schoolers some confidence. I believed that this expectation question established a tone that UCB students were new and learning from this experience alongside the high school students; although we arrived with prepared material and speaking roles, this question gave the high school students a chance to tell us their expectations and wants out of us. I like the list that we compiled, as it states an overall understanding of mutual respect, learning, and safety.
In the end, concluding with the team-building activity and lunch, I noticed that the student that shared my table during the introduction was smiling, speaking louder, and standing straighter. Over the course of the semester, I look forward to building trust with the students and building a fellowship-friendship relationship that would last (hopefully) further than the project itself.
February 16th:
I wasn’t able to make it on Friday or Saturday due to a family emergency, but after reading everyone’s reflections, I’m getting an idea of how things went. Saturday sounded pretty rushed, busy, and hectic, but despite this, everyone seemed to stay pretty productive and kept up the interaction with the high school students. Similar to the first session, it seemed that many people connected with each other during those “gray areas,” like walking between the youth center and the site. But overall, everyone wrote about the excitement and the exhaustion, juggling the site analysis work and connection with the students.
Since I wasn’t able to make it, I do have some questions concerning how we can improve for the next session.
How can we establish a time management system? Would this require breaking down sections into more bite-size activities? Or allow for the organic conversations to blend with the activities, so there are fewer feelings of time-crunch or pressure?
How can we think of other creative ways to interact with the students? Some people mentioned that not every student was able to participate. I’m not sure if this was a timing issue or an issue of engagement. I understand what it’s like to feel detached from an activity because of my different learning and communication styles, so is there a way to involve different types of learning/collaboration? Like catering to a student's strength as we get to know them better.
I look forward to coming back and catching up with all the fun, and seeing the site and work that everyone’s produced!
February 26th:
After missing a week of action, I was excited but nervous to return. I looked forward to seeing everyone again, but I also knew that students wouldn’t be as familiar or close with me than with others. Reflecting back to the first session, I felt the most comfortable with students during group activities or casual chatting.
However, in terms of my performance that day, I wish that I could’ve done better to engage the high school students. At the start of the day, I had the chance to talk to Lesly with Maria and I was happy to start the day with sharing laughs and facts about one another (and a weird rant on veganism and ethics of meat consumption…). But the trip to and from the architecture firm and the tour itself was not as successful as I’d like. On the ride over, I didn’t sit with a high school student or attempt to make much conversation, even with my peers. The same was with the way back as I kept to myself. I know that I am a timid person, but I know that I can find a part of my personality that is more outgoing, performative, and personable. I could’ve “fake it til I made it,” but at that point I was a bit frustrated.
During the tour, I noticed that students in the back of the room, who couldn’t really see the renderings that Ken was presenting, were bored and took out their phones. At the moment, I wanted to say something, but I didn’t want to interrupt; but in retrospect, I should’ve suggested to rotate the crowd around so students in the back can get a better view. Also, Ken was naming some concepts and construction techniques that I was familiar with as an architecture student, but I’m pretty sure that most high school students were lost. Professor Tolbert would ask clarifying questions to explain some elements, but I think I could’ve found spaces in Ken’s presentation to remind him that most people in the audience may have no idea what he’s talking about. When it came to questions, that’s why I asked him about career failures and lessons learned, since those anecdotes would seem more relatable and bring some casual-ness to the conversation. In the future, I think it would be nice to invite professionals to the Youth Center and have a round-table discussion on professional development, entrepreneurship, and such; the environment would be less “professional,” more comfortable and relaxed, and less about learning the accomplishments and goals of the firm.
On the bright side, I had a lovely conversation with my mentee, Zem Zem. Although our time was cut short during lunch, I was able to learn about her desires with the course and her personal goals throughout high school. She is interested in so many things outside of architecture, and she is motivated to learn as much as she could in all these areas until she resonates with one in particular. We talked about the role of passion in education, careers, and personal development, and we shared some stories of how we got here. In the end, we exchanged phone numbers and looked forward to the next session. Working with Ruby in Communications, we sent out the first email this week recapping Saturday, providing Ken’s email, and some reminders for the next session.
March 5th:
I was excited for this session since we’ve planned for a day of activities that related and connected with one another. I looked forward to the presentations of other groups and to seeing how the students would interact with the magazines.
In the beginning, after setting up the charrette materials, I made myself engage with the high school students, especially those on their phones and sitting alone at a table. Since I had a lot of “should have” moments last week, I did my best not to let my shyness or fatigue get in the way. I sat down at Nylah’s table and started some awkward small talk. Although uncomfortable for the both of us, Nylah looked up and put her phone down, and responded to my random questions, eventually filling me in on a MOMA field trip she went on this week, and how she was bored and annoyed by some classmates in her group. She seemed to want someone to ask about her week and ask curious questions about those events; as she talked, I could tell that she wanted to share her week’s stories with me and vent some of those feelings. Although our conversation was cut short by the session starting, her body language was more relaxed and ready to participate with the class. Since our sessions are held on Saturdays, we are all coming into the room with long weeks and stories— in future sessions, I’ll try to lend an ear to more students and let them get some thoughts off their chests before we start.
With the charrette, I thought that the event went smoothly overall, and the ideation section gave us some quality time with our mentees, learning about their thought processes and introducing them to some new information they find in magazines. Zem Zem was very eager with her ideas, and the solutions in our collage came naturally to her. We’d come up with ideas and solutions ourselves— writing them onto the boards— then looking for images that correlate to those thoughts. As she flipped through the magazines, she’d have moments of “This is exactly what I was talking about!” or “This looks cool, I haven’t thought of that before… which gives me another idea!” Her process was so fascinating to observe, and I look forward to seeing how she’d take this curious mindset into a drawing.
Yalitza also sat at our table. While she was quiet for most of the time, she’d extract images of the rural aesthetic— fields, cabins, farming, etc. — and take peeks at the images that others were putting together. While I could push Zem Zem with questions and “what ifs,” Yalitza responded more with visual inspiration first. As we went through the magazines, I’d rip out pages and hand them to her, asking “I think these relate with the images you have. What do you see?” And she’d converse with me then. While Yalitza isn’t my mentee, she is close with Zem Zem, so I’d like to find more ways to engage them both since they seem to have different learning styles.
Zem Zem and Yalitza were both hesitant to present, but when they stood in front of the class, I think they both did well. Zem Zem had a lot to say, and I just had to encourage her to have that confidence. Yalitza had really rich ideas that she is eager to share, and I just had to introduce her. From then, they were natural at presenting. While they both can improve with presenting, I was impressed by how eager and confident they were in their ideas. I hope that by the end of the semester, they’d build confidence in their presentation skills the same way they became confident with their ideas.
In our Friday class, we talked about “buzzwords” that we may know about, but the high school students may not. On Saturday, I noticed that we were throwing around those words again (ADA, SDG, etc.). Even in common terms, like “sustainability” or “accessibility,” we should discuss those definitions and interpretations before using them since those words do have a lot of history and evolution.
March 30th:
Overall, I thought the tour went well. While the timing was rushed towards the end, I think the group I was with had a good amount of time exploring both sections of the tour. Personally, I’ve never entered the Center for the Built Environment, so it was nice for me to learn something new about the CED. I am also grateful that I could invite the two NOMAS mentees to join. In the future, I wish we would’ve prioritized planning in our Friday classes. Especially that week.
While I understood that we needed to generate ideas to present to Blk Girls Greenhouse, it felt weird that us, Berkeley students, were the most involved. Initially, I thought that we will be guiding the high school students through this design process together, not meeting with them one-on-one to “develop ideas.” That was the part of this class that I was most excited about— sharing the design experience and team-work with the students. That Friday, we pinned up nearly-completed designs, and brought them to the Saturday meeting to “catch up” the high school students and “develop their ideas.” I felt that this process was a bit backwards, but it’s just unfortunate that we didn’t have more time and more meetings with the students to facilitate a more hands-on process. That Friday, we spent most of the class time in this pin-up and a few minutes on the Saturday planning, thus the Saturday program felt a bit rushed and unorganized. During the final 20-ish minutes on Saturday, Zem Zem looked confused and asked me “so you already had a design? So what was I really doing?”
April 6th:
Unfortunately, I was unable to attend this Saturday's meeting. On Friday, we did our best to synthesize the ideas of our mentees into our original design, prioritizing their inclusion. Considering how the mentees felt when we last met, we needed to make sure that their ideas from that meeting were addressed and presented, even if our overall proposal was incomplete. Since I wasn't able to be there, I took our Friday sketches and drew a cleaner plan and model for the team to present.
Earlier in the week, I checked in with Zem Zem to see what she thought of Saturday. She said that things went smoothly, and that seeing the presentation of our synthesized ideas excited her.
I won't be able to attend class this Friday, but I'd like to stay in touch with design progress and offer my services to draft, model, anything
April 27th:
Last weekend was stressful and a lot, but I’m glad that the presentation worked out okay and that Kalu and J’Maica had comments to respond with. There were several points that they referred to from previous meetings, but I wasn’t aware of those wants (such as the copper aesthetic).
The college application portion was pretty chill, although I kind of wish we’d implement Christine’s idea that she shared during Friday’s class. But throughout the session, I got to hang out with Zem Zem, Yelitza, and Tiffany and catch up with some laughs.
