KATERINA (KAT) GORLENKO
Arts Scholar
SEMESTER 1
Overall, my experience at UMD and Arts Scholars has been super fulfilling and fun, though challenging at times!
In my non-scholars classes, I was happy to discover the grading system and structure was fairly similar to the one at my highschool. Homework and in-class assignments were a certain percentage and then the midterms and finals were another. This familiarity made the transition a little easier, as I knew how to prioritize my work.
One arts scholars supporting course I took in the first semester was THET285, The Art of Communication and Presentation. This was one of my absolute favorite classes, as I was able to combine my love of theater, with learning to effectively present and speak professionally. A big part of the class was working in groups. Though I worked with different people on every project, each time it was like I was building a little community through art, something we focused on heavily in Arts Scholars. Our shared interest for theater connected us as a class, and the creative project we were creating connected us as a small group. When like-minded artistic people or people with a shared goal to create a piece of art come together, the community is strong. I made the most friends in that class than any other, and I think the fact that we had that shared love for an art form is a big part of why.
In colloquium, I was expecting to go on little field trips, do art projects and reflections, but what I didn’t anticipate was the really in-depth work we did on a specific theme, which this year was art as something that connects people. I liked that with almost every activity we did, it was somehow tied back to our overarching question for the semester. Activities we didn’t do that I was expecting were creating visual art in class. The only way we created visual art was if you signed up to do it for a field trip, or during a scholars sponsored event, but actually in class, we never created something visual together, such as a group project on a poster board. I would have to say the events outside the classroom were my favorite. I made some really good friends on Service Day (even though it was blazing hot), and the field trips/events were always so much fun! I came out with pieces of art I created, new knowledge or having seen some amazing artworks! They were overall just a lot more hands-on and exciting than I envisioned! I was so happy to be able to take my artwork home and be so engaged in awesome activities all around and off campus!
I live on campus, specifically in Bel Air Hall, which is the Art Scholars dorm. One thing I was 100% expecting from dorm life which did not fit with my high school vision, was parties and craziness all the time. I always thought of living in the dorms as antics happening all the time and everyone on the floor being friends and hopping from room to room. To my surprise, our dorm is usually silent and people only really talk in the bathrooms occasionally. I don’t know if this is just something Bel Air specific, but I was definitely expecting more ruckus. I am not saying it is a bad thing at all, just an interesting difference in what I had imagined. Next year, me and some friends are planning on living in a suite on South Campus. This I feel might change my perception, as I know residents of suites are known to have a lot of people over as there is more room to hang out in, as well as a kitchen. I feel in this living situation I may experience more of that wild, party atmosphere I was expecting from living in a dorm, but I may be completely wrong. My friends are also very quiet, non-party people, so I doubt we will be doing anything too bonkers, but I have a feeling our neighbors might.
Honestly, UMD’s response to the COVID -19 crisis is a little bit less intense than I thought it would be. I was expecting COVID tests every week, socially distanced seating and more, like some of my friends' schools, but the only thing was the indoor mask mandate and the barcode scans during the beginning of the year for accountability. Sadly, I feel this is the reason we had so many COVID cases at the start of the semester. I personally knew 3 people who got corona and had to go to temporary housing in Leonardtown. But, I am very thankful that this made it so we almost had a completely normal start to the year. Other than the masks, it basically felt like normal college. People hanging out, going to parties, sitting together in classrooms to study. I enjoyed feeling like a true college student, even if it meant a rocky start to the year COVID wise.
One of the most impactful things I learned in Art Scholars was during my last field trip to the STEM Makerspace in the Kirwan Building. There I learned that art and STEM can blend seamlessly and in many ways I didn’t even think about before. As a secondary education and biology double major with a strong background in the arts, I am always looking to explore ways in which art and STEM can meld. In the STEM Makerspace, we got to try out 3D printing and VR (virtual reality), both of which have aspects of art and technology. I learned how two disciplines I am very interested can combine in a new way, and the experience has made me want to dive further into the idea of mixing art and science. In my future science classroom, I am going to try my hardest to implement art whenever I can to further my student’s learning and I may use my newly acquired understanding of 3D printing and VR to do just that.
SEMESTER 2
My Freshman Time Capsule
Overall, I loved second semester even more than first, and Arts Scholars, as well as my arts adjacent classes, have been a huge part of that!
My greatest success in creating and fostering a strong connection with a faculty member was with my THET265 professor, Lindsey Barr. She was an incredible influence on me this year and helped me get through this last semester relatively unscathed. I was able to establish a relationship where I felt comfortable approaching her directly after class to ask questions, and email her if I ever needed an extension or I couldn't make it to class. I even invited her to the musical I was in. I have had a lot of trouble in my past connecting with teachers. My biggest challenge is just that usually I lack the confidence to reach out to them outside of class, or know them on a more personal level. My recommendation would just be to put yourself out there, email them, stay after class, go to office hours, and allow yourself that time to develop a relationship that isn’t just in class. It seems very intimidating but I promise, it is worth it.
Arts Scholars is actually where I made my very first friends at UMD. My roommate Maliyah, along with my friends Alyssa, Martha and Robert, who sadly transferred. All of us love the arts, whether it is visual or musical, and being in Arts Scholars together, that was the first thing we were able to bond over. From there, we were able to find even more in common and develop our friendships further. Having my Monday and Tuesday class every week to look forward to, with people I loved, really helped my transition, knowing I already had awesome people in my life, who then introduced me to others. It was tough at first because, as I said, I only really saw them once a week, but over time, because we live in the same building, we got dinner outside of class and hung out more, allowing us to overcome the obstacle. I have also made friends with people doing the musical with me! Obviously we all love theater and performing and we took this love, dove deeper, and became super close friends. My suggestion is to join clubs and programs where people have the same interests as you and really bond with those people, cause they can introduce you to even more like minded people, and those types of connections last forever.
Arts Scholars has given me countless opportunities to become engaged and contribute to the UMD community. Most notably, these were Service Day and Arts Fest. On Service Day, literally the day before classes, all of the Arts Scholars students went to different parts of the campus to help the workers make UMD look its best. I personally was in charge of cutting shrubs right by the highway as you enter campus. Though work was laborious and tiring, I felt a sense of accomplishment and pride when I finished. I made a difference, aided some landscape workers and made campus a bit more beautiful. Arts Scholars let me directly make an effect on campus. I think the same idea applies to Arts Fest. As a member of the comedy workshop, I performed a sketch written by my group and I for the public of Maryland Day. Arts Scholars gave us the opportunity to bring joy to people and expose them to some fun art. In the future I hope to hold my own workshop as a capstone, so I can help more freshmen bring light to people on Maryland Day.
After my first year of Arts Scholars, I feel like my definition of art has expanded far beyond what I once thought it was. In Arts Scholars I experienced pieces of art I would never encounter in my normal life, like a Vogue dance workshop and La Manplesa documentary. It made me realize how art is basically everything made by humans for enjoyment. In my own comedy workshop, I understood that even just doing standup is art in and of itself. Art can be anything you create, and that is the beauty of it.
Over the course of this year, I think the aspects of Arts Scholars that most supported my learning were the field trips/speakers and the second semester workshop itself. To incoming Scholars, I recommend first, joining a workshop for your second semester that is a bit out of your comfort zone. I have gained so much confidence in myself after being in the comedy workshop. I was forced to get up on stage alone and be funny, honestly one of the hardest things you can ask someone to do. But through it, I bonded with wonderful people and have really opened my shell. Aside from that, the field trips and speakers were super eye opening and helped me become an overall more cultured art lover. I learned about so many forms of art I have never been exposed to, and even got to try them for myself. I suggest always being there on days when field trips happen and especially speakers, because talking to the leaders afterwards allows you to learn even more from these talented and wise artists.
SEMESTER 3
Art has been a tool to experience different perspectives for centuries. Whether it be storytelling, theatre, painting or dress making, you can see various cultures emerge in ways that just talking can’t portray. When I saw Intimate Apparel at Theater J for our Arts Scholars field trip, I learned immense amounts about Orthodox Jewish culture and African American history. It was an eye opening experience and I don’t think I would have learned everything I did if it weren’t presented to me on a theatre platform.
To initiate the creative process, brainstorming is a method I have found most useful, as well as mind maps, which I learned about in Arts Scholars. To think of ideas for our capstone project, we began with brainstorming, just thinking about random things we enjoyed in the arts world, then bringing it all together in a web, and looking for intersections that may be good ideas for the project. It helped me come up with a theatre workshop, because it combined my love of performing and education into one.
Utilizing feedback effectively is critical to creating a polished piece of work. Constructive criticism should never be taken offensively or personally. The person providing the feedback only wants your work to be the best it can be. My best advice in terms of incorporating feedback is using every bit of advice you think makes your work better, but never changing fundamental parts you love about your project. If you disagree with something, it is ok to not use it. Your work is still yours, and you should only accept feedback you feel contributes well to your work, rather than takes away from it.
Recently there was breaking news about 2 young climate activists who threw tomato soup at Vincent Van Gogh’s famous sunflower painting. A quote one of the protesters said in an interview with NPR that really stood out to me was “...it's a beautiful work of art and I think a lot of people, when they saw us, had feelings of shock or horror or outrage because they saw something beautiful and valuable and they thought it was being damaged or destroyed. But, you know, where is that emotional response when it's our planet and our people that are being destroyed.”. Rather than the art being the mechanism to exemplify ones belief, it was the destruction of it that did. I feel like a lot of times in Arts Scholars we discuss how art affects us, but I wonder if we can discuss what the destruction of it does to affect us. We mentioned graffiti once, whether it was considered art or not, or if it was just defacing buildings. I find our conversations like that to be super interesting and I hope to have more.
In Arts Scholars, we learned about the importance of writing a good abstract, ensuring the reader understands the basic summary of everything you will be discussing in the paper. It is simple, clear and easy to understand. I had never written an abstract before, and I needed to write one for my BSCI363 course, The Biology of Conservation and Extinction. I learned the fundamentals in Arts Scholars for our Capstone proposal, and was able to use those skills for my abstract in my biology class. Though the content of the abstracts was wildly different, the idea was essentially the same. It was crazy to see how two courses about drastically different subjects: art and science, both used the same fundamentals. It goes to show that those fields aren’t as different as they may seem. As a big proponent of the STEAM movement, that connection really intrigued me.
Honestly, I have to thank Arts Scholars for introducing me to my absolute best friends. 2 of my roommates this year are in Arts Scholars with me, and my third was, but sadly dropped out. If it wasn’t for living in Bel Air Hall, I probably would have never met these incredible ladies. Me, Martha and Alyssa all decided to do workshops for our capstones. We are all there for each other when it comes to questions about our proposals, ideas for lessons, struggles in finding resources and more. It aids my learning when I know I have people I can rely on to help me through. We motivate each other and keep each other on task. I also have gotten to attend interesting events that my artistic Art Scholars friends are a part of, and they have come to mine, like the musical I was in, A Chorus Line!
This semester I attended an Arts Advisory Board event called Pumpkin Function, where we painted pumpkins for Halloween and did a Kahoot (which I won). It was really amazing to talk to the freshman and connect with the younger Arts Scholars who we don’t get to see every week! I felt like I bonded with a lot of the newbies and was able to tell them a bit about what Arts Scholars is all about. I also got to do this when I led my workshop preview. I was able to teach the Arts Scholars community a little something and I hope to do it more this coming semester! I do wish I had gone to more Arts Scholars functions, like Crafts and Chats, but my schedule was incredibly packed. I will definitely make the effort next semester though!
I don’t think being in Arts Scholars ever put me in a situation where my beliefs or values were challenged, but rather further informed or expanded upon. I always felt comfortable with my morals in class, and never really met anyone who made me feel like my perspective needed to change, but I met a lot of people who were able to add to my knowledge of different cultures and views. The Drum Lady made me feel that even as a white person, it is important to experience African culture and build community with people you may never have met before. As the daughter of immigrants, I already know the traumatic experience that is the immigration process, yet Sofía Gallisá and Natalia Lassalle who made the film, Foreign In A Domestic Sense, helped me see a different kind of culture that immigrated, and their experience. The Arts Scholars community is a diverse group of people, from all various backgrounds, and it has been a joy getting to know their stories, along with the stories of all the guests who came and showed us their work.
SEMESTER 4
After taking a look at my pentathlons, reflections, I see I have made strides in reflecting skills. At the start, my reflections were mostly summary, or simply putting what happened at the event in other words, then making a couple of points about how it made me feel. Over time, I can see that I actually began to do deep analysis of the event. I wrote about questions the experience left me with, connections to my major and Arts Scholars, as well as a more conceptual analysis of it, rather than a synopsis. I will use this improvement in my reflection in all my future writing classes.
Our in class master classes provided me with incredibly interesting looks into fields of art from cultures that I am not a part of. Two that stood out to me were the Voguing masterclass, and the Drum Lady masterclass. Both of these were art forms I was very unfamiliar with, and came from heritages I was not a part of. Vogue was a form of dance that came from queer black culture, that was commonly performed at “balls”. The dance was insanely hard, and it built my respect for this minority group even more, because not only did they have to hide this part of themselves in secret for most of time, from which these balls emerged, but doing the dance itself requires immense amounts of skill and stamina. Another very cool dive into another culture was the drumming we did with the Drum Lady. Though she was white herself, she knew a lot about the culture and history behind the drums. She was very knowledgeable, open minded, and culturally appreciative. She made me feel better playing those drums as someone who wasn’t a member of the cultural group. I learned a lot about music bringing people together and African music. Overall these two experiences were extremely eye opening and unforgettable.
My capstone project was a theatre workshop; Theatre 101. Honestly, one of the inspirations behind choosing to lead were two of my Arts Scholars supporting courses; THET285: The Art of Communication and Presentation and THET251: Broadway Mashup: Remixing America Through Musical Theater. They taught me a lot of things that I then taught the participants in my own workshop. THET285 showed me proper projection technique, how to do script analysis, basic acting techniques, and memorization techniques. THET251 taught me an insane amount of interesting theatre history: the beginnings of theatre stemming from the Greeks and Romans, all the way up to the birth of Broadway. The way these classes were taught were super impactful and engaging, that I wanted to do something like that myself. The teaching methods utilized in these classes inspired my own lesson structure and class layout, while I also took material I learned from the classes and repackaged it to teach to my students. Taking those supporting courses was a great decision, and I want to thank Arts Scholars for being the reason I did.
My Theatre 101 workshop helped me hone my theatre craft in a way I never have before. As they say, “If you can’t do, teach!”. I am not pursuing theatre as a career, but it still brings me immense joy, especially when I can combine my love of theatre with my love of teaching. When you are able to teach something to others, you know you have mastered the skill. As an education major, the workshop really let me practice my lesson planning, curriculum building, lecturing, activity leading, discussion facilitation, classroom management and more! As an artist and theatre lover, it allowed me to do research to learn more about theatre than I ever have before, solidify my skills, and deepen my backlog of information. Seeing the final product of my students with everything I have worked on the entire year was the best feeling ever. It truly made me remember why I wanted to become a teacher, and stay in the theatre world. I am actually auditioning for a musical right now!
In terms of dealing with people with varying artistic ability, in my workshop, I had some people who had never done theatre in their lives, and some that are literally majoring in it. The varying skill level made it a bit more difficult to navigate, because I didn’t want to bore the knowledgeable people and make things too complicated for the amateurs. How I combated this was by making lesson plans geared towards beginners, but with the option of making things a bit more complex or challenging yourself. Games were always starter-friendly but you could get more crazy with it if you wanted. The final performance was basic, but depending on your level it may have looked different. I think every skill level was able to thrive in the class, and definitely have fun!
My Arts Scholars experience has solidified what I want to do with my future in concrete. There have been times where I questioned my decision to become an educator, due to things like burn out and miniscule pay. Leading the workshop, seeing how happy it made my students, how much they enjoyed it, and how amazing the final outcome was with so little time and such varying skill levels, it proved to me I can be the best teacher and make the absolute most of it for the students. I know I wasn’t the first choice of workshops for the participants, but they all told me by the end they did not regret their choice one bit. Arts Scholars also ensured me I never want art out of my life. Also, CPSA260 gave me a lot of valuable teaching skills, like utilizing the ALC, that I will implement into my teaching technique. Even though I want to teach biology in highschool, I will make 100% sure I still do theatre, if it means local community shows or helping out with the school musical.