Tuesday, April 22, 2008

After examining the community i found it interesting how once the freshman are quickly placed into this new community they are pretty much abandoned. While Residence Life continues to hold weekly meetings which are not mandatory the freshman are pretty much left alone. The project began as a way for the freshman to communicate their new community home to their old community with a post card. Sort of connecting the two. However due to the point within the semester and the discovery that towards the end of the semester there is nothing visible maintaining the community i thought it would be interesting to use this post card to allow the freshman community to attempt to hold on to itself after they return home and are thrown back into their own community. I then began to develop the post card, looking at what was currently available. The ten options consisted of 4 views of Albany, 3 views of troy, and 2 views of upperclassman dorms. It was interesting that a freshman couldn't purchase something that showed who they were or what they experienced. In the creation of the post card i thought back to my past experience pulling out what was most memorable to me. I chose campus dining, the abundance of the laptops and the fact that you get sleep where ever you can. I then placed those on the post card as well as a background image of the campus itself. I then decided i would unite the freshman by congratulating them on making it through their first year. Attempting to say you made it together. Then to allow the student to personalize the post card and say what they them self found most interesting to them, i challenged them to rank their three most memorable moments or things of RPI. On the back i expressed my hope of the students to then over the summer send these to each other. The hope is to keep the bond in freshmen (now sophomore) community strong.

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