My continuous growth

Growth

The activity of blog writing was something entirely new to me. It was a personal way of engaging a short discussion and respond to what I’ve learned in our selected urban design lectures. At first, writing blogs seemed very intimidating and to be honest, still is. However, I am slowly learning that this has greatly benefited myself in terms of academic growth and for future writing. Moreover, blogging uses an alternative language form rather than academic writing, known as passive voice which has enlightened my interest.

I would like to thank my tutors, lecturers and cohorts this semester as they’ve challenged me to reflect on the social issues in the urban realms. Each topic that I explored this term was dearly to me. My introduction and sustainable transportation blog had heavily leaned on my personal experience both as a citizen and aspiring designer. Whereas, community engagement blogging was something I was very interested in since my bachelor’s degree in Architecture and Urban Planning.

My experience from this semester has been stressful and demanding. The learning curve was dramatic and challenging, which I’ve enjoyed in the learning process. Nonetheless, I found writing blogs to be rather fun in contrast. It enables me to take a step back from what I have read or heard, as well as being able to use these readings to reflect back into my other modules.

Blog design & group contribution

In the early stages, Gabie and I was tasked with creating an updated hero image, website layout and colour scheme. We worked as a team and presented design variations to our cohorts for feedback. We concluded that the theme of pandemic resilience and icons surrounding Newcastle were the most appropriate. Our colour scheme was light and refreshing which was contrasted with the white background for a clean and professional feel. This graphic design challenge was very enjoyable, especially having only met Gabie and the class prior couple weeks ago. I am pleased with the final result and hope it has represented our year in a positive light.

As a group, we decided in every meeting to swap the role of the chair and minutes recorder. This allowed more opportunities for peers to host the meetings and hence gain leadership experience. Meetings were hosted every fortnight, the attendance for each session was promising. Having chaired and recorded for a couple meetings, it was important to hear everyone opinions and feedbacks for further growth.

Challenges and Aspiration

The challenges I faced when writing the blog entries was that I struggled to narrow down the points I wanted to make, hence undecided about the topic. However, the university’s library has great resources and discussion with peers really helped. In a way, blogging this term has vastly improved my research skills and enhanced my literature ability.

So, looking forward, I want to continue developing my writing skills including critical arguments, passive voice and readability for the audiences. Also, working to be more decisive by refining my structure and style will lead to better time management. Finally, I am looking forward to writing more blogs around the topic of urban realm, and why I chose to carry out further study in urban design.