1. What commonalities do you find between Tayrin and Nicole post and yours? What differences?
2. What can you learn from the value the humanities hold for their goals?

Hello, everyone. My name is Tayrin, or Tay. I’m from Oklahoma and currently living in Indiana. I am pursuing my BA in Business Administration, focusing on Human Resources. I am a first-generation high school graduate and college student. I enjoy practicing the electric bass, reading, and playing video games when not doing schoolwork or working.

I hold creative values within humanities regarding my personal and professional life. Being able to be myself and express myself freely and creatively is very important to me. I may be pursuing a “professional” career, but if I can’t be my genuine self, I don’t want to work for that place.

I believe humanities apply to my professional life because I’m sharing my culture and beliefs with my peers and they share theirs with me. We’re just being human and interacting with kindness and professionalism and creating workplace relationships or friendships outside of work.

I believe humanities can teach me to look at the world from other perspectives and to help broaden my understanding of things. There’s a lot I do not know about art or orther cultures, but I’d like to learn more. If I’m going to pursue Human Resources, I’d like to become a well rounded individual and be more aware of other cultures and beliefs and what makes people, people. I think it will also help me learn to appreciate art in other forms. I mostly express myself through music and poetry, but there are many other forms I could learn to express myself with.

Nicole post

Hello class my name is Nicole Wells! I am 31 years old and live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I am currently a registered dental hygienist pursuing my bachelor’s degree in creative writing in fiction. I have no hopes to change my professional career but would love to write on the side. I have 4 beautiful children and am married to my best friend, a veteran serving in the National Guard. The goals I have for taking this course is to have a better understanding of different cultures in our history and be able to differentiate between some cultures. 

It is essential to be able to understand how cultures have changed throughout history. Since I am going into creative writing this can be of value for my profession because it would help to know the diverse cultures of our world and can be used for character development and world-building in stories. I think the skills that humanities can teach me are to have creative thinking when it comes to cultures, and better communication with people that have different values than myself so that I could build better relationships. I have been looking forward to this class and hope that I soak in all that there is to learn in humanities. 

DISCUSSION QUESTION

 We are exploring cultural works and their value. Think of an object from the world around you that has a particular meaning or personal value to share with the class, one that holds particular significance. It can be a song, a dance performance, a painting, a figurine, a meme, and so on. It can be any work that has historical or cultural value. This cultural work does not have to be the same as the one you are proposing for this week’s milestone. 

1. Identify the creator of the work, if known, and describe what cultural events you think influenced the artist to create this work.
2. Pick one or two characteristics that move you the most.
3. Describe how these characteristics affect your experience and led you to interpret the cultural work the way you did.

DISCUSSION QUESTION

When you explore the concept of cultural works, you realize that you use, create, and observe cultural works in your everyday life without thinking much about it. In this discussion, you will analyze a cultural work from your daily life.

First, choose a modern-day cultural work from one of the following categories, one that is different from the one you selected in the Module Two discussion:

1. A TV show episode, movie, podcast, or song of your choice (for example: the song “Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z and Alicia Keys, the movie Get Out, or an episode of the series Game of Thrones)
2. A painting, photograph, image from a social media post, or another work of art (for example: graffiti by the artist Banksy)
3. A brand, logo, or mascot (for example: Disney or the Nike “swoosh”)