Culture and Psychology

My Senior Project was an internship in the field of psychology. During my Senior Project, I interned at the Arab American Family Support Center, the leading provider of social services to the Arab-American community in the New York City. Along with my internship, I met weekly and research with Danny Salim, an Arabic-speaking clinical psychologist who is specializing in refugee healthcare. He helped guide me through my internship and carry out research in order to address my essential question, what is the role of culture in psychology?

How to Tell a Story

What are the different ways in which we tell stories? To answer this question I co-directed a play, I immersed myself in literature by Ernest Hemingway and Toni Morrison, and I wrote two short stories, attempting to mimic the styles of these two authors. The play I worked on, “Almost, Maine,” is comprised of eight scenes all set in rural Maine. While the characters share the same background, their stories are not directly related, just brief snippets of their lives, so that understanding each character’s backstory was vital to the success of the play. In trying to mimic two of my favorite authors’ writing I had to determine how they told stories, their aim in portraying their characters and the goal of their writing style, and then incorporate all of that into my writing.

A study of the legal system

For my senior project, I wanted to be more informed about a field that is very interesting to me, the law. I wanted to intern with judges and lawyers so that I could have a very real view of the criminal justice system. I worked at the law offices of Beys Liston Mobargha & Berland LLP, as well as Judge Ronnie Abrams chambers. My senior project was wonderful.

Real Estate Photography

I assisted MW Studio in photographing New York residential properties.

Sustainability in Farming

Over the last 6 weeks, I worked on a Farm in upstate New York. During this project I practiced agricultural sustainability, planting various types of crops and seeds. Additionally, I prepared the soil for the crops, using a rototill to prepare the soild and land. I benefitted from produce I grew naturally on the farm, saving me a trip to the grocery store. Ultimately this project fulfilled my goal to gain some independence from typical city life. This project allowed me to become more self-sufficient with produce and resources improving my organizational and practical skills.

Community Service Conference

For my Senior Project, I organized and hosted a four-hour conference for New York City high school students on how they can effectively participate in community service. I was responsible for bringing together five panelists from five different nonprofit organizations in different fields of service work, five different workshops lead by students from all over NYC and over 60 student participants.

A Writers Dream in New York City

For my Senior Project, I wanted to focus on the stigma of mental illness in writing. For six weeks I was improving my writing and working with a published poet. I went into the project expecting to write about mental illness and almost explain the thought process of someone with a mental illness through my poems, but I ended up just writing about anything in general. Anything that came to mind I would write about and work on my editing process and work with different styles of poetry and formation. I went to multiple poetry readings and got a bunch of inspiration from other poets, and I also developed my style by reading a bunch of different writers. I experimented with different styles, and even though I didn’t solely write about mental illness I definitely grew as a writer and learned how to continue writing and start writing the mental illness project I originally planned on doing.

2016 Presidential Race from the POV of First Time Voters

I interviewed students from seven different high schools in New York City, both public and private, as well as students in Florida and Long Island. I asked them all the same six questions about the upcoming election and their candidate choice. I also interviewed adults involved in politics their views of the youth vote. My goal was to gain a deeper understanding of how young people like myself, the newest wave of active participants in society, view this election, and I feel strongly that I answered my question even better than I imagined I would.

Eastern Philosophy and Meditation

I read eastern philosophical texts ranging from the Bhagavad Gita to the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Many texts highlight meditation as the primary method of overcoming ignorance, so I made meditation the focus of my day in order to gain a deeper understanding of what I was reading.

The Real Meaning of a Fashion Company

What my senior project involved over the course of these past 6 weeks was shadowing Beau and learning what he did for the company while also helping other people around the company with their task; like getting clothes from a wash house in Brooklyn, steaming clothing for a photo shoot, packing orders to be sent out worldwide, Etc.

Photography

I interned with Brian Dorsey Studios (a photography studio) and spent a fraction of my time completing an independent project where I built up my photography portfolio.

Do Models Represent Our Standard of Beauty?

Do models represent our standard of beauty? Who are models, what do they really represent? My project questions the ways in which racism and sexism and many other “isms” are rooted and prominent today in high fashion/modeling in connection to our rooted racial and sexist issues in our society/world. My project also connects all this with the power in understanding the self and other people, with Buddhism.

What Drives a Small Business

For my senior project, I wanted to figure out what it is like to be your own business and run your own company.

How to Build a Fashion Brand

For my Senior Project, I wanted to explore two interests I have that I don’t know if I’ll pursue in college: fashion and business. I interned for a woman named Yael Pinchevsky, who is designing and creating her own outerwear brand called Pinchelli. Since her business is so small and new, I really got to see the way business and creativity overlap and was included in almost all meetings, despite being an intern. My goal was to gain a basic understanding of the Fashion world, but I ended up learning much more.

Daxia’s Style Diary

For my Senior Project, I continued my fashion blog, Daxia’s Style Diary and documented different experiences I had throughout the weeks. I spent some time shadowing a stylist and talking with photographers, assistants, and models. I also was inspired by Bill Cunningham to take pictures of people on the street who are well-dressed while keeping track of the style trends. I looked at the job of a stylist who is paid to give somebody a certain look and on the other side, I found people on the streets who style themselves which portrays their character.

Sanskr̥ti

Creating art that represents the intersections of my identity; being a female Bengali-American.

Writing an EP

For my senior project, I attempted to write and record an EP where I am the sole person playing each instrument on every different song. My original goal was to have a solid EP that didn’t sound like a demo tape, and although most of my songs sound more demo-y than I had hoped, I’m still proud of the work I produced.

Poetry in NYC

My senior project involved me experiencing life as a poet in New York City by attending readings, workshops, open mics, and other events around the city as well exploring the city’s art world for inspiration. Simultaneously, I worked on writing a collection of poems in the style of the prose poem and Spoken Word surrounding love, mental health, and existentialism.

Interior Design

For my Senior Project, I spent a 3-week portion of my 6-week experiential component at an architectural firm called di Damencio + Partners in queens. There I filed papers and plans and got the overall feel of the office as well as what it is like to be an intern at any office in any field. The rest of my time was spent looking and exploring the methodology behind designing furnishing and fundamental concepts behind living small as a solution to the high concentration of people in cities. This was all working toward having a 3D model of an apartment at the end, for presentation.

The City

My project was a documentary photography, creative independent project, where I captured what I thought to be friends and family that best described both my upbringing and the person I am today. I short it’s a series of photos, but to me, they capture who I am, and where I’ve come from.

Youth in the workforce

Why do career options for young people lack engagement and long-term benefits?

Writing a Novel

For my senior project, I decided to try and write a novel. While I knew that six weeks was not going to be nearly enough time to actually finish the book, I wanted to see how far I could get. With both of my parents being writers, I knew the kind of dedication and devotion that is needed to actually write, and I wanted to know if I had that.

Physical Therapy

For my senior project, I shadowed a physical therapist in an outpatient facility and analyzed the human anatomy. During the 6 weeks, I observed how our bones and muscles respond to both injury and therapy.

An Exploration into City Politics: An Internship with Council Member Ben Kallos

After interning at Council Member Ben Kallos’ office and working with a licensed Master of Social Work, a Communications Director and a Community Liaison, I learned about the effect city politics has on one’s everyday life, the ways different city agencies function and the inner workings of a New York City Council Member’s office.

Juno’s Senior Project

For my senior project, I interned at Falkland Road. Falkland Road is the archive for the photographer Mary Ellen Mark. During the internship I did things such as picking things up/making deliveries, organizing negatives, chrome boxes, prints, and contact sheets, cataloging photos that were going to other galleries and Mary Ellen’s book collection. As well as the internship I continued to shoot and work on my personal photography blog. Each week I shot at least one roll of black and white or color film.

The Girl Who Heard Animals

In addition to rehearsing two student productions for Senior Project, I have worked on my genre novel, The Girl Who Heard Animals: the story of a girl who possesses the ability to communicate with animals. An inter-special war erupts. As the translator across animal species, she faces pressure to abandon her conspecifics and lead the revolution. Of course, this is a centuries-old war—only, humans have not noticed because we have been winning.

Thank you Mister J! (Yes, I mean journalism)

For my senior project, I focused on entertainment journalism. This revolved around watching and reviewing movies and video games, both similar mediums. Because I was also an independent journalist this was all on a smaller scale but it was good practice for writing. The highlight of my senior project was being able to take a trip to Boston and go to PAX East, one of the biggest gaming conventions in the world and interview developers as well as play upcoming games and get hands-on impressions of them. All of my work is viewable on youngcriticmovies.com. The site is run by a close friend of mine and I and hosted on Wix. It is a very fun experience and through this, I was able to realize how much I enjoy writing about movies and games.

Games by Cameron

My senior project is a study of game and web development. I spent six weeks learning the fundamentals of game design and worked toward enhancing my technical skills in C# and Javascript. In addition to coding, I drew and designed logos, characters, and background illustrations. I ultimately produced 8 apps/games, of which 6 are available on the Android Play Store. I wanted to learn the process of submitting an application to the App Store and the challenges behind making a game that people would enjoy. My project was an interesting blend between coding, researching, and graphic design.

Miles’ Jazz Compositions

For my senior project, I made my own jazz album. I decided to choose this project because I love music and I wanted to challenge myself and see if I could make a full album of compositions, something I had never done before.

Branding: How Does It Really Work?

For my senior project, I interned at a branding and innovations company, Brand Now, which works with larger companies to help create new products and logos and helps build their brands. I wanted to learn about how branding and marketing worked and affected the everyday person, which is why I chose to intern at Brand Now. I had a very hands-on internship and got to help create many concepts for new products and participate in different workshops within the company.

How Media Influences Our Perception

I focused on answering the singular question of how media’s portrayal of themes and events affects our perception of the world we live in. I interviewed both faculty and students here at LREI and asked them to talk about the themes that they were most interested in. Ultimately, though my original question changed, I adapted and answered my central question.

From Oils to Inks

For my senior project, I decided to put down the oil paint and pick up the tattoo ink. I’ve been apprenticing for a tattoo artist at Devil’s Ink Tattoo. I want to change the way people view tattoos and body modifications. So often people are quick to judge tattoos, but I’m hoping to change this perception of tattoos by showing you all the hard work, skill, creativity and beauty that is put into these tremendous pieces of art. In the future, I hope to become a licensed tattoo artist and will continue to create art on people’s bodies.

voices unheard: The Lives of Bengali Women

I traveled to Bangladesh in order to interview women for my senior project. As a Bengali woman and feminist, I was inspired to give voice to the everyday Bengali woman. I have compiled my interviews into two documentary videos that explore their stories.

The Underground World of Marketing

My senior project consisted of me digging deep into the field of marketing. For my internship, I focused on marketing/ advertising for a clothing brand called her pretty ghost. I helped market the brand through various social media websites and all in all I was able to obtain a greater grasp on what the marketing world truly entails.

Working from Life

Creating representational art is something I feel passionate about. I have been studying art for some time, but there is still a lot left for me to learn . So given the opportunity of the senior project, I wanted to take my knowledge and skill set for representational art to another level. So for my project I researched into the practices and creation of representational art. My primary question, being what are the fundamentals of representational art and how does one improve? The answer to the latter question was relatively simple. Being that like anything, improvement is based merely on effort, time and opportunity. All things I was being provided with. So for a large portion of my project, I was busy drawing the figure from life. Since drawing is the ground work medium for all other mediums. While humans beings in many respects can be considered the groundwork for dealing with other subject matter. This is because we as people perceive all things relative to us. There is also a well of emotional content for an artist to take when working from the figure from life. Ultimately I felt that I succeeded in improving as an artist. Yet At the end of the project what I ultimately realized was despite how much I learned, there is still a lot more I need to learn.

Poems+Film

Combining two expressive mediums that I enjoy using to see if I can put them together to elevate both.

Internship

For my senior project, I interned at PadillaCRT, an integrated public relations firm. I interned under the guidance of Executive Vice President Greg Tarmin. During my time at Padilla, one of the main lessons I learned is that regardless of how insignificant a job may seem, someone needs to do it and in fact, every small job is extremely essential to making the company run smoothly.

A Day in the Life

A presentation on the day to day life of equine management.

Portraits With Different Mediums

The idea for my Senior Project is to generate a large body of work experimenting with a number of dimensions (style, approach, influence) and especially using many different materials. I focused on portraits, drawing/painting/collaging etc., as well as, my friends, family, and people around me. The purpose of this project is to expand my experience with new and different materials and practice approaches.

Spray Paint

I have been experimenting with spray paint in order to become a more effective visual communicator.

Album

I focused on creating a body of work that reflects my generation as I perceive it. I hoped to experience the life of a contemporary musician in New York City during the time I was given for senior project and I worked around a self-built schedule that catered to my creative process. The finished product was an album of 14 songs relating to my thesis.

A Composed Room

My essential question is “What is curation?”. To answer this, I shadowed curators, designers, and architects in different fields to learn about the process that goes into creating a space for an audience.

My Internship at Blowback Productions

I interned full time at Blowback Productions, a documentary production company located in Chelsea. I created a lookbook for a developing television show as well as other essential tasks. I wanted to understand what goes into making a television show. I learned a lot from my experience at Blowback and I look forward to working in the entertainment industry in the future.

An Exploration into Music

The goal of my Senior Project was to push my musical writing, recording, performing, and playing skills to new levels by creating an album/EP with a distinct personality.

Directing, Acting in, and Styling Almost, Maine

For my senior project, I directed, acted in, and styled the play Almost, Maine by John Cariani. The project required lots of focus and determination to eventually put on a full-length production.

An Exploration of Oil Painting

I wanted to see how I could use the artistic resources provided by the school with a combination of the complete support and guidance from Brooklyn-based painter Kylie Manning to develop my oil painting, knowledge of light and color, and general portrait work.

Almost, New York

My senior project is an exploration of two passions. Roughly half of my time was spent producing and co-directing a play called Almost, Maine, while the other half of my time was spent adapting the play into a comic book.

Internship at Silman

For my senior project, I worked as an intern at a structural engineering firm called Silman. During my experience, I archived project files and shadowed engineers at site visits. The goal of my experience was to answer questions I had about civil engineering which were: What important qualities should an engineer have, how often do you work with other engineers and what is the one thing engineers spend the most time doing when working on a project?

Mistura: An Exploration of my Ancestry

For my senior project, I created and wrote posts for my own blog that centered around my genetics and family genealogy. I interviewed family and wrote about individual research as well as the experience of analyzing scientific articles and DNA tests.

Dog Photography

The essential question of my art project was, “Does photographing rescue dogs in a positive way (differently from the way we see them in commercials) change our perspective of them?” I decided to explore this through a series of film photographs of dogs throughout the city.

Designing Diverse Spaces

I researched, designed, and built models of a series of buildings based off of architecture from around the world.

Merging Dance and the Creation of Nonprofits

For the first part of my project, I assisted dance classes at Groove With Me, a dance nonprofit for underprivileged girls in East Harlem. I researched and began to obtain a 501c3 status for my mentor who wants to run a nonprofit organization.

Red Markets: Writing A Professional Television Pilot

Over the course of the six-week senior project period, I, under the mentorship of Emmy award-winning screenwriter Terence Winter, organized and wrote, from conception to full pilot script, a pilot. This pilot was centered around black market organ purchase in hospitals in New York City.

Short Film

For my Senior Project, I wrote a few different versions of a short screenplay and directed a few scenes from it.

Being a Pastry Chef’s Apprentice.

For my senior project, I worked with a pastry chef at the restaurant The Wayfarer. Whilst there, I learned kitchen etiquette, how to make certain desserts as well as how intense and stressful working in a kitchen can be. My initial question throughout my senior project was,”What new recipes can I learn and what will I learn that will give me a newfound appreciation and respect for the baking field?”. I would say my experience has definitely answered my question in more ways than one.

Psychoanalysis: An Exploration of Jungian and Freudian Psychology

For my senior project, I investigated the field of Psychoanalysis. I started off my research within the field of Jungian psychology, later progressing to Freudian psychology and his study of dream analysis. Derived from Jung’s research I investigated the nature of the Inferior function; the least developed aspect of one’s psychological model. I experimented with psychological testing, examining how the Inferior function, “functions” in a practical setting. My essential question ultimately revolved around whether or not the Inferior function truly reflects the least develop aspect of one’s personality.