During the Fall Semester of 2016, one of my classes was Sticky Innovation, also known as ARTE 3040. My class consisted solely of UHP students and the course was counted as an Honors experience. I had this class TR from 2:00 to 3:20 with Professors Nandita Sheth and Whitney Gaskins, a pair of professors with seemingly polar opposite backgrounds.
I had initially found out about the class after searching through the offered Honors seminars on the UHP website. After going through one course description after another, I finally came across "Sticky Innovation: Exploring the Problem of the Bees through Engineering and Art". I immediately stopped scrolling and read the description; the course was exploring the "wicked problem" of the dying honeybee population and its impact on the entire world. At this point, I had only known about the dying honey bee population through memes retweeted on Twitter and shared on Facebook and Instagram; I had no idea why there was a honeybee crisis or what sort of impact it was having. Along with my curiosity towards the honeybee crisis, the idea of integration between engineering and art really caused the gears in my head to turn and to ask myself, "How could engineering and art possibly come together with dying honeybees?" Without another way to answer this question, I went to Catalyst and signed up for the course as soon as I could.
This was one of the few courses I have taken at UC where before taking the class I knew absolutely nothing about the subject of the course. Both of the professors, Nandita and Whitney, made it clear that it was okay to be unsure of what is going on with the honeybees and that the class would educate us on the wicked problem and why it is in fact, a wicked problem.
The class initially felt a bit slow; we jumped from one class discussion to the next, changing topics and subject matter as we went along. One day we would watch a documentary on beekeeping and what farmers thoughout about the bee crisis, the next day we would have a guest speaker talk about the philosophical realm of art and life, and the day after we would talk about product engineering and design. During the first few weeks of class I would always wonder how and when these subjects would come together, but soon enough we would start our class projects. To see these projects and an explanation on each one, click the tabs under the Sticky Innovation tab under Fourth Year up above!
The class contained about 10 honors students including myself and not a single one of us shared common majors; I was in Neuroscience, we had a Flute major, an Industrial Design Major, a Chemical Enginerering major, just to name a few. This diversity absolutely helped stir conversation in class as each of us related the bee problem to our own previous studies. As the class began to advance and conversation continued, we all learned from each other's academic experiences and we were able to gain insight into fields foreign to our own. The classroom diversity was definitely my favorite part of the course because I was able to have intellectual, thought-provoking and humorous discussions wit students and professors who were not exposed to the same academic coursework as I was.
I had initially found out about the class after searching through the offered Honors seminars on the UHP website. After going through one course description after another, I finally came across "Sticky Innovation: Exploring the Problem of the Bees through Engineering and Art". I immediately stopped scrolling and read the description; the course was exploring the "wicked problem" of the dying honeybee population and its impact on the entire world. At this point, I had only known about the dying honey bee population through memes retweeted on Twitter and shared on Facebook and Instagram; I had no idea why there was a honeybee crisis or what sort of impact it was having. Along with my curiosity towards the honeybee crisis, the idea of integration between engineering and art really caused the gears in my head to turn and to ask myself, "How could engineering and art possibly come together with dying honeybees?" Without another way to answer this question, I went to Catalyst and signed up for the course as soon as I could.
This was one of the few courses I have taken at UC where before taking the class I knew absolutely nothing about the subject of the course. Both of the professors, Nandita and Whitney, made it clear that it was okay to be unsure of what is going on with the honeybees and that the class would educate us on the wicked problem and why it is in fact, a wicked problem.
The class initially felt a bit slow; we jumped from one class discussion to the next, changing topics and subject matter as we went along. One day we would watch a documentary on beekeeping and what farmers thoughout about the bee crisis, the next day we would have a guest speaker talk about the philosophical realm of art and life, and the day after we would talk about product engineering and design. During the first few weeks of class I would always wonder how and when these subjects would come together, but soon enough we would start our class projects. To see these projects and an explanation on each one, click the tabs under the Sticky Innovation tab under Fourth Year up above!
The class contained about 10 honors students including myself and not a single one of us shared common majors; I was in Neuroscience, we had a Flute major, an Industrial Design Major, a Chemical Enginerering major, just to name a few. This diversity absolutely helped stir conversation in class as each of us related the bee problem to our own previous studies. As the class began to advance and conversation continued, we all learned from each other's academic experiences and we were able to gain insight into fields foreign to our own. The classroom diversity was definitely my favorite part of the course because I was able to have intellectual, thought-provoking and humorous discussions wit students and professors who were not exposed to the same academic coursework as I was.