As a part of being in the Cormier Honors College at Longwood, I have to take a certain amount of honors courses. With this requirement in mind, I chose to take this course.

I can honestly say I had never taken a class like this one before. The focus of this class was identity but through the lens of art. It wasn’t quite an art history class, we just examined a lot of different photographs and paintings and related it to identity.

This class was very interesting but really took my abstract thinking to a new level. This class forced me to see and notice aspects within art that were previously invisible to me. It was a very eye opening experience and a class I will always remember.

My professor also encouraged class discussions which we did almost every class. I really enjoyed talking and discussing the material with my peers and gained further insight from them.

When I say this class challenged my abstract thinking it is hard for me to explain it, so I thought I would provide an example. One of the assignments for this class was to capture the identity in a place using at least 8 photographs. This assignment was challenging for me because I had never been told to do something like that. However, I am always up for a challenge and enjoyed the assignment.

I am really glad I took this class because I think it challenged and carved a new way of thinking for me, which is really the whole point of college. I also liked examining art in a different way and becoming more familiar with various artists. Honors classes like this one are unlike any other class you can take at Longwood. They are challenging in a completely new way, which I really respected. 

The above paper was my final for this course. We had to take a 6 minute presentation and turn it into a paper as our final. I chose to write about Annie Leibovitz, examine her work, and how it relates to identity.