Lacey Dustin

Course: College Success for Honors, HONOR-101
Professor: Jody Nusholtz
Assignment Title: Putting It All Together

Assignment Details

The Honors 101 class I took this year focused on our values, time and stress management, and our Myers-Briggs personality tests. The goal of the project was to simply put it all together; we had to connect the topics we covered to paint a portrait of ourselves. This provided lots of freedom and flexibility in how we created the portrait. This freedom and room for creativity inspired me to create three different art pieces: two paintings, and one mixed-media collage. Each one reflects my personality, habits, and things I’ve learned throughout the semester. One reflects my values, one reflects my habits, and one reflects my Myers-Briggs, and I drew connections between each one in my written description.  

Application

The topic of this assignment applies to my life moving forward because it encapsulates me as a person: my personality, habits, values, and hardships. Taking the Myers-Briggs test and finding out that I fall into the INFP group has helped me see my preferences in an organized manner. This reminds me of what works best in different situations and will help when I explore future career options since I am more aware of myself. It will also be helpful in interpersonal relationships because I know how I am likely to react and when I feel most comfortable.

Results/Conclusions

I learned a lot about myself through taking this course: the things I value most are love, happiness, empathy, friendships, and loyalty. I learned that my mood can change solely based on my environment, I am my biggest critic, and that doing things differently doesn’t necessarily mean I’m doing them wrong. I also learned that being insecure lessens the enjoyment that I allow myself to have, and that it is okay if some people don’t stay in your life forever. The Myers-Briggs test results demonstrate where I focus my attention, how information is taken in, how I make decisions, and how I perceive and face the world. Ultimately, I feel like I’m more in touch with my goals than before after learning so much about myself.

Challenges and Successes

I experienced two challenges during this assignment: feeling vulnerable and figuring out how to make something completely me. To me, painting a portrait of myself included the parts of myself that I hide to seem much more put together than I really am. Initially, I was worried about what other people would think, but creating something with my audience in mind would not paint an accurate portrait of me. One of my goals for the future that I touched on in my writing portion was authenticity, and I feel like I achieved that goal through this project. Without an audience I felt I needed to impress, I was able to make something that I am proud of and accurately portrays me.