Growing as An Actress

2811 Syllabus Spring 2017 WF (23775)-1w4xme5

My experience with Craft of Acting 2811 opened my eyes to all the work that goes behind acting and helped me grow in the abilities and tools I can use as an actor. The format of the class in general forced me to dive into acting and learn by doing. Throughout this semester, this class allowed me to grow in my confidence as an actor and provided me with resources to grow even further.

First, I think I gained an understanding of how dynamic and evolving acting can be. My original perception was that after interpreting the script and understanding the character you simply act and do not necessarily change your ideas or perception every time. However, in rehearsal I was taught to throw out any originally rehearsed ideas and to constantly try to think of new ways to portray a character or deliver lines in a scene. I think I mainly realized that acting and growing into a character is a process that can only come from continuous rehearsal and trying out all your options. This leads me to my second point, I never knew that acting involved so much risk. In plays or productions, I have done in the past on stage I would simply deliver how I always would in rehearsal. However, through this class I discovered that sometimes taking risks with a character and utilizing newfound intentions to guide your actions can produce a better scene. In the process of taking these risks and trying new things I began to be less afraid of making mistakes than I was before. I remember one rehearsal when I performed my monologue and felt so disappointed because I continuously kept forgetting and messing up my lines. In the rehearsal process, I realized that although my performance with that monologue seemed terrible to me it was not that bad to everyone else.  After discussing the character more and recognizing the lines I kept missing and practicing a few more times, I gained some more confidence in my performance and became more accepting of mistakes.

Third, through this class I found out how acting is very goal oriented. The class simplified acting to a way where I used the characters goal or objective to drive the scene. This differed from my what I learned about acting before. My original idea was that you just take the context the character is living in relate to it personally and then act. However, through this class I realized in every scene you need to search for what the characters want and needs are. In the scenes you need to understand what is the character’s objective and how to make each line clear enough to be striving for that objective. This technique and coming up with objectives really helped me to understand my scenes better and be able to relate to my character more. These ideas even helped me outside of class when I acted in the play the Laramie Project. For some time, I struggled to portray my main monologue in the best way I thought possible. However, coming up for an objective for my character and listing out her wants and needs allowed me to gain more of an understanding of her and to relate to her more than I already did.

Last, through this class I realized how complex human emotions are and how our context and cultural environment can shape our thoughts. In practicing all these different interpretations of these scenes, I noticed that each one can make sense in the context no matter how different it is from the original text. This is because humans are complex beings with a wide range of emotions, thoughts and ideas; therefore, acting is just one tool to reveal how truly complex we are.

In total, I think this class really allowed me to grow as an actress, have a newfound appreciation for the art form and inspired me to continue to involve myself in acting opportunities in the future.

Discovering New Interests

This past year, I decided to try something new and compete in a business case competition. As a freshman business major, a lot of my classes consisted of pre-requisites introducing me to the business world therefore I decided to enter this competition in order to get exposure to an actual business case and see my interests. Before the competition itself I was very apprehensive and nervous because first I was much younger than the majority of the crowd competing and felt that I lacked experience. Coming in I was intimidated by my crowd and nervous to interact. However, as the employees talked about the competition and prompt, I began to grow more confident in my abilities. Then we split off into teams and received our marketing prompt surrounding the organization Habitat For Humanity. As soon as we split into groups and got started on the prompt we began to research and brainstorm ideas on how to tackle the issue. I was surprised that I was so easily able to come up with ideas for the solution and how to tackle this problem. As my team worked we all worked collaboratively and were able to easily provide feedback and criticism to ideas circling around. Finally, we came up with our solution to our issue and put our presentation together. As a group we were easily able to split up the presentation based off our interest and come up with ways to present our solution in the best format possible. I was extremely nervous for the presentation but once we began I grew in confidence with my ideas and was able to confidently present all of my ideas for the solution along with the limitations and gains from enforcing it. In the end, my team ended up winning the entire competition and moving to the next round. I think competing in this competition allowed me to gain confidence in my abilities along with realizing my love for marketing and presenting. I came in with a lack of confidence in my knowledge and left with a love for consulting firms and new goals to pursue my interests in marketing and consulting.

Year in Reflection

My Freshman Year really allowed me to grow and understand new things about myself. I learned about my likes and dislikes in certain subjects. Additionally, I learned that its ok not to have definitive answers in what you are going to pursue in the future. In total, through my freshman year I feel that I was able to understand more about who I am as an individual and form my own opinions and beliefs about the world around me. Thus, through my involvements outside of school, the social environment and my academics I was able to grow as individual and gain a greater understanding of myself. Coming into Freshman Year, I had to goal of joining organizations that would challenge me and present me with challenges I have not faced before. I remember during the first part of the year I would continuously put myself out there and apply, audition and interview for various amounts of clubs. Even though, I may not have gotten into each organization I tried for each opportunity I put myself out there for lead me to another. I additionally became involved with activities I have never done before. For example, I did not have a lot of experience with planning and programming events yet I joined the Honors and Scholars Programming Board. Through being a member on the Board, I was able to grow in my understanding of how to lead and program events. Additionally, I was able to understand what factors must go into programming events and how important paying attention to detail really is. Also, through my involvement in the Laramie Project through Off the Lake Productions and being a lead on the Inayaat Dance Team, I fell back in love with performing. Additionally, in both performances, I was able to contribute a great deal into the formation of it and the growth the performance itself. Last, through my involvement with IA Scholars I was able to find a great community of friends along with grow in my passion for international affairs and politics. Living the IA floor, encouraged me to attend many moving guest speakers such as President Obama, Hillary Clinton and Edward Snowden. Additionally, I was exposed to so many people with different backgrounds, ideas and cultures that I have never been exposed to before. Thus, I can confidently say that through my involvements I was able to grow in my interests.

Second, through my academics I was able to grow in my understanding of business and how I learn information. As a business major, in my first year my classes consisted of many pre-requisites to take for my business classes. These classes included CSE, Micro and Macro economics, statistics and more. I additionally took several GE’s such as Energy and the Environment and the Craft of Acting. My business classes showed me a lot of my strengths and weaknesses that I have as a learner. Through both Calculus and Statistics, I realized that I am actually fairly good at math when I used to believe that I was naturally very bad at math. I found the logic very easy to understand in both classes. Through my economics courses I learned that I am a slow learner. It takes me time to learn information but when I do I have a deep understanding of it. I additionally found that I rely more on textbooks and note taking then my lecture notes. Through my GE courses, I discovered a newfound passion I have for promoting energy policy and the issues we face today with renewable energy. I now feel encouraged to invest more in renewables such as geothermal or wind that are more accessible in certain regions. Additionally, through my theatre course I fell back in love with acting and gained more tools as an actress to expand and grow on.

In total, my year allowed me to become more independent, responsible and learn about my likes and dislikes. I realized that the world has so many opportunities and it is up to me to utilize them in order to truly grow.

Taking Advantage of Opportunities around me

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This Artifact is a pair of bells worn by Indian Classical Dancers when they perform.

At the beginning of my Freshman Year I decided to make a list of all the organizations that I wanted to be involved in during the coming school year. I started by listing off all my interest from leadership, dance, musical theatre, service, business and international affairs. Knowing my character, I knew that I would overwhelm myself with an excessive amount of clubs because of my wide range of interests so I had to sacrifice some of my  interests from certain business clubs and service organizations. I remember the toughest decision I tried to make with my list was whether I wanted to continue with my Indian Classical Dance experience in college. For me, I have been doing Indian Classical Dance for about 13 years in my life and didn’t know whether I wanted to continue in training and performing or to just throw all the training out the door and try something new. At the beginning of the year, I decided I would not join a dance group and simply spend the year putting myself out there and trying out for as many things as possible. I like to call my first couple months of Freshman year a period of “successes and failures”. During this time, I would consistently apply and apply for various selective organizations seeing which I could be accepted to and which I would not. However, after all was said and done I found myself missing performing and missing dance. I saw all my other friends who also do Indian Classical Dance talking about performing and being a part of their dance groups and a part of me desperately wanted to join one and perform again. However, by this time all the tryouts for the indian dance groups were over and I did not think I would be able to really be in one. The next weekend I spontaneously decided to go to my first Indian Cultural Event: Garba hosted by ISA. I expressed my regrets about not trying out for an Indian Dance Team and how I have been doing Classical Dance for so long. Soon after at garba this same girl introduced me to the manager of the Classical Indian Dance Team called Inayaat who was still open to accepting members and through a lucky chance asked me to come and tryout. After trying out, I somehow got in the team and since then I have been happier than ever. With the team I am able to express my love for classical dance, bond with girls who have my same interest and compete in fun and interactive competitions. I was able to make real friendships and bonds with the girls on the team even though I arrived a little later than the others. Additionally, I feel that I am finally participating in an activity here off pure love and interest for the art. I cannot wait to finally wear my bells and perform with the team in competitions that we have been training so hard for. Reflecting back, I think its such a coincidence that my split second decision to got to garba led to my introduction and involvement to OSU Inayaat. I think looking back from this whole experience I’ve realized that it’s important to take advantage of all the opportunities that come your way. I also learned that you should never close off one chance even if it is something you think you may not enjoy because you may end up loving it. I have loved my experience with OSU Inayaat and feel so blessed that I was able to have the opportunity to be a part of the team!

 

Year in Review

[ “Year in Review”  is where you should reflect on the past year and show how you have evolved as a person and as a student.  You may want to focus on your growth in a particular area (as a leader, scholar, researcher, etc.) or you may want to talk about your overall experience over the past year.  For more information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

G.O.A.L.S.

[ “G.O.A.L.S.” is a place where students write about how their planned, current, and future activities may fit into the Honors & Scholars G.O.A.L.S.: Global Awareness, Original Inquiry, Academic Enrichment, Leadership Development, and Service Engagement. For more information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio. Delete these instructions and add your own post.

Global Awareness: Students cultivate and develop their appreciation for diversity and each individual’s unique differences. For example, consider course work, study abroad, involvement in cultural organizations or activities, etc .
Original Inquiry: Honors & Scholars students understand the research process by engaging in experiences ranging from in-class scholarly endeavors to creative inquiry projects to independent experiences with top researchers across campus and in the global community. For example, consider research, creative productions or performances, advanced course work, etc.
Academic Enrichment: Honors & Scholars students pursue academic excellence through rigorous curricular experiences beyond the university norm both in and out of the classroom.
Leadership Development: Honors & Scholars students develop leadership skills that can be demonstrated in the classroom, in the community, in their co-curricular activities, and in their future roles in society.
Service Engagement: Honors & Scholars students commit to service to the community.]

Career

[“Career” is where you can collect information about your experiences and skills that will apply to your future career.  Like your resume, this is information that will evolve over time and should be continually updated.   For more information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

Artifacts

[Artifacts are the items you consider to be representative of your academic interests and achievements. For each entry, include both an artifact and a detailed annotation.  An annotation is a reflective description of the artifact that attempts to communicate its significance.  For more information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]

About Me

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Hello! My name is Sanjana Mahesh and I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. I am majoring in International Business with a minor in Cognitive Science. I plan on attending Law School after college or either pursue an MBA. My dream job currently is to work with United Nations as a Human Rights Lawyer. Aside from school, I love musical theatre and have participated in musical theatre for about 6 years. I also have been doing Indian Classical Dance for about 12 years. Along with performing arts, I have a fascination with learning about different cultures and ideologies and LOVE traveling. In high school I was also very involved with service and worked with Down Syndrome of Louisville and tutored a Refugee Family. I also loved being in leadership position in high school and being extremely involved in the school which is what I plan on doing at OSU! I absolutely LOVE trivia and all things having to do with arts and humanities in trivia. In my free time, I love watching How I Met Your Mother, Stranger Things or basically any show on Netflix, hanging out with my friends and going on picnics. I love OSU and am so excited for the years to come!!