A Busy Day in My Life as a Tufts Third-Year
Welcome to a Wednesday in my life as a third-year studying Studio Art and Child Studies and Human Development at Tufts!
7:00 - I start my morning by making breakfast and packing my lunch and items for the day.
8:45 - I leave for my first (and only) class of the day, ‘Disability and Difference in Children’. It’s in the Child Studies and Human Development building at Tufts, Eliot-Pearson, which is right next to the Eliot-Pearson Children’s School, Tufts’s laboratory demonstration school. EP Children’s School offers preschool through second-grade classes that Tufts students can observe, providing hands-on experience working with children while pursuing their degree.
9:00 - Class! Right now, we’re learning about how disability is created by the constructed society rather than the individual, and how to create a universally supportive environment as educators. It’s been a really engaging course so far and has made me more observant of how different spaces I am in are (or are not) set up to support all people.
12:00 - My class ends, and I hop onto my Student Communications Group (SCG) Zoom meeting in one of the sunny common areas of EP. The Student Communications Group, as the name suggests, is a group of students working with the undergraduate admissions office to create print and digital media for prospective students. We always start our meetings with a sharing of roses, buds, and thorns, then get down to business discussing our current projects. The SCG is one of Tufts’s many on-campus jobs, which can be found on Tufts’s page on the job listing website Handshake. On-campus jobs are a great option for students who would like to work, as your employers are very understanding of your busy student schedule, and they are a great way to get involved in new communities and areas at Tufts.
12:45 - After my meeting ends, I walk over to the Aidekman Arts Center building to eat lunch while waiting for the hourly shuttle to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts (SMFA). I like sitting in Aidekman because it is next to the Tufts University Art Gallery and offers a nice, quiet space.
1:00 - I take the shuttle to SMFA. My time on the shuttle is always a nice break in my busy day.
1:30 - I get to the SMFA and, after tapping my ID at the door and saying hi to the security guard, Walter, I head straight to the print shop. The SMFA has a fantastic print department with a studio for screenprinting and another for relief, intaglio, and lithographic printmaking. I’m currently working on a lithographic (litho for short) layer on a print, so I get started with my second etch on my aluminum plate. Lithography is a printmaking method based on the principle that water and oil do not mix. You draw an image on a matrix (traditionally, you use limestone; for this project, I’m using an aluminum plate) with a greasy crayon, then fix the drawing into the matrix using a mixture of gum arabic and acid. The gum arabic and acid interact with the drawing and matrix, depositing grease and making the matrix oil-loving (oleophilic) and therefore hydrophobic. Where the drawing is not, it becomes water-loving, hydrophilic, and therefore oleophobic. Because of this reaction, when you print, you sponge water over the matrix before rolling on oil-based ink. This causes the ink to stick to where the drawing was and to resist where it wasn't, making a perfect recreation of your drawing on paper! Litho is all about careful timing and balance, which makes it challenging but also so rewarding!
3:00 - I take a brief intermission to meet with my academic advisor. These meetings are required before registering for classes and are a great time to discuss classes, look over your audit to check your progress towards graduation, and ask any and all questions you may have.
3:30 - I keep printing! My second etch is done processing after one hour, so I am now able to print! I print an edition in black, then another in a dark purple.
6:00 - I take the shuttle back to the Medford campus.
6:45 - I have enough time to eat a quick dinner, get ready for cheer, and hang out with my roommate for a little while. Tufts assigns roommates for first-years, based on compatibility determined by a survey. This might seem a little scary, but from what I’ve seen, the roommate-matching system is generally quite successful. My current roommate and I have been living together for the past 3 years, and we were first-year roommates!
8:15 - I walk over to cheer competition practice. In the Spring semester, we compete at NCA Nationals in Daytona Beach, Florida, and are working hard to prepare for our competitions.
11:00 - After coming home from practice and taking a quick shower, it's bedtime!