I realize that I don't get to post that often. Honestly, I am not really into the whole blogging thing, but for educational purposes I want to better document what I am doing through time. So I will be reflecting on some older events like Texas ASLA 2017.
Due to this years Texas conference having been located in Austin most of my class, including myself, planned to attend. However, this trip had to be homework heavy due to our final presentations approaching the following week. As I consider the experience in its entirety, much of my memories are of my group members and I staying up all night eating junk food, listing to music, and putting together our project. I admit that I would have liked to experience a little bit more of the conference its self, but our final product for the presentation made it all worth it.
To review the conference specifically, It was a better experience than National ASLA, educationally speaking. I attended a few lectures, walked around to a few vendors, and got to make a few more connections. The lectures had mostly to do with designing in different spaces. For example, a dog park, historically protected sites, and even prisons. I enjoyed most of them. Personally I like the lectures that are more based on research, what works and what does not. For instance the prison lecture was based on the potential the people within the prisons working in the landscape, and how this can affect their behaviors (biophilia, better health both mentally and physically, etc.). This might had been one of my favorite lectures had it had more material behind it. Much of the presentation consisted of race populations in prisons and inspirational comeback stories. I see very strong potential for this work but, getting a community to back you is most, if not all, of the battle. You have to make the people understand what you are doing and why you are doing it. I think this research could benefit mostly by looking into what percentage of crimes people are being held for. This might allow people neighboring the prisons to feel safer and perhaps inspire more involvement. I know I am dredging into this a little more than needed but it does bring me to my next point.
School did not teach me all the facts of my profession, it simply taught me how to keep learning them. Every where I go I over examine and analyse the situation for anything to dissect, anything that could help me in the future. Eww I sound so annoying, but it is true! Although I am not raving about anything in particular, the event as a whole was extremely beneficial. I would highly recommended attending and soaking up as much as you can, even if it is not what you intended.
