Seminar reflection

If I had to choose one word to describe my seminar experiences, it would be:

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EXPOSURE.

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          The sustainability certificate seminar gave me the opportunity to hear from different professionals in the sustainability workforce. This ranged from speakers locally in Athens to some as far as New York City. While not all speakers fit my career field, they showed how vast our certificate curriculum can reach and apply to. Yet other speakers related more closely to the field of landscape architecture that had a big impact on my academic journey.

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          The first being Sheena Zhang. She was a UGA alumni that works as a sustainability consultant for Atlier Ten. Her presentation was extremely captivating, where she showed us models and graphics of different projects her firm was working on. She showed us examples of heat and sun studies, and how this technical data was used to guide and facilitate the design process. After her presentation, I was able to get in touch with her again and video call to learn more about her transition to sustainability consulting post graduation. I have been able to take the lessons learned from Mrs. Zhang and bring them into my own undergraduate work, specifically spending more time learning about the detailed technical aspects of a site before beginning my design work. 

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          The second being David Hasslinger, a landscape architect at Lord Aeck Sargent in Atlanta, Georgia. From Mr.Hasslinger I was able to see landscape architecture projects that were local to Georgia and what type of projects were currently happening. This gave a picture of the type of work that sustainability focused firms were doing and what I could expect post graduation. Hearing David’s experience gave me excitement for finding the right sustainability and innovative thinking firm to work for. 

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This course taught me the importance of networking in a professional setting, and further encouraged me to keep up with these relationships virtually through LinkedIn. 

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Want to see how I have developed my page LinkedIn page to maintain these connections?

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