Episode 157 Empowering Growth: My Transformative Journey as a Student Captured in an ePortfolio Part 1

Welcome to Digication Scholars Conversations. I'm your host, Kelly Driscoll. In this episode, you'll hear part one of my conversation with Brittany Linus, an undergraduate student pursuing a dual degree in African and African-American Studies and Digital Humanities at Stanford University. More links and information about today's conversation can be found on Digication's Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Full episodes of Digication Scholars Conversations can be found on YouTube or your favorite podcast app. Welcome to Digication Scholars Conversations.

I'm your host, Kelly Driscoll, and I am so excited today to introduce Brittany Linus, an undergraduate student athlete. She's a graduate student at Stanford University, where she's pursuing a dual degree in African and African-American Studies and Digital Humanities. And I'm just going to read a little bit from Brittany's bio here to provide some context into this conversation today. Uh, I'm. Just thrilled to talk to you, Brittany. You're an amazing human being.

Brittany is a Nigerian-American UI designer, Digital Humanities Scholar, and Pleasure Activist. I just love this. She believes self care, even in the smallest form of a smile, is activism. Currently, Linus is completing a Creative Honors Thesis in collaboration with the Department of African and African-American Studies and the Institute for the Diversity in the Arts. Thank you for joining me today, Brittany. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate you reaching out.

I'm so excited to be here. Oh, I am just thrilled. So Brittany created a project portfolio in Digication that I just happened to stumble across through my work with Stanford, and I literally gasped when I opened it, you know, it's titled Visual Bodies. I saw that right in the thumbnail in Stanford's Portfolio Directory on Digication and I was like, Ooh, what is this about? And literally was like, Oh, Wow. Wow. So, I had to track Brittany down. I appreciate it, by the way.

That was And I was so pleased that she was excited to hear from me. So here we are, finally having a chance to talk.

And Brittany, I just thought it would be great for our listeners, for you to just describe a little bit about how you found yourself at Stanford University and talking a little bit about the things that you're studying and, and why you're so passionate about what, you know, what you're pursuing at Stanford and also just what you're doing as a person. I just think it's remarkable. Thank you so much.

Um, it has been quite the journey, not only being a student at Stanford, but the entire process of becoming one. And I'll be honest, when I was a senior in high school, and it was, I think it was around August, that was when All of our teachers and our counselors were advocating for us to consider what university are you going to apply to? Did you do your SAT and ACTs? Um, and I just didn't know where I wanted to go specifically. And so it was just weighing down on my mind a little bit.

And I remember my aunt, my Auntie Vivian, she came over to my house. She sat me down. We were having a conversation catching up. And she asked, you know, what is, when you go to university, what is biggest thing, the biggest takeaway that you want to have for yourself? And I told her, you know what, I just want to transform. I want to go from a larvae to a butterfly. I don't know what institution is going to get me there. I don't know how I'm going to get there. But that metamorphosis.

I want to experience that. And she said that there are two schools that will allow you to go through this transformative journey. There's one on the East Coast and there's one on the West Coast. There's Harvard and then there's Stanford. Stanford That was something that I hadn't necessarily put in a lot of thought to consider.

So I remember going on Google, I pulled up Stanford University, the website, and I was just perusing the homepage. And I was just like, of course, every website and every school is going to have Short, concise information, all the beautiful pictures of the campus and then in the classrooms. I'm looking for the dirty stuff. I'm looking for what is going on in the maker spaces, the artist spaces. I want to know really what Stanford is all about.

And that's when I discovered Stanford University's Design School. Yes. And I remembered on literally on the website, when you scroll down, it said, we are here to get stuff done. And to get stuff done creatively. And so you see students in the lab with their goggles, like laser cutting acrylic and with wood. Yeah. And in the classrooms with sticky notes and putting it on like makeshift cardboard boxes that they're turning into robots. It was so cool. Yeah. You know, I've heard and I was like.

That's the school I want to go to. I totally, I mean, I get the appeal. I didn't want the polished kind of view or perspective. I wanted to see the work that was being done. And that was what led me to apply to Stanford University. Once I applied, honestly, I'm going to be so honest, that one sit down that I did to just kind of see what Stanford was about. That was the only one that I did because I realized, oh my gosh, Stanford has like a full percent acceptance rate. Logistic.

Little competitive. I was just like, well, you know, maybe we shouldn't really get our expectations too high. Lo and behold, I got in. And so that was, That was amazing, an amazing experience. So when I finally landed and I could see for myself the pictures of the campus that were on the website versus what I was seeing and feeling and touching in real life, it was astounding. But what I was really excited for was the student experiences that were on the design school's website.

So it's my first day of classes and I just so happen to enroll in a black studies course. It was one of those, those courses that I have always had an interest in, I either just did not have the time to take them, or they just didn't fit in my schedule. And I said, you know what? I'm gonna take this class for me. I never looked for this CS degree. They're saying I have to take introduction to Python and all of these different programming courses.

But this particular literature class, I want to take it. And I remember enrolling in it and it was one of the most transformative classes that I have ever taken. What was beautiful about it was. I saw the student experiences that were on the Stanford University Design School's website. People in the lab making things. It translated into that classroom. We were not only reading about Black scholars, right?

We're not only reading their speeches or looking at their autobiographies, we were put in conversation with them through our artistry. And so we were invited to use different mediums for our art, graphic design, web development, and even stimulating conversations around Okay, so what, what is the rhetorical use of graphic design when you put it on a website or when you're trying to invoke some level of activism, but your only mode of communication is Instagram with other people?

How can you leverage the technologies that are available? To cultivate and tell your own story and not only your own story, but a Black story that is in conversation with other people. So you can build up this global community that digitality allows for you to cultivate. It was a stimulating conversation because I had never viewed technology as more than a means to an end. I didn't view it as an art. Such a transformative experience.

Um, and from there, my interest in graphic design, web development, It kind of blossomed a little bit. I was like, wait, wait, I can do so much. I have so many tools at my disposal. And most importantly, I'm in a space that values experimentation. I'm in a space where the work and the readings that I'm doing, they don't want to see the readings. They want to see how the readings impacted me. Right.

Yeah. With this in mind, I can cultivate a formula for myself that allows me to develop a user experience that imparts the same feelings that I had as a student onto those as viewers, as audiences.

So for you to come to me, And like, that was what happened with my first ever in the Digication website, Visible Bodies. That was literally my first ever stab at web development, graphic design in an academic space. It was so affirming to the feelings that I harbored in my heart at that time as a student, as a freshman at Stanford, who didn't really know what I was doing, but I had these intuitions and these interests in mind.

Um, and so I just, I think Love out there because it's exactly platforms like these that allow me the space of so many other students. So just deeply reflect on how far we've come. And so that's literally starting also with this question is just allowing me to see how far I've come and where I started from. Yeah. Oh, well, thank you so much for this introduction and.

It was immediately apparent to me when looking at the project that you created that you approached it as this kind of new medium, you know, almost like, you know, someone who hasn't touched a paint set before or hasn't used watercolor pencil. You know, you really approached it with this kind of mindset of exploration and Just beautifully put in different imagery at a scale that just brought me in as a viewer right away. You incorporated video in interesting ways. You had music.

that one could listen to right on the introduction as you're reading. I mean it was just so thoughtfully crafted and I really appreciated the kind of scale that you were using and the intentional use of the kind of Parallax and squinting kind of options that one has because you're just kind of revealing these different layers and, and parts of your kind of story of the project and why it's so meaningful. So it's really an experience as you're going through it.

It's not one that would, One would kind of consider as a traditional sort of website, or even what one would describe as a traditional kind of portfolio that people are using Digication for often. It's definitely a portfolio, a project oriented portfolio, but you really pushed kind of the boundaries of what the technology could do and got under the hood and clearly spent a lot of time exploring all of the different setting options, you know, design capabilities that were there.

And it was so exciting to see. Um, so you were talking a little bit about how you kind of just Happened to come into this course.

Could you tell us a little bit about how you were introduced to the project? How you discovered Digication? And maybe, you know, I, I'm talking about how there are all of these different layers, but what was the process like for you as you were kind of building this and what was it that you really wanted to express? Oh my gosh. So I'm going to start. With a very, I would say, universal experience as a student.

I was a freshman, it was my second quarter at Stanford, and I had started that quarter under the belief that I was still going to be pre med. Oh wow, okay, yes. I was taking this chemistry class. We had one of our first quizzes, and I'm not going to, I'm, I'm not kidding. I literally got a 40 percent and I unenrolled from the class that same day. That same day. Not meant to be. Yes. I was just like, no, that's just how it is. And I remember because, um, the quiz.

The grades had released, I think it was a day or so before the last day where you could finalize your schedule. So I was desperately in need of a class. Yeah. I just was like, I don't know where to go. So I went on Stanford's catalog, it's called Explore Courses. And I saw that there was this course offered, it was called Visible Bodies, Black female African authors. And the Politics of Publishing in Africa. That was the complete name of the course.

And it falls under this category of an Introductory Seminars Program. I was like, what is that? I mean, this class looks cool. What is an introductory seminar? And so introductory seminars at Stanford are exploratory courses cultivated by all disciplines across the campus in order to advertise, right, the discipline to students. It's a test run. They purposefully make it interesting.

Fun, inviting, um, they center, a lot of them center the arts in order to allow students to kind of get an insider view into what this discipline could entail for them beyond the academics, beyond the theory. Now it's time for us to work. So you have an idea of what you will be doing as a student and not what you're going to be reading. I love the premise. The title of the course was so exhilarating.

And so I sent an email to the lead instructor, Joel Cabrita, and I was like, I know it's kind of late. I am in desperate need of a course, but, and I just so happened to stumble upon your class that you're teaching. Visible bodies. I want to be a part of it. Could you send me the syllabus? Joel got back to me and Joel was like, here's a syllabus. I enrolled you in the class. I love that at it. And we're in the course now. Joel is going over or doing a comprehensive review of the syllabus.

And I see On the syllabus, there is this portfolio presentation component that is not just for our particular cohort, but it is across the entire Introductory Seminars program. So you could be in the chemistry department, human biology, um, African and African-American studies. They work literally cultivating a symposium for you to present your work. To all of the students who happened to take introductory seminars courses just like you that quarter.

Yeah. And the tool that we were introduced to was Digication. So as we were working through and cultivating our, our experiences within the course, um, and specifically for Visible Bodies, what we were asked to do, our literal one assignment was to build and envision our own publishing house. And we did everything from the pitching to, um, the financial, logistical planning to the business strategy. How are we going to market this?

From there, we actually partnered up with Black female authors across the world. So we had their oversight, we were documenting everything, and eventually we were invited by the actual introductory seminars program to further extend. What we were doing or cultivating within the class beyond, I mean, really beyond that to start thinking about, okay, if this publishing house was real, how would you compensate people who say, submit their work?

How would you, what is the community engagement component of this experience? And could you share these conversations that you're having with these authors and with these publishers? Could you make that information accessible to others? And so that was the utility, or rather that is where the utility of the portfolio kind of took shape. It was this key presentation component that I was introduced to as a student from the introductory seminars. So we are given this website.

I'm perusing it and I'm like, wait, I don't, I mean, I haven't really done web development before. I mean, honestly, I was scared. Like at that point, I hadn't coded ever. So I was just like, I don't know what to expect when I log onto this platform. And I remembered, um, Joel came to me. And Joel was like, it's okay. Because everything is listed out for you and how you interact with the page and how you want to lay it out is literally on the left hand side.

So whatever, say it's the font, you want to add an image, you want to add a description, you want to add alt text, it is there. It is an option for you. And that opened my eyes, right? Because I was able to consider things that I hadn't even considered. When you're allowed to upload a file, it'll tell you the type of files you can upload, right? And with Digication, it did more than that. It showed me the icon, it gave me a little description.

And so I, the idea of adding like a GIF or, or GIF, um, memes or adding photos and pictures and videos, I wouldn't have thought of those things if the option on the interface was not available. It was almost like the platform was giving me permission. To imagine things beyond what I thought I could imagine. And so that's exactly what I did. I was literally just, as you said, the curiosity in my mind, how could I represent this concept using imagery? How could I represent this conversation?

Using a video, what is the value of a multimedia approach to this particular process? And how will it aid in my storytelling such that when I step away from the website, someone who is interacting with it will still have that same impression as if I am still in the room. And that was the utility of Digication. It was the fact that Digication just through the sheer... I love the way that it is like, format it. Everything is just there for you. You are given permission to be imaginative.

Oh, well, thank you for that description. And I mean, I can tell you from my perspective, you know, the whole team here put so much thought and, you know, we want that for the users, right? We want to be able to not just provide them with a tool, but provide them with kind of some openness and opportunity to explore and, you know, we're kind of quietly suggesting different options that are available.

So, for those that are coming into this with, you know, this feeling of, oh gosh, you know, I've never, Created a website. Um, I, I don't know what a portfolio is, you know, I have some ideas about this project that I'm creating, but how do I express that? You know, we're, we're hoping to kind of lead users through that by making those tools easy to get to and kind of presenting it throughout the experience of navigating through the platform. So I, I appreciate that. Description very much.

And it sounds like, you know, when I reached out to you that this experience that you had in this course and developing this project really opened up, you know, it was transformative for you. It kind of opened up some new avenues for you.

I mentioned earlier that now as part of your bio that you really describe yourself as a UI Designer now, and I would like to hear a little bit about You know, what, what that experience was like and how you've kind of moved forward from that to what you're doing now.

Yes. Oh my gosh. Digication played a huge, a huge part in that because after I had made that and that portfolio, um, I was reached out to by some of the heads of introductory seminars program. And they said, we want to bring you on as one of our employees. You're going to help us teach others. How to do what you did. So my first on campus job. My first on campus job.

Was literally being sort of like this student advisor on the platform, kind of showcasing and helping students translate what they have going on in the classroom, what they want and desire to kind of cultivate that lies within their mind, and then putting it on a platform in a way that is streamlined. So it tells a story from the way that it looks. The type of images, text that is used, and then how you actually navigate through the platform.

It is you, it, it introduced me to design in a different way. From Digication, I really started thinking about the value of digital. Digital Storytelling and looking at web development as sort of this soft launch into the discipline.

And so I found myself literally in every course since then, every course making some flyer Making a little typing up a little code and presenting it to my professors like, oh, this is what I learned in the classroom This is the the platform that I'm using and this is where I started from and they would have like that base eventually I had an opportunity to meet with, um, here it's called the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis. I like to call it the Center of Digital Humanities.

It's a beautiful space. I love it. So great. Um, And there, they just kind of helped me craft and polish the ideas that I had. And so that's really all it's been. Digication launched me into there and now it was kind of like, I'm hammering it in. Like, it was, I guess the way that I would describe it is, Digication was like the clay that I had and I was like, now I was like molding it. And now like as a sculptor, I'm cultivating the skills so you can see the details.

You can see the stone becoming skin. It was such a beautiful experience.

So now I'm entering my junior to senior year. I have to start thinking about my thesis. Yeah. For African and African-American Studies. And I wanted to utilize web design and web development. Because it is a space of personal creation, right? There is no set way to design, so long as you understand the guidelines, the bylaws for the interface that you're using.

And the thing about it is, My job as a Black Studies scholar is to push those boundaries, is to rethink them, is to reshape them, and to imagine beyond the borders that are superimposed by, say, the technological limits that we interact with every day. It could be I mean the face, the literally the dimensions of the screen that you're looking at right now. So I'm thinking about my thesis.

I go to my advisor, Michelle Elam, and I am really interested And graphic design, web development, and this notion of pleasure activism, because something that I was intrigued by was that I would design something, and it was probably the most maximalist version of it.

The whole screen, and it has so many visuals that are popping out, the colors are saturated, there's texture, and people will feel good about it, which ran contrary to Every other kind of platform design expert that had that I had interacted with as of late. And I wanted to cultivate a thesis that kind of honored that because that's the style of web development that doesn't necessarily It's not, I would say it's not in the mainstream as of late. It exists in very limited spaces.

And so that's when Michelle Elam was like, you can do that. That's called a creative honors thesis. You can do that. So that's what I'm doing. Um, and right now I am not only focusing on web development. I'm focusing also on video games. Because that's one of the liminal spaces where maximalism actually is deeply valued. You're adding character to not only the interface, the platform, the brand, but you are adding character to you as not only a user, but as a player.

It's very multi dimensional, multi faceted. And so, Just to hone in on the story a little bit more, I'm interested in web design development. I'm interested in how websites and the way that they're designed make you feel. And that translates into so many different digital phenomena, especially video games. And that is literally my thesis.

How video game changes, right, as a user, that are deliberate, that are personally decided, communally negotiated, and generally a human yes to me feeling good. How can video game changes be good? Be a pleasure activist tool. And no one really talks about it that much from that particular standpoint, how oppression, right, from the borders that it's simply imposed to the dominant narratives that exist, how those particular narratives, the first thing that is under attack is how you feel.

Especially when you're feeling good. So that was my thesis. And I'm using, I'm actually going to format it as a virtual magazine in the format of Digication, the interface, the way that it has you scroll down, that's exactly right. It's simple, but it, it allows the most minimal interaction with the interface but that gives you more time to just see what is going on.

And from there, so I'm cultivating my thesis into a magazine, which will then be showcased on a website that I'm building, I mean, for myself. And it was just beautiful to see the sheer evolution. First. I mean, I had no idea, no experience coding websites. I didn't know HTML. I didn't know what CSS was. I was like, what is JavaScript? I just wanted to get into the design process. Digication was a useful tool there.

And eventually through the courses, through my own personal exploration and challenges, I was able to expand my thinking and start looking at ways in which I can start cultivating. Those technical skills. And so now I'm at the end of my journey at Stanford where I now have those technical skills. I'm putting them to work.

I'm building the website from scratch and the experiences that I had, even the very first one That I used, Visible Bodies, that project is all informing the way in which I design and structure my thesis as of today. And so it is just like, it's literally like the culmination and it should be, right? The culmination of my journey as an undergraduate student at Stanford. And it really starts with Digication at the front and center.

Here's a preview of what's coming up next in part two of my conversation with Brittany Linus, a recent graduate of Stanford University. I got to think about myself and my experience and how I'm going to translate that. It was all about me. It was all about me and I had help with that. From the way that the interface was designed to the example templates that are available. So it was a beautifully curated.

experience as a student and it made me less hesitant about building and cultivating a portfolio for myself.