Before Prosperity started going to Midwestern Community College, he already had a place on campus where he loved to spend time with his friends. Since coming to college, he has maintained this group of friends and is usually able to meet up with at least one of his friends there. Near the Writing Center, on the second floor in the College Services wing, it is such a comfortable place for him to be that even if no one is there, he will pull up a chair and spend some time studying there. However, if his friends are there, it is a great place to grab food or stay and study or laugh. However, he admits, not much studying happens there.

When Prosperity needs to do homework, he needs his space to be quiet, private, and enclosed. An upstairs library room works well for this.  If he does not minimize distractions, he loses his place when he reads. Knowing this about how he studies best has really helped him succeed with his studies. 

Group work has not been assigned outside of class, however, Prosperity identified a place near the dining area that would be the ideal for that. It is near the pool table – so you can be loud – and the area overlooks the Japanese Garden. Having a view of the Japanese Garden would help him feel peaceful while working on a project.

The most work that Prosperity ever did for a class was for his College Writing class. The effort was worth it because through hard work he was able to elevate his writing to a place where he wants to explore taking more writing classes - perhaps Business Writing. During this class, he spent a lot of time at his writing teacher’s office – even though it took him a while to find it. Professor offices are hard to find – it is as if they are in a maze. But once he found it, he talked with his professor a lot and believed he could talk about any issue he was having. The office itself is really cool with a giant bookshelf that he enjoyed seeing. He loves being around books, because they represent knowledge, and he always left feeling better after their time together.

Whenever Prosperity walked by the Intro to Art classroom, he would experience a positive flashback of memories. The light of the windows added to an environment conducive to his learning. Because there were no hard deadlines for assignments, Prosperity discovered that he learns best when the environment is stress-free. Since assignments could be completed on his own timeline, he did not have to lose sleep which benefited his mental health. This helped him to realize how much he hates being on the rollercoaster of hitting deadline after deadline after deadline. With external pressures, you “learn nothing about yourself at all.” Prosperity values self-knowledge and without the external pressure of deadlines, he was able to see areas he needed to improve – primarily procrastination. “Change has to be internal.” These memories of his learning experience during his Intro to Art class flooded back to him through taking the photograph. A little bit foggy – the classroom looks like this in my head – the image looks like it is in the past and it, “Reflects how I feel.”

One month prior to taking this photograph, Prosperity had a bad extracurricular experience with his peers in this classroom space. He was with student peers that he felt comfortable with. During a debate experience, he made claims that hurt another’s feelings. What Prosperity realized through coming back and taking the photograph was how much classrooms hold memories for him.

Prosperity has been on a “knowledge journey” for several years. It is in the Logic classroom where he really feels a pronounced sense of that journey. His Logic teacher reminds him of the guy who got him on his spiritual journey – Wim Hoff – who teaches a breathing technique that has helped him with his debilitating asthma. At times, he would spend up to a month or two in the hospital because his lungs would fail to work.