Hello everyone.. My name is Hamid and I am 4th year mining engineering student. I am taking this class for 2 reasons: first, because last summer I traveled to Colombia for 3 months to work on various mining projects and became interested in Latin American culture. Second: I need to take an art elective in order to graduate.. So I became interested in this course.

About the Videos:

THE WAR ON DRUGS:

This video was particularly interesting to me since it reminded me of my visit to Medellin where I got to talk to people about Pablo Escobar and how his business impacted millions of people’s lives. For instance, during my visit to Medellin, I encountered many people who had to send their families to other countries during the peak of the violations. Furthermore, I visited towns where hundreds of people were killed during gorillas bombings which was truly sad. Therefore I believe drug problems is a huge issue in this region and was accurately addressed in this video.

MODERNITY IN LATIN AMERICA:

I also enjoyed this video since through my personal experience I have realized how people of south America are desperate to improve their image and forget their rather bitter history, A good example of these attempts could be 2014 World Cup hosted by Brazil despite their numerous economic challenges. Also, governments of south American countries are trying to prepare the fundamentals in order to encourage foreign investments in major industries such as mining.

SENDERO LUMINOSO:

Among the videos that I watched, I liked the presentation of this video the most. The video was really informative and was presented in a very pleasant manner. The voice of the presenter was standard and the video is recorded in a comfortable and cozy environment that engages the viewer. However, It would be better to speak at slower pace when presenting such amount of information so it would give the viewer a little bit of time to digest all the new information.

SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER:

The content of this video was great however, I think it is important to consider the way we present our work. I believe the video would be more engaging to viewers if it was more interactive and creative. Also, it would be beneficial to speak firmly with an optimal voice level when recording videos so that the viewers would not struggle hearing it.

Thank you for reading this post.