summer personal curriculum
what's on my syllabus for the coming season
Spring is already beginning to simmer, and a sweltering summer stands ready to take over—at least here in Sacramento, where the heat is as much a fixture as the light. As the days stretch out, I’m eager to pivot my personal curricula toward the seasonal.
This quarter is an interrogation of how we are perceived and how we choose to express ourselves—whether that is through the clothes we pull from the rack or the fruit we fold into a crumble. It isn’t about passive consumption; it’s about decoupling identity from digital aesthetics and finding substance in the messy, the seasonal, and the truly styled.
Here’s my summer syllabus:
Course:
The Thought Daughter & The Performance of Intellect
Course Materials:
Play it as it Lays by Joan Didion
The Plight of the Thought Daughter by Avery Nowicki for Ubyssey
The Era of the Thoughts Daughter by Natalie Devito for Girls Like Mag
You Are Not a Thought Daughter: On Intellectualism, Consumerism, and the Flattening of Identity by That’s What She Said
Thought Daughters Pod
Course Objectives:
Analyze the genealogy of digital aesthetics.
Decouple identity from intellect.
Move from collection/curation to conversation.
Final Project:
Keep an anti-aesthetic commonplace journal. Be messy, contradictory, and focus on substance vs. share-worthy.
Course:
Sweet Enough: The Art of the Casual Bake
Course Materials:
Sweet Enough by Alison Roman
Home Movies x Sweet Enough on YouTube
Chez Panisse Fruit by Alice Waters
Baking & the Meaning of Life by Helen Goh
Course Objectives:
Master a casual crumble; develop a signature dish for summer gatherings.
Practice low-stakes summer baking using seasonal fruits (stone fruits, berries).
Master the art of unfussy hosting—focusing on flavor over formal presentation.
Practice the art of annotated recipes to collect in my commonplace journal
Final Project:
Select three core recipes from the book and document the process. Share with friends for notes.
Course:
The Curated Closet: Sociology of Personal Style
Course Materials:
The Curated Closet by Anuschka Rees
Women in Clothes by Sheila Heti
The Psychology of Fashion by Carolyn Mair.
7 Days of Style series by Vogue
Archival research: 1990s minimalist runway collections
Learning Objectives:
Identify the core style pillars that align with my personal style.
Understand the sociology behind why we dress—the intersection of identity, lineage, and personal branding.
Perform a closet audit, removing what doesn’t fit and making a list of things to source secondhand.
Final Project:
Create a capsule wardrobe that aligns with my own personal style.
By the time the fall season arrives, the goal isn’t just to have a fuller journal or a cleaner closet—it’s to have lived through the heat with more intention. Whether it’s through the bite of a tart plum or the weight of a well-worn linen shirt, these courses are designed to turn the performance of a life into the actual practice of one.
Class is in session.