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I took the suggestion that the professor provided and wore a more formal attire to school. My before image is what I normally wear to school. The day the before picture was taken was a little chilly so I wore black jeans, a sweatshirt, a hat, and Nike shoes. For my after image, I wore a black dress shirt, a blazer, black jeans, glasses, and dress shoes. I don’t wear glasses, so I borrowed my friend’s pair. I don’t usually wear formal clothes to school, so this look is not normal for me. My intention was to get people to think I was a business major instead of my actual major, computer science.

I asked people questions around the Wow sculpture. Apparently, the day that I dressed up was the day of a job fair which I was unaware of. The people’s reactions weren’t shocking or surprising. I did not ask people what they thought my name was because my attire should not have any influence on my name. The thought was that people would think I was a business major but, because of the job fair, most people thought I was there for that. However, as assumed, some people did think I was a business major, but most guessed engineering which was true to a certain extent. I think it was vague answer, but no one guessed computer science which was my actual major. I found out that when most people talked to me it was more formal than normal. Some people thought I was interviewing them because of my attire so that is the most likely cause for the formal responses.

My conclusion is that there are a lot of factors in an image. For a job interview, first impressions are key so it’s important to create a good image. The way you dress can already influence someone without them even knowing a single thing about you. It is a scary concept because that is the backbone of racism. Just by the look, people assume certain thoughts without learning about the person. In the end, I learned a lot from this activity.