You’ll be doing group oral presentations in late March and April about the Great Recession in New York. You should band together (three to four people per group) based on topics that interest you. So….what interests you?
20 thoughts on “Discussion: Oral presentation groups”
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I’m still interested in exploring the impact of riots and protests, past and present. Organized dissent is a response to economic, social, and political instability, and is especially relevant now. As was mentioned in class, Occupy Wall Street is a great example of the collective dissatisfaction that stemmed out of the Great Recession.
Exploring this further would be my number one choice, but I’m open to new/broader ideas.
Anastasia, I’d love to explore the impact of riots and protests with you. As you mentioned, it would be interesting to further examine the Occupy Wall Street Movement, as well as the Harlem Riots, the CCNY protests during the Great Depression, and several others. Perhaps we should combine our proposals and investigate the student uprisings of the past and present, as well as the riots and protests mentioned in your proposal. I think it would be beneficial to focus on a few aspects, for example: the reasons for the riots/protests, the leadership of the groups, and the demographics of those participating.
I would love to talk about the banking industry in New York, how bad was it back in 2007 and how better has it become 5 years after the shock. What we talk about is the aftermath and the impact that the downfall of the financial services industry has on New York. I like to trace back to the root and further examine the root cause of the banking collapse and its restoration in the present.
I would like to talk about how restaurants fared during the Depression and the Recession. Whenever the economy is not too great, people tend to save their money instead of going out to eat. It would be interesting to research this trend.
I really like Anna’s idea and I was thinking something along the same lines. My Economics teacher last year told us that 3 out of 4 restaurants fail in the first three years and I would like to explore the reasons behind that and other aspects.
I am interested in exploring real estate during the Great Recession. Johanna Mattsson, Mark Stone, Stephanie Sica, and I all commute to Baruch everyday from Connecticut, Queens, and Long Island. For the past couple of months we have been glued to our laptops looking at listings for apartments in Manhattan and going to endless open houses. We would all love to work together to learn about the history of apartments in New York City, how much the rent was, how difficult it was to get a place, how many people had to move out, etc., and what impact the Great Recession had on real estate. Also, I find rent control to be very intriguing, especially because there are still people who live in rent controlled buildings in New York City today.
Obviously, real estate is something (as Michelle voiced) that I have been consumed with for months. I would love working on that topic and exploring the real estate industry back then and how it has changed.
I think it would be particularly interesting to explore any trends in the real estate of specific neighborhoods to see if there was a decrease/increase in both type of apartments rented out as well as any changes of populated locations. We could then research the Great Recession’s impact on mortgages/loans for apartments, etc. We could also, like Stephanie mentioned, compare such research to today’s real estate.
I would like to explore the impact of the Great Recession on education. I would like to see how it impacted student performance from preschool through graduate programs. How were enrollment, drop out, acceptance, etc affected? How did the economic situation effect school budgets? How did schools cope with lower revenues? What were the effects on private schools? There are many areas to be explored and the topic could/would certainly narrow in focus upon further research.
I am also very interested in researching the impact of the Great Recession on education. I know for a fact that many of my friends’ decisions to come to Baruch College had a lot to do with their financial status. And so it would be really interesting to explore and research the connect between education and the global financial crisis that has affected everyone in one way or another.
I am also interested in Anna’s idea. I think another possible angle to explore is the trend of restaurant cuisines and geographic locations of successful restaurants.
I like Hyemim’s idea about researching the impacts of the Great Recession and the Great Depression on education. During Great Depression, many students were forced to drop out of schools because they couldn’t afford the tuition. Similarly, during the Great Recession many students decided to go to public schools like Baruch due to their financial situations; also during the Great Recession there were more students who choose to go to graduate school. I think it will be interesting to examine the effects of the both economic crisis on education.
I am interested in Anna’s suggestion about looking up food and cuisines available during the great recession. What was the food culture during the Great Depression like? What did the upper-middle class eat? What did the poverty-stricken eat with what they could afford? How open were the people of the 1930’s to another culture? I currently explore cuisines from different neighborhoods and would like to examine how much each culture affected one another.
I am most interested in exploring music of the Great Depression and what it was like for the prominent artists of the time. Where did they perform? Did the Depression effect their ability to draw people to their performances? I am a big proponent of all types of music, especially jazz, which I am pretty sure was the dominant genre of music at the time.
Remember that this is supposed to be a Great RECESSION project (the oral presentation is), so you might think about how music is reflecting that.
I would also like to talk about the effect of the Recession of the city’s students and how protests have arisen where students voiced their complaints against the increasingly tense situation. I would like to find out how this affects the students studies and how effective the protests are at bringing about change.
I kind of like Ryan’s idea about studying music. But, keeping to the Great Recession I was wondering if I can compare between what genres of music were popular then and what genres of music are popular now, while comparing what the artists are talking about in their music
I am still very interested in Joanna’s proposal to explore the infrastructural changes of New York City from the Great Depression to modern times. It seemed in class that Joanna’s proposal became contorted and twisted, forming a different thesis which places a greater emphasis on where our commutes take us rather than changes incurred on these communities. Also, many students seemed to discuss desiring to study different elements of these neighborhoods other than the engineering infrastructure and their development to what we have now. While I think there are many different and interesting perspectives one could examine an area of New York, I find the change in infrastructure to be exciting and worthwhile.
I like Quan’s idea because the financial industry is a big part of New York and was affected by the recession.
Sorry for the late update.
Staying consistent with my original proposal, I would also like to investigate the same topics that Anastasia and Joanna are interested in. I feel protests (especially the ones of CCNY) are an extremely important aspect of the history of the people of this city, including the history and future development of CUNY as the people’s school. It is a fascinating topic, full of literature, and quite informative with substantial research.