Shaping the Future of New York City

I actually ended up liking the conference a lot more than I thought I would. While it seemed some classes had slightly different assignments, I still found most of the presentations interesting. During the discussion periods, I was also able to talk about ideas that other groups in my class researched and contribute even more to the discussion. If I had to criticize something, I would say Macaulay should do a better job communicating to teachers just how important this conference is and what exactly they want groups to prepare for it.

The conference was more relaxing than I thought it would be because it involved mostly other students that were in similar positions to me as a presenter. I learned much as a presenter and as a listener. One thing I took away from the conference was how people trust in the knowledge of the presenter and when one has something informative to speak about they lend their ear. One negative reaction that I had was the little time we were presenting. Something which I worked on all semester deserves more attention and I wanted to speak about it more. All in all, though this conference was a good experience because of the skills and information attained from it.

I think that the event was different from what I was expecting. It certainly didn’t start off great, it never feels good to have to travel across New York City when its raining (and no food provided .-.). However when I got there, it wasn’t that bad. The first thing I noticed when the groups started presenting to each other, was how different this project was between different classes. Some of the groups were more of a historical research presentation where they discussed existing projects and issues with it, rather than proposing a new one. While other groups were more similar to ours where they were proposing new ideas.

Ultimately I was happy with the outcome of the event and our presentation. One, I got to learn about some cool things that NYC is already doing, and new technology to look forward to. Two, our presentation went pretty well. Other than the fact that our presentation ended at 10 minutes on the dot, our project also initiated a big response from our audience. And it made us realize that our project is something that greatly effects many New Yorkers and is something we need to be considering. The questions weren’t trying to find holes in our proposal, but a few students brought up really interesting arguments that we had not considered before. Overall it was a cool experience and felt more like a conversation within a classroom rather than a conference.

Overall, my time at the Future of NYC Conference was a super gratifying experience and amazing weight lifted off of my shoulders! I feel my group delivered the best version of our presentation yet, with only 8 seconds to spare before the 1o minute limit was up! Our exceptional performance spoke to our incredible hard work as a group, and I left proud of my research and innovative idea I was lucky enough to share with other students like myself. It was super intriguing to receive feedback from not only other students but professors themselves, all of whom suggested different rationales on how to implement the ideas we presented and provided great questions or reasons for concern to consider in future research. I was grateful to learn a lot about what other students did in their own IDC classes and felt everybody successfully shined a spotlight on different and varying ideas to help the future of our city.

Overall, I thought the Futures Conference went smoothly. My group was very prepared to present and to answer questions which showed in our presentation. We focused really hard on cutting down our presentation time to make it just right and I’m glad that we accomplished it in the end. The event was organized really well as every room was diverse and very open to discussion. It was diverse because they mixed Macaulay students from different schools into the same rooms which I really liked. Students from different backgrounds could come together to share their groups’ ideas. Every group had 10 minutes to present and then a Q&A session, which gave every group a chance to speak equally. During the Q&A sections, the environment was very open for anyone to ask their questions. I was happy to see everyone engaged in discussion on the big-picture problems. The two hours went by relatively quickly in my opinion as there were 7 groups packed together, each with an interesting topic.