The STEAM Festival at the Macaulay Honors College was an attempt at bringing together the arts focused first seminar and science focused third seminar. STEAM, of course, stands for science technology engineering arts mathematics. There were students from all CUNY campuses there so it was great to have the time to interact with them and to learn about their experiences in their respective campuses. It was interesting to see how just in the first seminar how students were learning about and experiencing the arts in different ways. Our class’s projects were based off of A Chorus of Stones and each group represented a chapter from the work, showcasing the books contents as well as personal experiences and/or opinions. A class from Baruch had gone around the city taking pictures of art and then put all the pictures in groups. This way, so many different things were able to be seen with a certain commonness. A lot of classes had short videos made on certain topics. For example, another class from Baruch research Astoria, Queens and made a video and brochures on the significance and diversity of the culture of Astoria. Others had made films about topics ranging from their experiences with Macaulay in general to personal relationships in regards to society. Seminar 3 students also had very interesting topics. Although they were science oriented, they were interesting and easy to understand. I remember this one project from Brooklyn College students that studied the relationship between nature and concentration in school work, which was very interesting and relevant. Another project researched the differences in the cafeterias of Baruch College and New York University. They found that although NYU offers more variety, Baruch offers more healthy options. I liked how the ITFs were asking us about what we had learned and they were very engaging with all students. The button making station was very fun. The buttons came out very nice. Overall, I would say that it was a great endeavor in bringing together students of all campuses and of different years with different works to present.
