STEAM Festival 2017

I went into the STEAM festival pretty terrified. Being someone who doesn’t particularly enjoy presentations, I was afraid of how people would perceive our project. Though I loved what we made, I couldn’t help but feel intimidated by being in the same room with Seminar 3 students. However, once I got there, I was offered cookies- and cookies are always a good start to anything. I also immediately was to go to the Maker’s Space. Though I didn’t know what to do right away, I eventually made a button, and had fun doing it. I thought that was a great addition to the festival as a whole, just as another activity aside from seeing projects. When it came to seeing the projects themselves, it was interesting to see the variety of topics the Seminar 3 students had, as well as the other Seminar 1 projects. I enjoyed the sense of freedom we had to just go and see other projects, not for a grade but just out of interest. I also thought it took responsibility to switch with my group members between explaining our own project and going to see others, which felt good to have. Overall, it was a great experience, and went by far quicker than I thought it would. I liked meeting people from different years as well as different campuses, alongside becoming more comfortable with presenting as time went on.

STEAM Festival

The Macaulay Steam festival was an amazing opportunity to look at the work that other Macaulay I Seminar students were doing. It was so nice to see how everyone interpreted work and I felt like our work was extremely special since it stemmed from the ideas of Chorus of Stones. Some of the students had videos, others had posters and the rest had accordion books. Each one was special and demonstrated the student’s hard work.

It was also an amazing opportunity to see what we will have to do in the future (Macaulay Seminar III).  As I walked around, I noticed how much work the students put into their poster. Their projects were a lot more research oriented than our artsy projects.

The workshop area where students were allowed to create buttons or magnets provided them with an artistic outlet. It was nice because everything was provided and it was very independent. The cookies and coffee made sure everyone had enough energy to walk around and look at everyone else’s work.

The only flaw with the Steam Festival was that it was very unorganized.  Even though it was a mandatory event, there was no way to tell whether people actually came. There was no form of attendance and students were allowed to leave whenever they wanted.

Nonetheless, the Steam Festival provided students with an amazing opportunity to bond with students across campuses. I saw people that I had met during Macaulay events over the summer for the first time since then.

-Noshin Choudhury

Steam Festival 2017

As a Macaulay student, one investigates the world around themselves by gaining insight through the: sciences, technology, engineering, maths, and the arts. Thus, we as students were given the opportunity to showcase our discoveries through the 2017 STEAM Festival.

To be quite frank, I dreaded the day of the festival, as among this event was a plethora of papers and exams to study for. So, the event itself seemed like it would be a waste of time, when measured up to the other tasks I had to complete.

However, I was rather pleasantly surprised. The festival was incredibly interesting, and was- as the name describes- a festival, for us students to display a portion of what we learned through the semester. It was intriguing to see the different approaches that the students from other Macaulay classes in Brooklyn College, as well as, the other colleges, took to presenting their projects. Some people made rather interesting displays, others videos, and poster boards. This was only the arts section however. As I ventured to the presentation boards of the science students, I was able to not only see what lays ahead of me as a Macaulay student, but also, the pressing issues or innovations that the upperclassmen discovered needed recognition or further research. I also, really enjoyed making the super cute buttons! 😉

If I had one criticism however, it would be that I would have liked the program to be a little more organized. It was a little hard to distinguish between the upperclassmen and the 1st year Macaulay students. Maybe if all the 1st years were on one floor and the upperclassmen on the other, it would have been a little better- in regards to the recognition of the sciences versus the arts. Also, I think that name tags, especially with the name of the student and their respective campus would have been a good idea, so that we could connect with one another a little better. Other than this, I thought that the STEAM Festival was a huge success, being its first year, and I certainly enjoyed it!

The Steam Festival was a unique experience. I enjoyed mixing the arts of seminar one with the science of seminar three. As a music student, it was satisfying to see the science which I haven’t even thought about since high school. I also enjoyed explaining my collaborative art piece to everyone. With each person that I talked to I discovered something. I discovered that I learned a lot more about art than I had realized this semester. I was able to explain the process of the piece as well as its inspirations and intentions. My partners and I impressed ourselves with each conversation we were able to carry. It was a liberating experience to realize that we knew more than we thought we did. The steam festival allowed us to showcase our knowledge to other people and even ourselves.

The STEAM Festival was a very enjoyable experience. I expected and dreaded that we were going to present in front of Alumni while they took notes on us. However, I was pleasantly surprised that it was the opposite. The people who asked us questions were other Macaulay students from other schools. They were actually interested in our projects. I thought that the juniors would shun us and only talk to themselves, but they were very open and cared about what we had to present. The Make Your Own Station was a neat concept and it was a good way to interact with people from different schools. What I expected to be boring morning was a fun event where time flew by quickly.

I really enjoyed the steam festival, as it really embodied the spirit of involvement beyond the classroom. I particularly enjoyed the emphasis placed on taking a genuine interest in what other Macaulay students had to offer and present. Furthermore, I really enjoyed the freedom that was present in the general atmosphere. There was no pre-existing emphasis on harsh grading, or a traditional presentation format, which really added to the overall motive of the festival and the general atmosphere.

Where the festival was an enjoyable experience, it could have been improved in a myriad of ways. I felt the level of organization could have been enhanced in a number of ways. There was no way to account for the students there or take attendance. Furthermore, the students were not organized with their peers taking the same seminar courses. Personally, our group was placed with seminar three students, and as a result our project felt very misplaced.