Today was Non-Traditional Occupations Day! This is the third time I have participated in this event, and each year it is a little bit different: the first year was for Greece Apollo 8th grade girls, and was held at a sports center; last year was again for Apollo 8th grade girls, and was held at a non-operating school; and this year NTO day was for Greece Athena 8th grade girls, held at Greece Athena. So even though this was my third time doing this event, I didn't have a whole lot to go on to predict how today was going to be with all the changes. After all, two years ago the event was miserable for me (sorry, organizers), but then last year it was one of my favorite events all year. Well, I would say this year ranked somewhere in the middle.
The format of the day was basically the same: first we had a keynote presentation (this year it was Dr. Anne Kress, President of MCC), then we did a What's My Line? style game, and then we broke off for the workshops/skills exercises. One of the major changes for this year was that we were in a large (fancy!) auditorium, which I think actually made a big difference. The keynote was much more formal, as was the event overall. Plus, it felt a little awkward having only 100 or so girls spread out amongst the front section of such a hugely vast auditorium. And, I think the darker atmosphere and comfy seating were making the girls sleepy, because the energy sure was lacking this morning.
The What's My Line part of the day went off fine. This year I was presenter #1, and my riddle went like this:.
Beams of light, day or night,
I work to find out just what is right.
Lasers, telescopes, and lenses are hot.
Sometimes it's an illusion, sometimes it's not.
But I can assure you my job is quite nice
SEE for yourself, That is my advice.
Not bad, eh? Oddly enough, other than the fire fighter and police officer, I was probably actually one of the most obvious professions up there (what a strange feeling for me), because Dr. Kress highlighted optics in her keynote and mentioned light and lasers and lenses. Which - although she was using it as a plug for MCC - was actually pretty cool, because if any one of us can get any of those girls interested in optics or imaging, we all win.
Then came the skills booths part, which was not so positive for me this year. There were some setup challenges early on, that luckily we were able to get past, but my space was still awkward for the thermal-IR presentation that I was trying to do. I was up in the corner of the auditorium seating by the stage, which was not ideal for showing the output of the camera but I made it work by projecting onto a side wall. Unfortunately, the girls' seats were down quite a bit lower, and there was a fence above them between them and the wall - so often times their view was obscured. Also, the seating was a little more difficult to work around than normal classroom seating, but again I was able to make it work. More challenging was the fact that skills booth times were taken down to only 9 minutes this year, which is barely enough time to get into much. And then regardless of venue there's always the feat of going through 10 groups of about 10 girls each in rapid succession, which is exhausting no matter how you spell it.
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| Isn't this where they host the Oscars or something? No?? |
This year, the girls did not seem nearly so into it as they did last year. I know that last year I had a mix of great and bad with mostly good, but this year I seemed to pretty much have a consistent "meh" with just a couple girls that seemed interested even in the least. I'm not sure whether it was the venue, or the change in audience (Athena vs. Apollo), the tone set by the keynote, or maybe I just wasn't at the top of my game today... but this year did not even come close to creating the same kind of magic that last year did. Then again, maybe I went in with expectations that were too high, since last year felt so awesome.
I still wouldn't write it off as being a "bad" event, and I certainly don't want to sound negative about my experience today. There was a lot of effort put into making today great, and it showed. But to be honest, I'm not totally sure whether I'd participate again. I think today's meh mood has rubbed off on me and led me to write a meh post. Sorry :-(
Considering the awkward setup and fact-paced timing, I unfortunately was
not able to get any pictures from the event like I did last year. There
was a photographer around for a while though, so if I ever see the
results from that I will be sure to post.
On a more exciting note - This is me signing off for two weeks! I'm going on vacation :-). See you on the other side.
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