 Hello, everyone. So good to see you all. I'm just going to wait a little bit. Okay, we can get started. I know I am so pleased to see all of you. It's hard to concentrate with everything that's going on. Hi, Joy. With everything that's going on, you know, first, you know, for a long time, it's still ongoing with the pandemic. Black lives matter. And then yesterday, the terrible news about status of international students. So hard to concentrate. But, you know, as a faculty and director of the academic program, one of my goals is to make sure that all of you cross, you know, flourish. So we'll try to concentrate. I want to thank Laila, who's the director of events at GSAP. So she's going to coordinate and moderate. If you have questions, any time during the day, just use the chat box and send in for short and make time for Q&As. So what we will do today is probably I'll speak for about 10 to 15 minutes. And I also want to acknowledge we have a number of faculty here. Mara is here. Marla is here. I may not be seeing everybody. So just holler if you are in any of the faculty. And so my goal is to give an outline of the process as well as to, you know, really kind of spell out our expectations. And then I will ask Roy, who is our proud graduate of 2020, and also a proud winner, you know, award winner. And she'll also, she'll show outline how she approached the process and share her experience with you in 10 to 15 minutes, you know, hold your questions a little bit. And then we'll have Alana. Alana, if you're there, wave your hands. I don't know if everyone knows you. And the same with Joy. Alana is also our proud graduate of 2020, also a award winner from UP. And then she was among the few students who took up the capstone option the very first time. So she'll share her experience on working on a capstone and again in 10 to 15 minutes and then hold your questions a little bit and we'll then open up for Q&As. And the session is also taped. So if that's okay with you and, you know, if you don't feel comfortable with your questions, feel free to shoot us a private question or, you know, email me later. So with that, we'll get started. And I'm going to share a screen I will also make my PPT available to everyone afterwards. And I'll see you well. Alana, give me a thumb up. Great. Thank you. So for many years, we only had a thesis. We didn't have any capstone. So I'll go with the thesis a little bit. So what is a thesis? We are defining thesis somewhat in a more traditional way. That's also why we have now an option for doing capstone. The thesis in social sciences tends to refer to how we can structure, you know, and organize and make a compelling and logical case for either an idea. For example, that would be an idea of digital technology is a form of infrastructure. It's not quite theory. So the next is for theory. It's more abstract and also, you know, can be replicated in different places so we know markets are represented by imperfect competition, the theory. And some of us may be quite ambitious to take on a theory to maybe extend that and you can write a thesis about that. Or you're trying to construct an argument or case for testable hypothesis. And this, for our next session on thesis, I will talk about research design and we'll look at how a number of teams have done in the past to show how density may cause harmful effect on health, right? And hold your questions. There's lots of questions about that. I know that. Or you're trying to make a case for policy position. You know, many of you know about community boards in New York City, and you can argue and then provide evidence and make the case for that community boards are an effective platform for public engagement in the planning process. Right. Last but not least, and many of our thesis writers focus on making a case for some empirical finding. Okay, so for example, you want to show the changing levels of vulnerability of low income population in New York City over time, either overall, or to various different risks and exposures, right? So, so think about thesis of making a case and gathering evidence and trying to prove that case on any one of these kinds of topics. So gathering and analyze evidence in a systematic way is really important for this. So here it is. So, when you look at any of those five examples I just gave you, you are making a proposition. You're essentially trying to defend that proposition. And in order for you to collect evidence on that proposition, we have to say it's really more about the past, not about the future. The thesis very rarely or ever is focusing on the future. So one of our faculty colleagues used to say there is no crystal ball. So thesis is not about projecting the future, generally. So, a couple years ago we went through a lot of approval to get this option started. Oops. That is many of our students want to focus more on practical matters. And so that is a professional capsule. Right. So you want to apply your knowledge and skills to address an important or important planning issues. And in that process you show your understanding of the issues. You also show what constraints that are for you to try to resolve that issues. Nonetheless, you are proposing some potential solution. And so in some way it has a little bit of a future in it. And I will, you know, it's not that sort of black and white, right. So here we really want you to focus on an applied real world project from an actual client and Alana will help you understand how that works out and I would be happy to answer questions. So when we conceived the professional capstone we also wanted to give students flexibility that is, you can work on all different kinds of real world project. Right. So here are just some examples, you know, a traditional urban design project, or a traditional planning project, or working for advocacy or government agency on client report that can be both policy or physical, physically a plan oriented, or in a research or even a GIS model, or even an app. So we want our students to explore these possibilities. So these are, you know, potential outcomes we had foresee and maybe we hadn't foresee everything so some of our students could also produce something beyond this list so work with us work with your advisor right. So if we think about a thesis or capstone, it's about a product that you want to be proud of, and you want to be conveying to others. So these others is your audience whose your audience right. So generally, you could, the thesis could be to the large profession of planning. So that's on the top, and then or to a specific client or a community recipient, again on the top, the two general categories of audience. And then, on the left do you see quitting for motor reasoning that is how you actually go about delivering the thesis outcome, or the capstone, either is imaginative, meaning quite sort of creative thinking of future thinking or something that may not that may not be quite there yet that you are paving the way to get there, or propositional. So I talked about propositional right. So if you do this two by two table. So you will get an imaginative kind of theoretical or conceptual or types of writing that point to us to new directions of thinking. You know, with pandemic with COVID-19, how we may reimagine public space. But you kind of do it in a more conceptual way, less practical, but you also are not doing real evidence or real past experience to convince people that this or that idea in your essay will work. So that's an essay. And then you are being very imaginative about the need of a particular community to kind of redesign reimagine their public space so one of the studio groups worked on that right. That's more like a design a plan. Again, I don't want to put all of this, you know, squarely in each box and they don't really bleed through they always believe through, but by a very nature, a design is more imaginative, and it is less propositional. And then there's thesis right thesis is propositional. It is trying to speak to the larger profession, or the informed public that is to say your thesis should be situated in the field and connected with other people's work on a similar or same topic. And then, when you finish your thesis, your work can inform others in the profession, right. And professional capstone falls more in the propositional, but more specifically to the needs of a client or a community. So I why don't I put capstone in the design box you could if your capstone project is very much of a design project. But our requirement for the capstone is beyond justice design, we would like you and I think Alana could also tell you more that we would like you to also review some literature some writing about the issue that you work on in capsule. It's not a pure design without some research process with some propositional thinking. Okay, so I know there will be lots of questions and I'm happy to answer later. So, I'm going through things really quick. So basically, oh, yeah, let me stop here. So right now, you're just at the very starting point. And, and I will spell out a little bit of what to do next between now and August 17 when we would like to know your political preliminary ideas of a topic right. So a thesis and capstone is an annual process takes two semesters. The first semester in the fall. It will be very much of a small workshop, no more than 10 people in a group with one advisor. So after we see your form on around mid August, all of the advisors will gather will try to match between your need and our expertise. And then we'll make sure you will be able to work with the faculty in the fall semester that matches close sufficiently close to your interest, right. And so in the fall is very much of like, almost like studio but more on research, more on conceptual thinking, more on how do we gather data, how do we reach out to people to gather data. So that's so we'll have weekly breakout workshops. And the last bit of that content IRB stands for institutional review board, because many of you will be going out. I mean, depending on how things hang out this fall and the winter, how much you can go out is still questionable, but a lot of us are also able to reach out for folks online. So when you do that, you are interacting with human subjects, and, and there's ethical framework to make sure that we're doing the proper thing to respect people's confidentiality privacy and so on and so forth. So for now that's all you kind of need to know about IRB and we'll have training also in the fall semester. The deliverables for the fall is a proposal, be it for your ceases or for your capstone. And then you will also will need a reader, other than your advisor to help you in the spring semester to finalize your writing right so we will like you to identify a reader and get their agreement at the end of fall. And for those of you who are working on capstone. You need a memorandum memorandum of understanding with your client, and then we have that form and Alana can talk a little bit more and I will have will talk more in the fall in each group. Usually in the past in between fall and spring lots of students began doing field research and or data collection because some of the students use secondary data. And that's totally cool. And, and you use that time to collect. So in the spring. It's very much writing on your own. And reading either in group or individual fashions as needed so that's when you make an appointment with your advisor or your advisor decides there are points of time in a spring semester that folks need to meet together. And then, basically, the complete draft is due right after spring break. For one week in April, everybody defends their thesis or capstone that we call it jewelry week. And then your final version is due into the office may 7 and just before your graduation. So, between now and August 17 what should what should we all do right so what next immediately. So, I would encourage you to think about a topic, and you can change that topic by October the reason is that too far beyond that you won't have sufficient time to work on a new topic in some depth and then complete your thesis or capstone in time right so that's for your So, in the form you're welcome to present more than one topic, you know the the job of the fall workshop is about helping you to narrow down and focus right so it's fine for right now you got two or three ideas that's totally good. And so, ideally, in your topic should be in sync with your chosen concentration if you're still wondering about that. That's okay to right but by the end of the fall, both the topic and your concentration should be very clear. And then you can choose. Any of the function functional areas of planning housing land use health planning, you know, community development, anything. And then you want to think about it whether there is a geographical focus for you. Right, do you want to work on a particular country, or you want to work on a planning area that's quite general. And then you want to think about you want to use a particular method like machine learning, or do you are you open to like mix methods. Right, so just sort of some thought to get you going, you know, try to answer any of these questions will get you go. And then this tough decision, which only started last year this, should I do a thesis or I do a capstone, you can switch once by October that again is just to make sure that you have enough time to actually complete your product. And so here I think there are a number of considerations for you all to think about like, whether you are more interested in in Jeff's research, or you're more interested in a practical solution right and that makes big difference. And then for anybody who's doing either a thesis or capstone you want to think about whether this is a place to demonstrate your expertise, and then your product becomes a sample of the work that you can show to anybody, you know, potential employers or anybody else right. And because that's actually quite different from the next consideration some students actually want to use thesis as opportunity to learn a new set of skills. And I have had students do that quite a bit you know you've done so much quantitative work, you've never use qualitative methods you've never use photo journalism, you want to do a project on that through your thesis or capstone that's totally cool right. And if you already know where you want to work, you really want to integrate into the mandate of that organization quite immediately. And maybe you want to do work to prepare for that and that was would be another consideration. And then some of you are interested in perhaps pursuing PhD down the road. And if you that is your ambition and goal, then maybe, you know, research in depth research in an area that you have been interested or in a new area will be called for. So, any of these considerations will help you kind of get going. So the point is get going and just keep thinking and jot down your ideas I can just as enough that always write down your ideas, even if you know they get squashed off down the road. So, yeah, that's 20 minutes already on my side so I'll stop and I will introduce joy. And so she can share her experience with writing her thesis. I guess. Should I start. Hi guys. I'm joy. I just recently graduated from she said I'm sure some of you know me or see me around before COVID happened. I'm always hanging out in the planning lounge, currently working at Borough half old I just started three weeks ago. So that's been fun. I just wanted to kind of walk you through what the thesis process was like for me, I don't want to go in depth of like the contents of my thesis you can all look that up it's like public information so I don't want to take up that time, but basically share some like tips and tricks and also lessons learned as I was going through the process and also you know how I saw you know my friends and peers also going through that process. I would say that absolutely way things completely correct you should start thinking about your thesis topic now I was thinking about it around this time to the end of my first year, and it doesn't you don't have to like sit down and like kind of like you know, take a whole day and write it but basically you know as you're going about everything as you're reading the news, or as you're sitting in front of your computer or just browsing Facebook and you see a particular topic it doesn't even have to be planning related. It's interesting to you, and you think, oh, wait, I have some questions about this topic that I would really like to look into further. Write it down. Right, I have a bunch of I have like a Google Doc where I just copy and paste all the articles I find and I see just randomly browsing I just copy face it down maybe type of you know it's like oh this have right I read a question and then eventually that became kind of how like a talking point when you start talking in your thesis groups and with your thesis advisor. And definitely like those news articles that you come across now that you don't think you know might not even be relevant still keep them there. You can use them eventually they might even be really important to you later on you never know. One thing to keep in mind is that a topic that you think is great now might be completely different. A few months down the line, and this has happened to almost everybody in my thesis group I was in Professor Anthony Venke's group. Congratulations to him he is now taking assistant position at somewhere else. And basically what happened was everybody started off the semester for their first semester with one topic and then by the end of the first half, the first semester, everybody was freaked out and trying to wonder, what should we do and some people their their final thesis and what they proposed were completely different topics and that's okay but you have to keep in mind that the folks that happen to do that just struggle a little bit with timing in the second half because they had to, you know, completely redo their data collection they have to completely rethink like their literature and how to go about the research. So with that I'm going to share my screen and kind of let's see. You want to see this. Alright, so my thesis was about fracking and the intersection of fracking and planning. I'm not going to go into it too much but the basic gist of it was that I got interested in an article I read about Colorado, putting a new initiative on their ballot that would be effectively create like a 2,500 foot zone buffer from any residential area to from fracking so you cannot frack or dig any new wells within 2,500 feet of a residential place. And it wasn't just Colorado like a lot of states were considering it, especially a lot of states that had heavy fracking. And what fracking is is just you're trying to get like shale oil and natural gas by digging deep in the ground and putting a lot of chemicals in it. And basically you know that got me thinking, wait, I've never thought about this before. This is an interesting topic. Could I apply what I've learned in my classes, like using data analysis machine learning and amalgamation of different sorts of methods to kind of analyze the situation because it's not really been talked in a planning context like I've never heard about this particular problem in my planning class yet they're using planning terms, zoning. Right, so how would planners, you know, tackle this problem this is not something that's really discussed that much so can I find the intersection of planning and this energy, this field of what's really she been like engineering energy and a lot of politics. Right fracking is very political. It also touches on environmental issues, issues of social justice. Where are you fracking. These are all things that I am very, was very interested in still very interested in, you know, who are whose backyards are you fracking in is it low income people's backyards are they predominantly clustered in certain areas. So, so basically, you know, this was a deck I made for the thesis defense you don't have to make a deck but it's a lot easier if you do. Talking about the history and background and basically the first step I did to look into it was, okay, what data can I get right what data is out there publicly available can I even think about this question do I even have the resources to answer the questions that I have. And the first thing I do was go online and just search like what publicly available data do I have go on all the government agencies who think might be relevant so for me it was, you know, the US Geological Survey US Department of Environmental Protection dp and then just go into states and where does fracking happen most Texas okay I go to Texas did they have a GIS database I can use with all their fracked wells. It turns out that there was a publicly available kind of the database of fracked wells. Like registered fracked well so my dad is actually missing some more privately owned wells or not registered wells. But that's okay because I already have a lot of data here. Map them out, see if I can find any initial relationship. And I know way pings said you can start thinking about your data collection maybe in between your proposal and you know when you start writing but I would actually suggest that you start thinking about it because that is probably the key driver of how successful your thesis will be do you have the data. You can have a great question but if you have no data to back it up or no resources to back it up like if you're thinking about interviewing people as your main point of data collection. You need to start email thinking at least make it like a contact list of people you want to reach out to or you think it would be good to reach out to and actually start drafting emails and you know asking them it doesn't matter if you don't end up. Actually interviewing them or if you don't actually end up talking to them. It's useful to establish that initial point of contact because people are slow and now you know during coven they're even less likely to want to you know pick up the phone and talk to people. Everybody's just sitting at home. So, you know, email them now explain that you are a researcher at Columbia you know your student your graduate student and you're doing research and people tend to want to help out people who are doing research. And kind of explain your ideas and see you know in the future is it possible if I can reach out to you establish a good connection so that when you need information. It's readily available to you now don't wait until last minute like just don't don't do it. Yeah, so I'm not going to go through the entire thing I can show you some slides of my findings which is really mapping out you know we're fracking happens in Pennsylvania, Texas and what would happen if we instituted kind of like a graduated set of buffers. You can see here that you know this is only a small part the second part of my thesis was really trying to use logistic regressions and doing a lot of statistical analysis on what the reduction of you know GDP labor employment would be if those buffers were to be enforced. Are the lobbyists correct in saying oh if you impose a 2500 foot buffer we would effectively lose all of our business. And then you know department of commerce said oh we've been fracking. The economy would collapse us would fall into financial ruin employment with skyrocket energy costs would go high would be at the apocalypse like is that true. I want that that that's basically my question right is that true. And so you know you could do a lot of things with just a simple question and you can even hinge it on like one or two pieces of like an article that you read so mine was that report put out by the Chamber of Commerce like what happens if we ban fracking their conclusion was it would be terrible and I want to see if that was true. So that was the crux of my thesis. The only one about it was in the fall semester basically everybody kind of you know shared what their ideas were is very different everybody had very different ideas I wrote down some of mine like you can tell like the ones that I had initially is completely different from what I ended up with and that's perfectly fine you're going to go through this iterative process. And one of the things to keep in mind is you don't want to scope so a lot of people it's not that they don't have any ideas is that they have a lot of ideas and they don't know what to pick. And a good thesis is not necessarily a huge one right it's not about answering as many questions as possible it's about the nuances of answering maybe one or two specific questions and the implications that you can draw from that and then for us. What policy recommendations right to whom are we talking to what policy recommendations can we make that would advance planning or you know public policy or advocacy or whatever you're interested in that field if you're interested in environmental justice what policy recommendations can you make from the results of your thesis that could help advances and it doesn't have to be sweeping right you it could be a small point as long as it somehow advances your field of interest, even just so slightly. So, here you can see like, you know, like I said I just anytime I see interesting article I put it down the first one I think this is about cemeteries and human remains and how like cemeteries are taking up too much space like do we need that much space. Very different right just put your ideas out there it'll help you later. One of the things that really helped me was having your study variables. So, after you think of a topic narrow it down to one or two, just create a table and kind of list out like what are you actually testing you need to test like, even if you're not doing like a statistical one it's it's good to have in mind like what are the variables that you're looking at when I say variables, I don't necessarily mean it in like a math or statistical term. I'm saying, if I am researching this question, what are the factors are most likely to influence the answer that I'm looking for. So, for example, my friend he was looking at, you know, digital plan, like digital governance. So the quite so he didn't do any like statistical modeling, but it's also like we would constantly talk and the question I would ask him is, what are you thinking would affect how digital governance is done, and are the ones that you're looking at relevant. So at first he was like, I'm going to use you know UN metrics for for for test for a base it on the UN standards and I'm like well the UN standards is for countries, you're looking at cities, is that scalable. So now look at the independent maybe you can extract from UN like the UN guidelines of good digital governance for countries and see what is independently applicable to individual cities. And the scale might be very different right and also the scope like governing and countries very different from governing the city. So you have to make that distinction very early on what are the exact variables you're looking and are they applicable to the questions that you're So you know I listed out a bunch of these I ended up using maybe like a quarter of whatever I listed out. I have my independent variables which is just what what what are if I can operationalize what I'm searching for. What would it be and you should only really have one or two or almost three if you have too many independent variables that means you're trying to look at too many different things and you're going to go crazy. So you know I have independent variables and then the dependent variables are the things that get really interesting. Those are the things that you are going to be like detectives and kind of dig into and see if are those actually relevant or not might not actually use them. So for me you know I had like a whole bunch of economic, you know things GDP gas prices oil import those ended up not being important. I started looking more at you know the change indicators of social demographic indicators you know looking at jobs, looking at household income looking at race. Like those are the standard you know social demographic indicators we use as planners are also looked at you know stuff specific to my to this topic which is you know the change in number of oil wells the distance between oil wells the distance between residential areas or water wells and oil wells and those things. And as you're going about it, you should also you know put in your own thoughts about what you think will happen. But don't let that dictate like your process, because you know one of the traps that I almost fell in was you know I thought okay this is what's going to happen. And when my results didn't necessarily show that I was like oh wait but am I wrong. And sometimes no it's not it's just your initial hypothesis did not match up with the result and that's fine that's what you can say in your thesis like this outcome was not as expected but this is So, once you do the data collection the actual regression only took me like all the analysis went to me two weeks. And when I say two weeks I mean like I just sat down and every day I worked on it for like eight hours, but I didn't like stay up all night and in public all nighters for two weeks I just stay there did my analysis document everything. And I wasn't doing the right and it was just you know doing the analysis and then having bits of explanation here and there so that I can then organize it later on. I would say that this is not necessarily the case for everyone I know my friends struggled with some time management issues and it really depends on how you operationalize your process throughout. I'm going to guide. I'm going to show you something that will help you guys a lot. This is called Zotero. Can I share this. This is called Zotero to you guys can everybody see Zotero is what I use to organize all of my documents, my literature, my files, and this will save you so much trouble down the road basically you should have a folder of all of the different topics you're looking at, or your thesis. So for my thesis, it touches on issues of economic environmental health, and then just, you know, I collected topics like oil itself, right, regulatory social policy, I separated them into categories I think will be useful for your literature review because when you write a literature review, you will be based the best way to do it is to group them thematically, or it could be like through time, right so if you're doing it chronologically if you're doing like a thesis. That is like an analog case study or analysis over time then you would group it by eras, or some sort of time frames but having those folders that organizes the research that you're looking at. So if I go into my economic I have all of the papers that I found online, or you know I searched up myself through academic journals I would download them, and I would upload them on to my Zotero. What this does is I basically have a depository when I'm writing my literature review I would just go on Zotero pick up the article I need, and then write about it, and it cuts down your workflow process by like 50%. I, I like finished before the thesis deadline that was how efficient. I became at figuring out this. And it's really easy because it is it stalls onto your web browser and so when you're actually finding article online you just click the icon on your web browser and it will just automatically save it onto your Zotero folder. And I think as students you get free access to this. So use it. And then when you're done you can create, I can create, let's see create a pre bibliography from item and then you know I use Chicago style a lot. You just click okay and it's copy and paste it onto your clip or use copy and paste it onto your bibliography and you don't have to go through the whole thing of writing a bibliography and it just saves you so much time. So that's Zotero. And if you have any questions on that I'm happy to share. And I guess the last thing that I could talk about is, you know, the end product right how to get from from point a to your final product. No one thing I would say is really like list out at one point I just sat down and manually wrote down my questions. So like at one point I had too many things going on I had too many questions I was considering too many variables not enough data. It was just a mess. This was like sometime in mid April. I sat down had a thesis meeting with my advisor was like oh shit I have nothing to talk about because I have too many things to talk about and he's going to like yell at me for that. So I sat down took a pen and paper, like manually and manually hand wrote what are my questions I drew like a squit like across did a matrix and wrote down okay these are the social issues I'm looking at these are the economic issues I'm looking at these are the spatial issues I'm looking at how do they intersect right sometimes it's a lot easier if you're drawing a diagram out on paper to organize your thoughts and you know staring at your screen being like oh my God. So after I do that, I also talked with my thesis of my second thesis advisor Professor Moshe I'm sure you guys had him economics. He was super helpful and helping me organize like not keep narrowing down the scope and also figuring out some technical details. So that's that's generally the dynamic between the two like your reader will be there as much as you want them to be there if you don't talk to them you don't ask them. They're not going to know what's going on and they're not going to reach out to you. Your thesis advisor is there to help guide you through the process use them have the meetings with them. And they'll help ask you the tough questions to help you guide in a tough direction your readers mostly there for like industry knowledge so like knowledge in that specific field if you have technical questions ask them. Your seat this advisor has is more of a general, you know how to write the thesis how do you think about the problem. So use them both. And what Moshe told me was joy you need an executive summary. Right before you even finish your thesis finished writing and editing and revising your thesis you need to write an executive summary, which basically allows you me to figure out like what is the whole you know 100 page thesis about how do I condense it into a two pager. And if you can't do that that means your thesis is not organized in a way that is easy for people to read. If you can do that that's great, and it should be in bullet point format. And this really helped me because during a thesis defense this is exactly what you will be presenting you'll be presenting something in 10 to 15 minutes. This is helpful and I can talk more about that if you have questions. And besides that, that's basically it also if you're doing a like a data thing like I did it's it's good to have an Excel file with all your tables I don't do late tech that takes too long and frankly I don't know how to you could do anything you want in Excel basically I made all these tables in Excel. So this is the best way to just have all of your tables in one place and do your calculations there as well on the data thing I get in our and then you know, but most of the people that need an Excel. And then they just look nice to format them well. So yeah, that's it for me a list of equations when you get the last thing I want to say, sorry, Ilana, is that when you're doing logistical equations to make sure that you have like one document at separate from you writing your thesis where you list out all of the things that you're looking at with the necessary tables and the variables and then you can just give it to your reader before your thesis presentation, and it will make everything a lot clearer. And then you don't have to spend all that time reading and revising. I passed the thesis defense with no revisions required, but that's not because I had like a perfect thesis that's because I did a lot of revisions and talk to my reader before and so basically all their issues and concerns were trust before I even had the defense. And that's something that you guys should do if you're very data. So yeah, that's it for me. Thank you joy. Do you still need to leave at 12. I think I can stay. I think I can stay. Okay, so then we'll leave the Q&A. Yeah, so Ilana. Hi everyone, hope everyone is doing well. So yeah, as we've been mentioned, the capstone process was brand new. When I started, and I spent the summer similarly to joy kind of jotting down ideas for a thesis or capstone was not sure what I wanted to do I entered planning, wanting to study and produce some sort of product about kind of planning in the arts and so I spent a lot of time speaking with Doug Woodward. If you guys don't know him, he is the professor who does the joint studio, also zoning, and he actually works for Lincoln Center. His full time job is the kind of head of real estate development there, which means that he does kind of the development and modernization at the Lincoln Center campus. So anyway, I had a conversation with him kind of just talking about thesis and capstone and he was basically presented me with the idea for my capstone, which was called creating a cultural innovation district at Lincoln Center. And basically his team was working on a project to create a cultural district in the area that sort of connected Lincoln Center, which exists. Actually, I have a share my screen so you can have some sort of visual with that. Working. See. Yeah, it doesn't look like I can share my screen for some reason. You're co host Ilana so there shouldn't be any reason. Yeah sorry just clicking on it and it's not not popping the usual. The ability to share isn't working for some reason. It's not a big deal I can just speak to it. It might be my my version of zoom or something like that is that's causing the error. I don't know if you want to email me your presentation quickly I can just bring it up on my computer. If you want to talk through like send it to me and then start talking and I'll just get it. Yeah, yeah. Sure. Yeah, it's not a full presentation it was just a couple of screenshots. But I can, I can just speak to it. So yeah so anyways the project is basically about Lincoln Center wants to create a cultural district. They spent the summer kind of doing some research with some other peers of mine who were interning for Doug, about kind of how to connect Lincoln Center, which is about on like West 66 street with the theater district below and Hell's Kitchen which has an abundance obviously the theater district has all Broadway and a lot of artists used to live in Manhattan. And as maybe you know or don't know a lot of artists it's too expensive to live in Manhattan now, they've moved to Brooklyn and that's kind of now become a hub of different arts spaces. And so, Lincoln Center this idea of how do we bring artists back to Manhattan how do we bring them back from the outer boroughs, which are succeeding in a way that Manhattan used to simply because Manhattan's too expensive to live in. I mean onto this project, as if I want to do my capstone about it and it was that simple I know some of my peers didn't have kind of that same experience in the sense of they weren't, they had to, they were given a project or they went to a different organization and, and worked with them and they had a specific idea. But I already had this existing relationship with Doug because he was my professor for my studio. So kind of it began that way and I immediately say yes because it aligned with my interests. And for the first half of the year, kind of as we mentioned, you're focused on your proposal. So I worked closer I think with my advisor that I did with my client, who was Lincoln Center. And that experience, I think is 5050, as in some people kind of their client is really hands on versus a little bit more hands off in the beginning. But I made sure to kind of regularly work and speak with my client about kind of direction things were heading in and sort of what was happening there. So, I sort of would work with my advisor kind of build a problem statement build a research question and bring it back to my client see if that aligned with what they were looking for. And so by the end of the first semester I had a sort of definitive idea of what I wanted to produce, kind of again based with the input that my client gave me. And I signed a memoranda of understanding which whipping and mentioned, and that basically is a document that says, this is what I'm going to do for you exactly and kind of list full of points. You sign it your client signs it and your advisor signs it, so that there's not like a chance that this turns into like free internship work essentially for them, and you're doing extra work that you weren't going to sign on to your student at the same time. I think Doug was great as a client because he's a professor and he knows that. There might be a situation where you're working for a nonprofit group or an agency that that wants you to do more that you signed then you signed up for. At the end of the day this is an academic exercise as well you're producing something to give to your client that's hopefully really helpful, but you should also treat it as an academic exercise as a way to further your own research and your own ideas and your own project. Oh, and just another note about this kind of beginning this first semester was selecting a reader. This is really important for the capstone process, who you choose. I chose someone who's also a professor but is mostly a practitioner her name's Maxine Griffith. She is like an experienced planner. She works for Columbia now but worked for planning in Philadelphia and so on and she was a great second reader because she gave a lot of insight on how to kind of produce a planner to produce a report that is useful for a client. So I think choosing the reader is really important for the capstone especially in that sense, I would maybe recommend talking to your client they might have someone, an idea of someone who might be able to do it. And I think a lot of you know Columbia has a lot of practitioners that are on staff. So that might be a good good way to do it. So, yeah, moving on to the second semester. That was like a big crank out time during winter break I spent a lot of time. Developing a more comprehensive research design scheduling interviews kind of doing that, that that push right there. So that second semester, from when you start at the end of January through when your penultimate draft is due in mid March, you're getting interviews you're getting the content that the meat of the report and you're and you're pushing it out. So my final product is was a was about a 70 page report. It was I designed it and wrote it. I created kind of the graphics for it, but I know a lot of other capstone students created like softwares. They create something like through Tableau or like an interactive website or something like that. It again just depends on what your client asked for. Since Lincoln Center was already building this report. This was something I figured could be, they could just pick and choose kind of whatever information they wanted and needed and they can include in their report, or they could just kind of take out whatever pages, literally from the report I produced and use it and present it if they wanted to. So my report itself was kind of broken down into two parts. The first part was sort of introductory material and the second part was sort of like the findings. An important part of the capstone process, at least in my experience was the creation of recommendations. And this again is like the part of the academic exercise right you want to get something to your client you want to say this is. This is the first part is all the introduction. This is everything I researched. These are the issues addressed. These are the existing conditions and your client might know it, but they also probably don't. This is maybe what they'll take away. This is maybe what it will be especially useful for them and they'll use it. But the second part which is sort of the findings and the recommendations again speaks to the academic exercise of it all. You know, I've now developed an expertise semi expertise in this in the study I've spent all year studying this and these are my findings. This is what you should do with this information. My advisor was Ryan Devlin. He was really amazing at kind of crafting what a capstone is and what it should be. I think he had experience working at other schools where their primary final product was a capstone. But again, it's the idea of producing recommendations and recommendations. I think at first I was like I have no expertise in this at all like how as a student can I just come up with like this is what you should do. But there's a lot of different kind of systems in place and I would encourage looking at the new school they have an established capstone process I looked at a lot of their capstones there's a lot of other planning programs out there that have established. Capstone programs and especially as Columbia is just establishing theirs I think that was a really really helpful part of this. But yeah so I think so an example recommendation. So my question that I crafted that first semester was sort of how can Lincoln Center expand existing cultural spaces in the area to keep artists in Manhattan to keep artists close by. And one of my recommendations I had seven total was to incorporate subsidies into operation models. And that came from interviewing artists interviewing different organizations that had rehearsal space that they offered subsidies for it was again grounded and sort of the work that I had done. And also again, rooted in the original research and the original problem statement which is it's too expensive to be in Manhattan for artists, their rehearsal spaces that don't offer subsidies it's, they can't rehearse anymore in Manhattan so why would they sort of stay. And yeah so that's an example of the report, just to speak quickly a client relations. So at the end of the day you know you're producing this for the client. But they should also know and you should, you know you want to make sure they know this is again your student this is an academic exercise. And you want to be useful for them and you want to be able to leave a situation kind of having a good connection leaving a good taste in, you know, as a good impression for them. Because this could be someone that has that connection for your future employment and that's very much how I treated it, especially with my connection with Doug and with Maxine, who had a lot of connections kind of in the planning world. And you so you want to just make sure you set a regular communication I know a lot of my peers were very frustrated, because they found it hard to communicate they didn't hear from their client very often, but it's on you, in my opinion to kind of continue to reach out and speak with them really established that relationship. Consider yourself a consultant like as a consultant how would you communicate with a client. And then finally just want to speak to kind of the challenges, any challenges I faced. So the biggest challenge I faced was kind of the client, changing their mind sometimes. And this, even though I submitted kind of memorandum understanding I kind of had to keep pointing back to it and just say yeah so I know that you mentioned this, but this is sort of what we established I would do so maybe how can I adjust sort of within that parameter how can I adjust it to fit your need. It was challenging at times and sometimes I felt like beyond stressed about it, and I would go to my advisor and I would, you know, just say I don't know what to do and he was really great about calming me down to sing. This is an academic exercise, you're not, you're not being paid for this you're producing something for them. Again, at the end of the day you want to, you want them to be happy with it. Yeah, fortunately, my client was very happy with with the final product. Unfortunately, everything's at a halt right now because of coven the performing arts are really, really precarious right now which is something that I addressed, kind of at the end, I produce this entire COVID hit, and it's going to have been ridiculously terrible effect on the arts theaters aren't going to be up for a really long time and and what ours are really struggling to stay in the city at more than ever so it's it is a pressing project I wish I could have addressed it more, but I'm hoping that once you know they're able to be up and running I can provide some some insight and guidance and I can be part of those discussions to really see how theaters are going to address it. And I'm just looking at my notes to make sure. Yeah, and I think everyone who I know who had a capstone did the capstone project and there was just a handful of us had a positive experience. I know people work with planning departments they worked with nonprofit groups. Just, you can think just my recommendation as far as finding a client. If there's, I think, but I think that there was a bit initially produced like a list of potential organizations that might be interested in it. And one of my peers worked with our PA regional plan Association and I was an intern for them as they were discussing what do we do like how do we give a capstone to a student. So my recommendation would be to think of a question think of your interest like why did you enter the planning this planning program initially. What are some of the ways like courses haven't fulfilled maybe what you wanted to initially provide and form a question around it form and think about what organizations might benefit from you doing more research into that specific topic and that specific field that you were interested in. And that's sort of how I approached it. But yeah, that's that's about all I have to say about it. I'm sorry that my share screen didn't work but I'm happy to answer questions not just in here but if you wanted to send me an email. I sell my Columbia email active I can share my report my final product with you. I'm happy to answer online like as a PDF so it's it's easily accessible. If it's not already on Columbia's page. And I'm happy to answer to answer any questions you have. Thanks. Thank you. This is actually really eye opening because really was the first time we do capstone. I have advised similar projects before in previous institutions. So, in any case, you know the floor is really open. Shoot your questions either by raising your hand, or just type it in the chat box. I just want to recap really quickly what I want to enjoy have kind of shared with you all is that you have an ambitious idea and you and a great idea and that may take. I don't know more than a year of research right you get, you know really frustrated because you didn't have enough time or you. And as faculty we always want to make sure that you don't get to back down by the time constraints, you know really you only have four to five months right it's not up to. And so we really want to just make sure the process probably matters more to you that is you actually learn how to come up with a question how to gather information to, you know, defend and make that statement. And so, it's okay in the end you have your finding joy was saying, not a big question or big set of findings but nuanced and and you really learn. That's really what we are here to help you do. And then if you have a breakthrough finding. That's all the better right but that's the icing on the cake. Looks like they answered all the questions. I see a question in the. That's what you are on I think. Do you mind just reading it aloud on us so that. Yeah, this question is for Michael. You mentioned briefly that you would be open to continuing to work on the organization after graduation. Is this a real possibility do you know if people who continue to work on their capstone projects after graduation. Yeah, I think, for me, that opportunity was there, and due to COVID, it was not there anymore. So yeah, I think I would, I would be working on it right now for them, if the, the, the COVID did not hit, and is having just this impact on the arts specifically. I know that a lot of people did, or now there's like, I think only five or six of us. I have a friend who worked on a project for Red Hook. And I know that she is still in contact with them, kind of just doing some side stuff for them. As a result, I'm not sure if she's getting paid I think she just more really felt passionate about the project. Yeah, I do. I do think that a lot of students developed these, you know, specific skills, like for Tableau, like programming other types of things, and felt so passionate about the final product that they are continuing to update it. At least to work on it but yeah so I think, I think that it is a real possibility to be hired based off of the work you did and to continue to work on the work that you did. I just want to address really quickly Shreya. I, there's a question in the chat about clarifications about the way forward for schooling and I just want to say that, while we completely understand that this is a very important question and really like the thing that is driving all of your lives right now it's not appropriate to this conversation so we're not going to discuss it now. And we do, we do expect, or did expect within yesterday or today to have some information from Columbia University and then more details from GSAP. Obviously the changes to the F1 and other revisions that were just announced are throwing a hinge in those plans so unfortunately there's no new information that we can provide during this conversation so let's just try to keep it to the thesis process here. Thank you very much. So maybe I could also provide a little bit more information on something that a lot. Yeah, Jason, just a minute. Alana referred to that she already knew, you know, her client. And so it was pretty natural to get on this project. And for some of you who are thinking about capstone but don't have quite good idea of who the client may be and to reach out to someone. In the folder where you find all the thesis and capstone guidelines, it's in the UP program information Google folder right and in the same folder called UP guidelines and forms, there's a sub folder called potential capstone projects. And there are three files in there and all together they're about a handful of projects that we already are approached by various different agencies. Look at them and most of them have contact info but you need more info just show me an email and we can go from there. Yes, Jason. This may have already been addressed in an email to us because I know the library system has sent some emails but if we need access to materials, hypothetically, we're not on campus. I know there's a certain policy most books can't get checked out. Is there a possibility for them to amend that because I personally if I'm, you know, I've done a thesis before and then my undergrad, I had stacks and stacks of books and it's just good to have them on hand. I don't know if there's any talk of that yet like the contingency. Yes. We actually got an email you I hope you guys got it to yesterday from every the director of every library. And so things are moving in somewhat positive, positive direction. If you didn't get it I will forward that to you. Basically, all of the digital services are back up right has been not nonstop in any case you can also say if you need. Usually the fair use rule is if you use less than about 10% they can actually copy a chapter of a book and digitally send the to you. Right. But if you need the entire book. One thing is most recent books have digital has evil versions and you can access directly online through a library. Then the second is the physical books and not will be a little more challenging but based on the every email that they are starting and so if any of you still has booked on hold they have basically extended the deadlines for quite long. And, but I don't think you can borrow physical books yet I don't know when that will start. And then with that the challenging is we used to be able to order books say if Columbia doesn't have it. If we still has it, we can do it in the library long, and that is not up, unless there's sort of digital version. So, I think it'll gradually open up depending on how much universities opening up. So in that case, you know, again, talk to your advisor, sometimes we can actually search up Google version of Google book versions of a book without the entire thing but with selected parts of it. We can sometimes reach out to the author directly. And so work with your advisor, I would suggest that. Yeah. Okay, so we have a question. So this is about outside of the capstone how much opportunities there throughout the program to work with organizations outside of or in connection with the university in a more practical as opposed to pure academic capacity. This is probably a question from not a student in this current sort of going to second year actually need to write capstone really briefly. We have studios that both joy I think and a lot of mentioned all of the students in the current rising second year class have been in those are all with organizations outside the university and with real with a real client and real project and so. And then we have other courses that do that as well. I can chime in here. So I think the question is also asking a little bit about internships. You can definitely pursue part time internships. During the academic year, I know a lot of my friends did. I don't know if Alana did, but if she did, you can talk about it too. I did in my spring semester for a semester of first year and then I did like the community planning fellowship, which is kind of like an internship. Throughout the year for my second year, and then during the summer year I worked with. So there's definitely a lot of opportunities to work with outside organizations and then you also has like research assistantships available. We can talk more about that. So let me ask a question to all of you who are in the current rising second year class to see if you've had chance to browse through past pieces are written by UP students or now along over time. Maybe show of hands if you have. I'm not sure I'm seeing hands and so let me share the screen really quickly here. So if you go up to the UP landing page, basically, this is the UP, you know, landing page, you click on thesis and cap stones, you swirl down just a little bit. And then we have just over a decade of thesis topics archived here. You drop down 2019. Any of the titles that have green color have a direct link. So let's say I click on Eddie's thesis. And it takes me directly to academic common, which is the open access part of Columbia library. And so you click bottom, you can download the entire thesis PDF. Obviously, not all students have submitted or were ready to submit to post to academic comments because this is a voluntary process. And, and this is actually considered as publication right so that's why some students who are hoping to continue to work on it or even publish in some ways or not very happy about their products choose not to. And I would encourage all of you to kind of look through the previous years and to see, you know, what they did, what topics, how they went about it in terms of gathering data and so on. And then we would ask you at the end of your year, right 2021 to also volunteer for this process. And we don't have 2020 yet, because it's this actually takes a long process for the for us to send to the library, which we did then but for the library to also being able to store it archive it and also catalog it. And so that will take at least two to three months usually we get the links first thing in September so check back and if I know more and then I will let you guys know. Okay, so about a third of you have seen have checked out the past thesis. So if a lot of you could share your capsule that'd be super helpful because they don't have any capital in the last 12 years of topics. Yeah, I'll just to speak on this I did this all the time I looked at people's old pieces and went way back and did a lot of recent ones. And it was to give me some sort of grounding or an idea it was also like a gut check to just be like okay I'm you know like this is doing the same thing or I'm not doing the same thing and it was really really helpful. I can share. I'm going to put the link into the chat with that has the thesis and I'm happy to share with you to find you. Well, Alana is sharing that I'll read Lenye's question. Could you speak to the funding of students thesis and capstone research I know students who elected to take some travel studios already received funding and then didn't use that money for travel. For those who didn't is it still available if we're not able to travel this for this coming thesis. Have you seen creative ways that students have used their funding other than travel. I'll answer some and Alana and joy time and please. So, yes. So if you have taken a travel studio you've kind of used up your travel fund. But if you didn't do a travel studio, then, yes, you can absolutely use the next so probably mid either October around October will send out a request. For students to put in applications for how they want to use that travel fund up to $1000. It's a non competitive so if you have a good purpose for thesis research, or for professional development like say conference, or some kind of training. You can propose. We do, you know, have a list of students who are in the travel studio so they are they can't unfortunately to apply again. But we also Hopefully, if APA still goes on next spring have a separate part of funds to sponsor students to go to the APA conference so that is not part of this. It's a separate Part of funding. While we're waiting for any additional questions to come in I just wanted to do a quick plug. I'll turn on my camera. Hi everyone. I'm Lyle and the director of programming at G SAP. I just wanted to let you all know that Columbia or G SAP is starting a new program called coffee and conversations with alumni and this Thursday is the first event. And it's going to be with Justin Romeo who works for the city and graduated from UP two years ago. You can find the registration for that on GSAP career services website which is called engage. So if you are not familiar with the career services website if you go to I'm for some reason not able to type links into the chat but It's arch.clumbia.edu forward slash career dash services and you can find the engage career services platform there. I don't know if joy or Lana if you can like drop it in really quickly. You can that is where you will find any job listings that G SAP has found that would be of interest to students as well as jobs on campus or jobs within the department. But it's also where you will find any career focused events and so that might be another interesting way to get in touch with a recent alumni to hear about their process and also the projects that they're working on now. I know that that has been transmitted mostly to the graduates of the class of 2020 but I think that current students will also be allowed to join that program. Thanks a lot for typing in that. So just my my quick little plug for a conversation that I think will be would be really great for all of you to join if you can. We also had some students asked before how to try to you know if the list I have in there for potential capstone projects isn't quite of interest to you. What else we can do you know to think about these you know capstone projects. I think you can think back to the studio projects to think back to some of the either your instructor or clients or client organizations or even critiques will mention anything. Those are also contacts you can reach out to you are also welcome to reach out to the adjunct faculty we have a lot of many of them who work in you know planning practice. You can reach out to them directly or through me if you like. And so I know RPA so a lot of mentioned about RPA right so regional plan association where Tom right and the Rachel one burger. Both are there. Rachel actually didn't mention you know how can we connect with students more and I can suggest to them capstone one way. Because you know RPA has limited resources in terms of hosting internships, but then capstone to be a way of doing, you know, practical work, and not through internship but through, you know, more creative pursued by a student. I don't like to add that if. So I know like going in 2020 and 2021 job opportunities is definitely a big stressor to people. And think, even if you're like, even if you're not doing a capstone even if you're doing a thesis, definitely leverage whatever you do in your thesis as an opportunity to showcase to employers. So I am looking for jobs, and also as a brief point for looking for jobs, start early. I started in September, and you know I would get emails but no solid offer until way until March, but it's good to start doing that interview process so that you're warmed up and familiar, so that when jobs you come your way you're ready. So start early, but when you are going through your thesis process and even if you're not finished and you're in conversations with a prospective employer. Have something put together like a short executive summary or like, like a two or three pager showcasing what you're doing for your thesis and you definitely send it over to the hiring manager as like kind of a work sample just to show them not only your technical abilities but also your writing abilities and your thinking abilities and it matters a lot. It shows that not only you're interested in getting the job that you want the job, but also you know you're capable of doing the work that's required. So, you know, I, you know, even if I didn't do a capstone my thesis is like more than enough to showcase the things that I can bring to the table. Wayping since we don't have more questions emerging in the chat I think that was a great point joy. Do you want to do you have any final thoughts wayping before we wrap up. I was just checking with a couple of our faculty who are here see if they want to say anything. So, I just send them a private chat. Sorry, sorry to rush everyone. No, no, no, it's totally okay. Yeah. Okay, so I'm it's still early in the process and it's actually great for many of you already, you know, asking questions to start thinking about thesis and capstone. In about a month, just before you send in your complete your Google form on your topics and which advisors you are interested in working with. We'll have another session to really think about, you know, whether your topics really are doable or not, you know, sort of join mentioned that you know don't start thinking about data collection until winter break right. The winter break is meant for you to actually collect data, if not earlier. So you do. What topics and what questions you hope to answer to for many people really depend on, you know, what kind of information you may be able to get what kind of people you may be able to reach to and get them agree to talk to you. And so it's an iterative process. So, in the next session, I will, I hope to, you know, get you all start thinking about, once you have a topic, you know what would be the next steps to flash out the topic. What would be the next step to flash out what information is needed for that topic. How do you use that thought process to then come back and help you. How do you revise that topic, maybe make it a little more feasible. And all of that. So, for now, free thinking, just kind of go on there and like Joyce was saying, you know, read newspaper, read books, keep in touch with what's going on out there. What are your pressing issues and what they might, which ones may be of interest to you and then jot them down and, you know, kind of go can accumulate your thoughts and ideas as they, you know, you have more than a month to go through that so there's no rush. And usually, you will still take a few more weeks in the fall semester for you to finalize on on, you know, on a topic. Okay, so unless anyone else, you know, one of our faculty wants to say something will probably just end here it's, it's about time anyway because Lila has to host another event at 1230. So, everyone, take care I hope to see you again soon. And in the meantime, feel free to reach out. That's the block, you know, joy and Alana. Now you're out there in the real practice, and we really appreciate you being here and hope to see you to at some point. Thank you everyone and bye.