 Hi, I'm Andrew Dolecart. I'm a professor of historic preservation here at Columbia. And welcome to this session where we're going to talk about the Historic Preservation Program. I'm going to give you some background on the program, and then I'll be joined by three students. And we'll discuss issues of student life and answer some of the questions that some of you have submitted. So I'm an architectural historian. And I came to Columbia as a graduate student because I wanted to use architectural history in a meaningful way. And so I have a degree from this program in historic preservation. And it has proven to me to be an extraordinary entree into a very diverse world. And I think that one of the most important things about the Columbia Historic Preservation Program is just how diverse the program is. When it was founded, and it is the oldest historic preservation program in the country, when it was founded by James Marston Fitch, he had this vision of historic preservation as a profession that would draw people from multiple backgrounds. And so although it's here in the School of Architecture at Columbia, it's not an architecture program. So students come from architecture backgrounds and from art history and history backgrounds and from all kinds of backgrounds from English and journalism and everything that you can think of because people have a passion for historic preservation for the built world and the social world that revolves around the built world. And so from the very start, the program has always accented design, conservation, history and planning and policy. And I think that that is one of the unique features of this program and also as the world has changed and as preservation has changed, people no longer just work in one sector of the field. Somebody that's trained in conservation is going to be asked to do some work in history or somebody that's trained in history is gonna have to understand materials or is gonna have to deal with zoning and policy issues. So our attempt here is to create a very firm foundation for all aspects of preservation and then to allow students to grow and flourish and create their own curricula once they have the foundation in those fields, those parts of the field that they feel are gonna help them to get the jobs that they want. We have a very, very diverse faculty and very, very diverse student body. Our students come from all over the world. We have a lot of students, of course, from the United States, but in the last few years we've had students from China, from Korea, from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Thailand, Colombia, Mexico, Chile, the United Kingdom, France, Brazil and other places as well. And I think this also, the diversity of the students is also something that makes the program here very exciting. And the fact that the Historic Preservation Program is one of the programs here at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, means that there are opportunities for students to get involved with planning classes or with architecture and theory classes that add to the diversity of the curriculum as well. So that, in a kind of nutshell, is our kind of vision for a really diverse educational experience. There are three full-time faculty members here in the Historic Preservation Program. On your left is Erika Avrami. Erika is a graduate of this program and then got a PhD in urban planning and her specialty is in social interventions in Historic Preservation and in sustainability in Historic Preservation. And she's become a real leader in ideas of how buildings work with a social environment and that it's really crucial not only to be interested in preserving buildings but also looking at the social aspects that revolve around buildings and also looking at sustainability in the broadest sense, not only in environmental sustainability but in social sustainability as well. And there's me in the center who does a lot of the history work here and Jorge Oteropaios, the director of the program who is an architect and an artist and an historian and has become a real leader in the world of preservation theory. So that's our full-time faculty and the full-time faculty is very, very dedicated to the program. And then we have a very large adjunct faculty and the adjunct faculty is incredibly dedicated. Unlike I think adjunct faculty in most schools and most programs in all different fields who come in, they teach a class and then they leave, our adjunct faculty is really, really dedicated and involved with the students because everybody that's involved professionally in Historic Preservation does it because they have a passion for it. And so they're really interested in helping students and being part of a student's education. So they're here to meet with students, they're here for studio reviews, for thesis reviews and it's a very, very diverse faculty, historians and architects and conservators and planning and policy experts, many of them with international experience, others whose work is mostly in the United States or often focused on New York. We are a New York program, we're here at Columbia, we take advantage of what New York has to offer but we are not just a New York program. A lot of our projects are based internationally. We have studios that travel internationally. So these are really important aspects of the program. So the curriculum, as I noted, begins with giving every student the foundation for understanding the various aspects of Historic Preservation. And so the first semester of the first year is all required classes and then as you move ahead, the number of electives increases and you can then begin putting together more completely your own curriculum. So the basis of the first three semesters is a studio course. And the studios vary in the way they run and the ideas behind them, they are not design studios. We don't expect that students are going to be in the studio for huge numbers of hours like in the design studios. Each studio teaches students about different aspects of Historic Preservation. So Studio One, which is the first studio, is about introducing students to buildings and how to understand buildings, how to research buildings, how to draw buildings, all the different ways that you can learn to understand the built world and how to determine what is significant about buildings and aspects of the built world. So we do a variety of projects and you'll see some images later on that show some of the projects the students have worked on. Then students take, I teach Studio One with other faculty this year. We have three faculty members teaching this studio. One person who specializes in conservation, one person with a design background and me with a history background. I also teach traditional American architecture, which is American architecture from the first European settlement through the late 19th century. And it's the first of a two-part sequence in American architecture. Even for international students, we feel you're going to be here studying in America that it's really important to understand American architecture. And so you get an understanding for what it is that you're seeing while you're here. And many of the international students will also work in the United States for a year or two or sometimes more after that. So this is a good foundation for that. There's a course called Traditional Building Technology, which is also the first part of a two-part phase. And this teaches about wood construction and cast iron and various traditional ways of building. And it's out in the field a great deal. Jorge Otero Pios teaches theory in practice of historic preservation, which is an introduction to the history of preservation theory. And Erika Avrami teaches preservation planning and policy, which is an introduction to various ideas about planning and policy both nationally and internationally. So that's the first semester of required classes. In the spring semester of the first year, students take Studio Two, which is led by Erika Avrami and adds the issues of social inclusion into the studio sequence. So it deals with buildings and neighborhoods and communities and people in those communities. And we'll talk more about that with some of the images also. Then there's the second part of American architecture, which deals with the 20th and 21st centuries. There's a modern building technology class, which picks up from traditional building technology dealing with steel and glass and modern building technologies, concrete as well. And then there's room for two electives in that semester. In the second year, there's an advanced studio. In recent years, we've run three separate advanced studios. One is a design studio for those students who have an architecture background, who take a studio with the architecture students from the architecture program here at the school. And these are international studios. This year, they went to Amsterdam to look at adaptive reuse ideas for the former American embassy to the Netherlands. They've also worked on the embassies in Oslo and in Mexico City and have done other international studios as well. So that's the first of the three. The second one is a technology studio, which looks at how technology can be used in historic preservation, particularly advanced recording techniques. This year, they were recording work in a church in Venice. In previous years, they've worked in Sevilla, Spain, and elsewhere in Spain as well. And then the third of the advanced studios is a preservation and planning and social inclusion studio, again led by Erica Avrami, that works very closely with community groups in places outside of New York. And the issues that they have with preservation usually with a very specific idea behind it so that these are very practical, this is a very practical studio that often has a great deal of influence on what's going on. They have just returned from Freetown in Sierra Leone where they were working with local people to deal with sites in Sierra Leone that are related to slavery in America. In the past years, this studio has gone to Alabama and has looked at civil rights sites. It's gone to Haiti in several cases and looked at so-called gingerbread houses, very ornate houses that have suffered very badly from hurricanes. And it is because of this studio that the gingerbread houses were just listed a few weeks ago on the World Monuments Funds list of 25 most endangered sites in the world. And then all students take a thesis colloquium that introduces them to ideas about writing a thesis and then there's room for three electives. And then in the fourth semester, really the heart of the fourth semester is the thesis. We have maintained a very, very rigorous thesis whereas other preservation programs have dropped the rigor of a thesis or they've dropped thesis altogether because we feel that all students should graduate with this really important document that a project where they have contributed to the knowledge of historic preservation and students work on a spectacular diversity of thesis projects. Each student comes up with their own thesis idea and then it's vetted by the faculty at various student presentations and by May everybody graduates with a really substantive thesis. Some of these have become entrees into jobs, others have been published as articles or parts of books and so this is a really important aspect of the last semester and then the rest of the last semester is open to electives. So that's the sort of curriculum in general and so just you can see some images from various studios. There's a lot of learning by doing. Here these are first semester students who were working on Ellis Island a few years ago. Here we almost always do a project in studio one in Woodlawn Cemetery, a very beautiful cemetery in New York City and everybody gets a mausoleum and the key to the mausoleum and they do measure drawings of the mausoleum. They, we own the archives of Woodlawn Cemetery so they get to compare their drawings with the architects drawings. They do biographical research and then the cemetery uses this material as part of its restoration efforts to engage the families who own these mausoleums in contributing to restoring these buildings. And as you can see on the picture on the left we also do a little lesson in what is the correct way to use a ladder. We do a lot of field visits. Here studio one is looking at our study area every year. Most of studio one focuses on historic preservation issues in a neighborhood in New York and here they are in last year in the neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen. We do a lot of work with Avery Library. I always like to say that if one of the most important reasons why one would want to come to Columbia to study here in the historic preservation program is because of Avery Library, the world's greatest architecture library with the most amazing resources. So on the right there are some of those mausoleums from the Avery archive collection on the left. This is the American architecture class looking at 18th century architecture books that influenced American design. And there's no place where you really can get a better idea of these resources than here at Avery Library. Students have worked on individual buildings in studio one and here you can see some of the results of a project on a Scribner Publishing Building last year. In studio two, which deals more with social issues and policy issues on the left, they worked in a very depressed Hudson River city called Newburgh with spectacular architecture. And on the right, students are working on an adaptive reuse of a historically significant but abandoned prison in Newark, New Jersey. And last year the studio focused on social inclusion on the Columbia campus and in the immediate neighborhood around Columbia. And the students presented amazing projects that dealt with women's issues, LGBTQ issues, other issues involved with social inclusion in the area. And studio three, as I mentioned, travels, here they are at the American Embassy in the Netherlands or here working with lots of local people in Freetown in Sierra Leone or here working on the technology issues in Venice. The electives are very varied. There are history seminars, there are hands-on conservation classes. On the left is a theory class where they were investigating the importance of smell and on the right is a hands-on class where they were dealing with preservation issues at the entrance gates to St. Bartholomew's Church on Park Avenue here in New York. We have a brand new lab, a really spectacular lab. You can see the ribbon cutting last February for the lab. And so students do a lot of work now in the laboratory doing experiments, working on their thesis, classes, conservation classes that are held in the lab. And here you can see some of the issues in students working on conservation treatments. There are field trips, extensive series of field trips here to the United Nations on the left, on the roof of the chapel at Columbia, which was under restoration last year. We sponsor summer workshops that historic preservation students applied to go on on the left one from last summer in Cuba and on the right another one last summer in Beirut. We run a historic preservation lecture series about eight speakers every semester, come and talk about preservation issues all over the world. We've just the last two, last week and the week before, both dealt with issues of preservation and design in India. We run a colloquium every year on an important issue in historic preservation. Last year it was on experimental preservation. We published the first, what was the first journal on preservation theory and practice, Future Interior, the Journal of Historic Preservation, History, Theory and Criticism, and students are editors of this journal. Students put together the end of the year exhibition. There is a student council that meets with the program director and with other administrators here. There are also social events, having dinner with the speakers, for example, which the students get to do. So we also have several joint degree or dual degree programs, which are a really important aspect of the preservation program. You can be a dual degree in preservation and urban planning and you can do two-year degrees in three years as opposed to in four years. This is a really valuable degree that really opens up positions in the world of planning to people with a preservation understanding, which is very rare really among planners. So these students are really in great demand. There's also a four-year program in preservation and architecture, where students do the first year in historic preservation, then they go into the architecture program, and then they come back to do a preservation thesis in their fourth year here at Columbia. And there's also a preservation and real estate program in which you basically get the two degrees in three and a half years. We have a number of prizes for students, including actually the largest prize at the school, which is a recent prize where somebody donated money for a prize in innovative work in historic preservation. To go out and work on an innovative project, one was on, we've only given these for two years, one was on augmented restoration and the other was on the spatial history of a Hudson Valley community. There's an incubator space and career services, which are also really key, of course, to get everybody employed. And we have a very strong professional network. We have an incredibly active alumni association that's very involved in helping the program and helping the students get jobs. And as you can see, these are some of the organizations that the faculty is involved with. And here are just a few of the alums. These are mostly current or recent members of the Preservation Alumni Board. Preservation Alumni is an independent organization that was set up by the graduates of the program to stay involved with the program. And they fund parties and they fund awards and they help purchase items for the program or the library and they're part of the diverse group of graduates. So where do we work? Where we work all over and everybody is employed who is looking for work in historic preservation. A lot of people stay in New York, but people work all over the United States and all over the world. And I am always amazed when I travel that suddenly I find somebody that was a graduate of the historic preservation program. And I think that that's a really important aspect that not only is the program geared to provide the most expansive education in preservation, but also to make it so that everybody is employable and employed in the field and also then to lobby for the field that to stay involved with the program and to really contribute to the world of historic preservation. So I think that's enough for me. So I'm gonna sit down and we have some questions that some of you have sent in and we will, I'll ask the questions and the students will respond to them. A few of them maybe I'll respond to if the students maybe don't know the answers to that. I should note that if you have any questions, you should feel free to be in touch with me or anybody else in the program. My name is Mariana Avila. I'm from originally from Mexico City and I have a background in architecture. I worked for a couple of years before coming to the program. And the reason why I came was because I was interested in this integrated program that the historic preservation program offers. So that it has been very valuable I'm a second year student. So I've been having the opportunity of merging all my interests that are related to architecture but also to theory and also finding like a way of understanding how to make our ideas work in the real world through policy and planning. So yeah. Hello everybody. I'm Bruno Villiers and I'm a first year student just arrived. Well, we're almost ending the first semester but we're still new. I'm originally from Brazil and I also have an architecture background and actually also did have some working experience beforehand but I did want to go further into exploring the intricate relationships between historic preservation and new and adaptive designs in architecture. So I found that Columbia was in the cutting edge of the discussions and I am here to study more and understand more about this very intricate complex and delicious field. Hi there, my name is Caroline Peters. I'm originally from New Jersey so I'm actually quite close to home. I come from a history and political science background so I had a bigger kind of a field of research more that was more of my thing and policy is what I eventually was thinking about coming in for but I found a love of conservation while in the program. So it's very interesting that it kind of allow you to explore all of your interests here. I think that's a really important point that Caroline makes is that sometimes people come here thinking that they're gonna do one thing and then they discover some other aspect of preservation that becomes their life passion. So and we're all for supporting that kind of change. So let me ask some of the questions. So I think this one, maybe each of you can answer what skills do you have that you find most useful or valuable for the program? Okay, well in my case, what I found that was very useful for me was to have a little bit of experience in the outside world as a way of organizing myself. But I also need to have to acknowledge that the program has given me the opportunity of finding the way of expressing my own ideas and finding the way of combining the things that I'm interested on and to express them through writing and through presentations. And I think that that's very important for the field as a way of engaging with other people and sharing with other people why it is important to do preservation among the world. Here we go. Well, I would say that first and foremost, my skill in time management and organizing everything was really a boon in the program so far. And also it's not required or necessary, but I found that the architecture background I had was slightly helpful in understanding a lot of things as an international student. However, the school provided a lot of information and support and help with people that don't come from the same background as well. I would say for me, I found it most useful that even though we're kind of in a program that has a history kind of core to it, I actually found that my kind of background in political science and kind of looking at like legislation and things like that because that had been kind of my interest was actually really helpful because sometimes in classes they are asking you to kind of look at laws that have been put through and passed down. So I thought that was interesting and something that not everyone necessarily has because everyone brings their own sort of skill set to the program. Yeah, so that's really important, I think, that because the student body is so diverse, people bring different things. Some people are skilled in drawing, some people in political science and policy issues, some people in architectural history and doing research and students work with each other. So when there was a drawing exercise, the students who know drawing can help the students who don't know drawing, but when there's a research project, the students who are more familiar with research or the way to put together a research paper help the other students. So the fact that people have such diverse backgrounds when they get here is, I think, one of the great assets of the program. So the next question is, why is the degree an MS and not an MLA, Master of Landscape Architecture or MUD, Master of Urban Design, respectively? So I will answer that. We're a Masters of Science in Historic Preservation because historic preservation is a field in and of itself. We're not, it's definitely not a landscape architecture program, although we discuss landscape architecture, the American architecture class just went to Central Park last week to discuss Frederick Law Olmsted and the design of the picturesque landscape. But we're in a stark preservation program and although we deal a lot with planning issues and policy issues, again, we're not an urban planning program. And so we do have the dual degree, which is great for urban planning. Columbia does have an urban design program which is basically a design program in the School of Architecture. So we're a very different animal here in the school than the urban design and urban planning and architecture programs. So several people have told me to study in the region where I want a career because the curriculum will be specific to that place. Do you feel that's true? No. So as I told you before, I come from Mexico and I think that it's very interesting to be aware of what is happening outside your own country because somehow or your own city because somehow refreshes your eyes and your perspective and it helps you to acknowledge what you have in your own country and it helps you to see what are you lacking of when you see the things in a different place. And so for me, this has been a great experience that I don't know, it definitely has given me a lot of questions to the things that are happening in my country and in my city. So I definitely believe that if you have the opportunity of going abroad to do a historic preservation program, you should definitely take advantage of that. And I wholeheartedly agree because perspective being, preservation being such an interesting field, it also helps to put everything in perspective to understand how things are moving in a global sense. So you may have a background from your own country, your own city. So going to other places helps devote, diversify and understand other takings and understandings of the field. Yeah, so I come from a bit of a different background just because I am from New Jersey, which is the Tri-State area. I'm only about like an hour or so from home. So for me personally, it was important to kind of be close to where I wanted to get a job. But I think that Columbia does a good job of kind of making it a global program. It's not necessarily focused on justice area. However, it is nice for me to be able to go back and kind of study the areas that I've lived around and that you can kind of go and explore your own interest. But I think they allow people to kind of go and work on projects internationally as well. So it's definitely open. And it's really important to note that Columbia is one of the few programs that is not a regional program. I mean it really is a program that has a national and international reach. So the next question I think Mariana probably can answer because it deals with international studios which are a second year studio. So how do the MSHPs, international studios, disrupt or support the notion of regional knowledge and opportunities? So in my case, I was part of the studio in Freetown Sierra Leone. And it was a very valuable experience because we had the chance of working with the local people that gave us, that help us to give us a sense of what preservation means to them. Which is very interesting because when you go abroad then you realize that maybe preservation doesn't mean the same thing for everyone. And it's very interesting to be able to have this discussion between what is our understanding and what is the understanding of the people outside. So that was very interesting. And I truly agree that the program encourages these type of discussions as sometimes here with the colloquium or conferences and so on, but also particularly to the international studios give us the chance to have these different discussions. So will I be able to shape the program to my specific needs? This person who wrote this had some very specific interests in old wineries and in cemetery restoration, but I think it's a broader question of being able to shape the program. Well, I'm sorry, I'm gonna go back. I'm gonna jump again because yeah. So I think that's something that is very valuable about the program as well is that as you go on across the semesters you're able to shape your own career and your own path with your interests. So for example, I think that at least during the thesis for example, you're able to combine all the education that you have had during the entire year and then your own interests. So it doesn't matter if your interests are very specific or are very architectural oriented or research oriented or whatever oriented. You definitely have the chance of finding someone among the faculty that is able to help you to go and look for that. So you can, yeah. So you can. So here are some broader questions about student life here. So somebody would like each of you to describe your typical day. So why don't we start with you. Sure. So I actually have an interesting kind of start of my day because I do not live in Morningside Heights. I decided to be adventurous and I live over in the East Village. So just to give a context, that's about like a 45 minute subway ride but I really like it. So I have to kind of leave an hour earlier for classes but usually I come back, I come to class. A lot of my time is spent in the studio. Whenever we're not in class, usually I'm kind of hanging out with my cohort in studio getting work done. And it's kind of like my typical average day, one could say as I also work a job on campus as well. So as I'll work that in too. But yeah, usually it's a lot of working in studio and working on projects. Studio is kind of like where we all kind of come together and we can kind of like hang out necessarily but while we're doing work. And yeah, I would say that's probably it. And I would add to Caroline's point because my routine is fairly similar that not only in studio being a place but sometimes studio is the assignment you have. So you will spend time with your cohort in the lab working on something or discussing how you want to approach some topic. So it's a lot of time spent in sight and how to arrange and deal with all the questions that we have and how to deal with the assignments and how we're working together or working individually. For me, now it's very different because I'm taking some classes on campus with the studio and thesis. But I am also doing an internship in an architectural studio in Midtown. So I literally go from one place to another the entire week. But definitely it's a great experience because having the opportunity of working in the real world while you're studying definitely gives you a sense of what is happening in this case in the United States. And for me as an international student, it definitely helps me to understand like all of the issues regarding historic preservation in the program. So yeah, it's a different routine for sure. How does living in New York benefit or hinder you educationally, financially and professionally? Yeah, so for me, New York was one of the biggest draws for me not only because I'm from the area but because I knew that this was a great starting point especially kind of to make a lot of connections and especially Columbia is one of the best schools in the world. So obviously, educationally, it's amazing. Financially, it's harder sometimes but at the same time you have to think about kind of what you're getting versus what you're kind of like taking from that at that point. So professionally and educationally, it's definitely a big benefit to be in New York City and just to be like making all those connections. And there's a lot of alumni that live around here still that you can definitely make a lot of connections with. I'd say it's definitely an investment because it requires some planning and some organization and everything but the experiences you have and the educational experience, the professional experience, the contacts, the people you meet, everything just makes it worth it. Like unquestionably so, if you have the chance to do it, I would say just take the plunge. Yeah, totally, I totally agree with that. Definitely financially is something it's difficult but I think that that's nothing new. We all know that so, but professionally and educationally, definitely I think that it's one of the top places to be, especially if you're thinking about history preservation, I think that the information that the city gives you regarding the reuse of buildings or how to approach policies or how to approach planning, it's definitely something that not all of the cities are able to give to your general knowledge, so yeah. So the next question is multiple parts. So you should answer those parts that seem appropriate. Overworking seems to be a common thread in design schools. How do you balance your time? Do you feel supported by your cohort and program? How does the program address mental health? Yeah, so definitely if you don't have a planner or any sort of calendar, get one before you start. That would be I think all of our shared biggest advice given, it really does help you and it makes sure that you have that time that you're balancing between school and also just like taking a time for yourself and just kind of figuring that out. And definitely your cohort is one of your biggest support systems. Socially, me and Bruna are both first years. Our cohort is like one of the most amazing things probably about the program. We all just kind of like are there for each other, especially when we have like a lot of assignments coming up, we all are kind of there and we definitely support each other through all of that. So definitely having that good support system around is really helpful. And yep, I absolutely agree. Like I mentioned previously that my time management and organization skills were an asset, it's actually very true because also I would like to add that Columbia has a number of support systems and tools and classes that can help and provide if you're not like into the organizational part of it. And I would say that we don't have that toxic studio design competitive nature within us. It's more of a collaborative and exchange of ideas, experiences and the main focus is promoting growth through discourse. And yeah, I would agree that the cohort is an amazing asset, but also the faculty and the administration are amazing being so informative and they make everything clear and you're always sure what's happening. There's no second guessing, no doubts. It's amazing. Yeah, totally, I think that also in my group we are also very supportive to each other and we also have found the faculty being very nice with everything that we're passing through and I think that that's very valuable. And on the other hand, for example, if you're asking about how does the program address mental health, maybe you should know that Columbia has a mental health program. Yeah, that they are able to give you and to support you through some major issues if you're struggling with something or you need to talk to someone, there's like definitely that option. So you can be like plain. Like professional health. Professional health, exactly. I think it's really important to accent that historic preservation, at least here at Columbia, does not have the overwork culture of design studios. And that's not to say that the students don't work hard and spend a lot of time and sometimes are a little stressed when a project is due, but we don't have the, oh, I have to pull an all nighter in the studio kind of culture. And as was said, it's not competitive in the way that architecture studio sometimes can be. It really is about working together with other people. And I think, I mean, I say this and it sounds silly, but preservationists are really nice people. I mean, people go into this field because they have a passion for it. And they're not out to stab you in the back. They're out there to help you because we all have a common goal. And I think that that is a really, really key aspect. And it's something that really informs the faculty here in their relationship with working with the students. So how often will I have to spend on the actual Columbia campus? Well, I would say I'm here almost every day of the week just because of how our classes are set up. We have class just about every day. And then we have Thursdays off technically for field trips, but sometimes I'll be here on campus if we don't have a field trip or anything that day. And then some weekends I'm here too. It depends on what's going on, but I do get to go home just about like, like twice a month, I'd say. So I've definitely, there's times where you're not, you don't have to be on the Columbia campus. Like you can be, you know, off. Also, I live far away. So it's like, I go home and, you know, I'm kind of, when I'm away from school, I'm away. Imagine, detach. And also to that point, a lot of assignments will have us around town and exploring for a bit and like looking at the city differently. So while most classes will have us within campus or within studio or within the lab, we will also be out and about and around and exploring as well. Yeah, and all as a program goes ahead, then you're able to split your time between being on campus or having like another activities in case I'm gonna put myself as an example. Again, like if you have like an internship or like a job outside campus, then you have the chance to exploring a little bit more of the city. But I would say that during the first year, you have to spend a lot of time on campus, which is really nice because it's the way that you are going to get to know the faculty and to your classmates and everyone. So yeah, you definitely still have time to explore the city, though. You do have time, yep. Well, I always say that you're here in New York. People should get out of studio sometimes and go to the theater or go to the ballet or whatever. So an earlier question was about how much hands-on experience is there in conservation? And I'm wondering if, I know that you know, you haven't all had that much experience yet, but can you address that at all? Yeah, so I actually don't come from any sort of science background at all. The last time I used a lab was in high school, which is forever ago at this point. But actually, I recently was going into sort of paint analysis, which was something I hadn't really thought about doing. I was more of a policy person coming into it. But yeah, definitely you get a lot of hands-on experience. The lab techs and the people who manage the lab are very, very understanding and they will walk you through the process and they are very open to allowing you to kind of be in this and to learn from them, too. It's not something where you're like, oh, you don't have a science background, you can't be here. It's very open and you definitely can work in this lab if that's what you want to do. It's an open place to be. And you're actually encouraged to explore a bit and go out of your comfort zone because I'm also doing some paint analysis for one of the assignments and it's new and that's why it's interesting. So you can go out of your comfort zone and learn something new and you experience in everything. Yeah, totally. So there are, I should note, several classes that are very hands-on. There's a class in finishes that's going to be offered this spring. That is always a very hands-on class and there's a class that we offer every spring called Investigative Techniques, which also does hands-on projects and we have a concrete class where they do concrete mixing and mortar creation. And so there is a lot of opportunity for hands-on work. So what are some questions you're glad you asked when you applied to schools? Are there questions you didn't ask but wish you had? Yeah, so we actually, we were talking about these sort of questions before we started. And one of the things that I kind of brought up in that conversation was the fact that I was glad that I kind of like looked into and saw how invested the faculty was with the students. That was something that was really important to me. I applied to a lot of other schools and it felt kind of sometimes like I was more of a number there or something just kind of like, you know, I was one of many faces. But here, even the first day of like the open house, I felt like people really wanted to get to know me and my interests and were very interested in helping me kind of excel academically. So I thought that was a big kind of, I guess a question that I kind of asked but I was glad that I went and I investigated that more. For me, the question about the typical day description was something that was so important and how I related to it because it showcases so much of how the program works in a sense of how people manage their time, their activities and how it's structured in a more non-organical way, how they relate to their time. So I like to see the question keeps appearing again, again. Well, I think that I wouldn't say that I made like a lot of questions because what I found about the program was like this diversity of disciplines that was the thing that most interested to me to come here. So I don't know, I mean, maybe sounds a little cheesy, but I was sure that this was a place where I wanted to be. So I didn't, like literally I didn't look to another places because I found that it's, that this is the right place to be if you want to think about preservation in the future. And I definitely think that it's something that we need to be thinking about. So I'm gonna just ask you one other question that hasn't been asked by the people that are listening. And that is just to tell us one really great thing that you've done or has happened to you while you're here, something really special that maybe you didn't necessarily expect? I'm trying to think right now. If anyone has anything. Well, I don't know. I would say that probably is the way that you are able to know yourself because you definitely as an international student and I guess that also as a national you get out of your comfort zone. So you need to be very, I don't know, like strong, like mentally strong, like just to deal with a lot of things that probably you didn't know. And I don't know, I think that it's very nice to see how you grow up along the way. And yeah, it's like a satisfaction that has been at least for me now in my second year is like to see how or to picture myself of how I came in and where I am right now. It's like, it's very, that's amazing, so. Well, that's the greatest thrill for me always is to see how people grow up and mature in the two years that they're here. Yeah. I would say that for me, the freedom you're afforded to explore the different aspects of preservation instead of focusing on like only one of the many different tools and aspects and how you can interpret it and how here you're open to find out if you prefer policy, if you prefer conservation, if you prefer something and you can just experiment a little bit. You can go to the lab, you can learn about policy, you can do a little bit of everything and in a sense it like corroborates with what you mentioned that it's about growth but also being allowed in a safe environment to explore those interests and ideas and truly finding what you're passionate about. Yeah. I guess the one for me, all the one that stands out the most, sorry I won't move it, was kind of taking the skills that I had learned here and going back home and seeing all the kind of applying them to a lot of sites around me because there are a lot of like historic homes around where I grew up and being able to like share that with my family about like oh like this is what you have to do, like here's some peanut stone that you found which my dad actually was taught me about but like being able to have those conversations and just talk about it more, that was probably one of the most special things I think that sticks out properly besides being here and being in New York of course. So thank you. I really like to thank the students for their input and especially to note just how incredibly poised the students are in presenting and this is something that we really accent here, that preservationists have to be able to speak in public, make an argument and so from the almost the first day of class students are making presentations and it's amazing to see people come in as scared rabbits and then they become so poised in their ability to present and argue a point. So thank you for the students, thank you all for watching and if you have any questions or other issues you can always feel free to get in touch with the admissions office, with the preservation office, with me, we're always here to answer whatever questions you have. So thanks a lot.