Overall, my experiences with the weekly seminars and meetings have been neutral-positive, however, I have some criticisms about some of them. Like many of the other participants, I found some of the seminars to be bland, leaving me unengaged and tired by the end of the session. I feel like the content matter of the discussions are interesting, but the way in which they are presented could be improved. I’m a person with a short attention span and sitting down, listening to someone talk for two hours is not how I like to learn. I like engaging, multi-media presentations that are displayed in a fun way by an entertaining speaker.
Of all the seminars we participated in, Gil Penalosa’s presentation was the most impactful for me. In general, I think Gil was a great speaker who kept my attention throughout the duration of the event. Additionally, I learned something new, which is the ultimate goal of these seminars. I liked the way Gil presented his information and although audience participation was minimal, he was skilled enough in speaking that it seemed that all audience members wanted to hear what he had to say!
In the future, I would recommend having different types of seminars to accommodate different learning styles. In my case, valuable information could go through one ear and out the other because a presenter fails to engage with the audience.
