Final Reflection and the Maytree project
I genuinely feel the speed of time varies as the six weeks for the Urban Policy classes passed by.
Before the course started, I thought time would fly. During the course, it felt like an eternity. (P.S. This course was fun but I didn’t love the long readings list for my other courses). Now, this quote expresses me: “Moments become memories in the blink of an eye!”
This course not only allowed me to explore policies from an urban governance perspective but also intrigued me to consider going into municipal government. I’ve heard many of my fellow classmates expressing their interest in the city (So if the ultimate goal of PPG2017 is to pipeline students to the City Hall, it has been a great success!).
In the last three weeks of the course, the class worked on a collaborative project with Maytree, a charitable organization dedicated to promoting solutions to poverty.
I was assigned to Team 1, the poverty and equity analysis team. We focused on fundamental questions regarding the state of poverty in Toronto and the current employment and wrap-around supports offered by the city. At first glance, it did not seem to be a difficult task. However, soon after some preliminary research, my team and I realized that there was no single report or official document that provides a holistic picture of what is going on. Due to limited and fragmented information and time constraint, we had so much confusion during the first week of the project.
To be honest, there were so many typos in our first week’s presentations. Nonetheless, after receiving constructive feedback from the class and Gabe, we had a clearer direction and were able to dive deeper into the questions.
On the second week, presenting in front of staff from Maytree and the TESS, we again received many good feedbacks. Most importantly, they were able to affirm our findings and offer information and insights that could not be found online.
In sum, the six weeks in Urban Policy were long and short. The first three weeks were condensed and the last three weeks were intense. I learned so much knowledge regarding urban governance but also acknowledged so many puzzles that can’t seem to be solved within a short time.
