MAYA Conference

I learned a lot from the MAYA Conference and it’s planning. I’ve never planned anything like this with this amount of people before. You had to know how to communicate effectively what the plan was and how you expect to go through with these plans. Planning this conference there was a lot of different personalities and people you had to deal with. However we still got a lot of work done and the planning process was pretty easy. Everything seemed to flow nicely as we planned it. Teaming up and working with someone isn’t always easy but for this conference it worked nicely. Everyone did their fair share of work and it showed. Making the schedule was the most complicated but useful to know. It gave everyone a chance to play around with Google Sheets and learn the program. While I was actually at MAYA Conference I learned a lot from the groups who attended and presenters. When we were planning this conference I really didn’t think I would learn a lot from actually attending it. I thought that since I was involved in the planning there wasn’t much more information for me to know.This conference also allowed me to explain my internship that I did over the summer to a younger age group. Doing a project is cool but knowing how exactly to communicate it simply and break it down for people of all ages is when you can really say you understand what you did and accomplished. MAYA was a great experience, I got to teach people about the stuff that I knew, learn a few more things about planning a big event, and communicate to more people than I usually would about science topics that affect us all the time. The workshops were okay, they were kind of speechy and didn't have much for us to do besides listen. The only one that was really fun was Amanda's with the factory simulation. The recycling art workshop with Jane and Brigitte was really fun too. Everyone made different things and showed off their artistic sides. It was great getting to meet everyone from different institutions and learn all the cool things they do.Overall it was a great learning experience and I’m glad I got to help and be apart of it.