Hey there, and welcome to my second blog! This blog series deals exclusively with my research stay at Teacher’s College Columbia in New York City. I’ll try to write a piece weekly to reflect on my life here. I’ll be focusing on my life and experiences here than on my research. Though I’ll surely share some thoughts and writings, I’ll be having in that regard.
So, what am I doing at Columbia? Thanks to the Marshal Plan Foundation, I was granted a fellowship that allowed me to advance my research in the US. Due to my research agreement and other factors, I won’t be able to reveal too much detail in regards to my research, but I can say this much. I am working on a gamified workshop that increases moral competence. I am very privileged to collaborate with the game lab at Columbia in that matter to improve my workshop design which will be launched as a pilot during the last month of my stay in July.
How do I like New York so far? I love it! I have been here before twice, but it’s the first time that I am staying for an extended period (3 Months) that is work-related. However, when I arrived last week, I was a bit struck by the intensity and pace of things here. Having spent my last couple of months in the sleepy town of Klagenfurt, New York felt at first like a beast that is on to eat me up. It started already when I had to cross the border control. I was super tired, hungry and nervous. I was sure that I’d be pulled aside. I was nervous because I knew that the border guard would have problems with my mixed identity and my story, which brought me to New York.
Mixed identity, because I am a German citizen, coming from Austria with a polish-phone number and stamps from my last family visit to Lebanon. I’d be suspicious myself! I played enough Papers, Please to know when things seem sketchy! In addition, it seemed that the border officer did not buy my scholarship story. I was really nervous. Of course, I was brought into “the office” for some extra questioning.
So there I was. Sitting in between all kinds of foreigners. Stuck in between two borders like Tom Hanks in Terminal. I got even more nervous. At any rate, it turned out that the real issue was that my flight back to Austria was on the same date during which my visa would expire. This is technically okay, but the officer told me that if my flight were delayed or cancelled so that I would have to travel a day later, I’d be in some serious trouble. He recommended to rebook my flight to be a day earlier or two. I received my stamps and could go. Thank god!
And with that, I was through! I got an Uber and went to my humble accommodation in Ocean Hill, Brooklyn. I explored a bit the area and got ready for my first week of work.
I am currently involved in a couple of projects and have two jobs as a teaching assistant and lecturer. This means structure and planning are really important for me to be able to manage all my duties. At the same time, I want to experience New York! And I’d say the first week looked really well in that regard. My current workflow looks as follows. I get up in the morning, get ready for work and take a metro to Columbia, were I work on my research. Doing my research means basically doing literature and case work, developing my theoretical workshop design and consulting my design with my supervisor and other experts to then iterate my workshop. I try to work around 6 hours on Project: Columbia and use the remaining working hours to prepare my lectures, answer and write emails and deal with my other projects (i.e., master’s thesis, game development). Once it is 5/6PM I venture out to network events (my new passion!).
Network events are quite a thing in New York and unthinkable in that form in Europe. Currently, you can find a huge list of tech, crypto, entrepreneur or NFT events on apps such as Eventbrite or meet-up. You register and go there, and all you do is basically meet new people who are from all kinds of professional backgrounds. Everyone will give you at least 5 minutes to listen to your story! What an amazing and encouraging mentality. In Europe, events like that without a pretext like a conference are impossible! And even then, people seem very unapproachable. Here it’s impressively open and progressive in terms of networking. I love it!
Especially in my case, where I combine game design, gamification and learning skills such as moral competence, it is a great experience to receive honestly and in-depth feedback from professionals of different backgrounds. So far, I have met a lot of people who seemed really interested in what I am doing, which is really motivating!
So that is my basic workflow—research during the day and networking in the evening. I am curious to see who else I’ll be meeting in the upcoming weeks. So far, it is truly promising, and I am thinking more and more in terms of business when it comes to my research. This is a really cool development for me because it helps me to transform my research into a scalable and valuable service instead of only an article or talk at a conference. Speaking of conferences! I just got accepted for BostonFIG at the end of the month and am already super thrilled to present the state of my project there!
So far, my impression of New York is excellent. It is just what I needed. It is just what my research needed! Speed, innovation, diversity, challenge and an open space to present my work!
My next steps will be working further on my workshop and finishing some writing on my master’s thesis (if I hadn’t already enough on my plate :D)