This week, our class met up at Frey Hall for a tour of the building. We walked through a new computer testing room and a couple of the different learning areas of Frey Hall. The tour was like a roller coaster of emotions. When I first entered the new computer testing room, I felt overwhelmed and kind of taken aback by all the equipment. There was a fingerprint scanner, all sorts of cameras everywhere, above you, in front of you, behind you, and it felt like you were completely surrounded by all white walls. Although these were all precautions to prevent cheating, I felt intimidated by everything. A lot of the interns voiced our concerns during the tour, but it just felt very surreal. Things started kicking up when we went to the CoLA’s on the second floor. A lot of people didn’t even know the areas they had designated to be CoLA’s were even CoLA’s to begin with! I had a class in Frey Hall last semester and that professor made us use those CoLA’s after class time to practice our presentations, so I knew about it ahead of time. However, I did see why people would be confused as to whether it was  public space or whether the space required reservations. The area itself seemed very closed off and oftentimes, just passing by, it seemed as if it the seats were already reserved for others. It just didn’t have that “welcoming” vibe that other CoLA’s such as the one in North Reading Room had. Although it did feel a lot better to be in the Frey CoLA than the computing testing room.

Next, we walked to one of the conference rooms in Frey Hall. There, we saw two huge dual screen monitors with cameras. That room was one of the few conference rooms we have on campus. It is used for different classes that are considered “distant learning” classes. These classes have professors where they are teaching at a different location from the class. The screens show live feedback from both the students and the professors so it is almost as if they were in the same room. This room was completely fascinating. I really liked that idea of distant learning because it makes it easier for students and professors that teach extremely large classes. Instead of having so many different lectures for the same class, having this conference room would be a lot easier so the professor wouldn’t have to repeat the same lecture over many times. Although I know that a lot of people still prefer the old style of learning, I feel like this “distant learning” could be more beneficial than the old ways.  Some of the interns bought up how this conference room would be really useful for Bootcamp! I thought this was a really great idea because the professor can show their screen to the class. The only difficult part would be providing computers for every consultant who attends boot camp because the classroom itself doesn’t provide it for you. It was a really great idea, but it lacked feasible points.