[MSJ] - Day 20 & 21: Two in one, and one to go

Why no blog yesterday? John gave us a pass from blogging because we went into the city in the afternoon for an architecture boat tour and a dinner as a cohort (minus Isaac, sadly). Since we had a fair amount of work to do when we got back, it was nice to be able to use all that time to study for today's quiz and work on our final project which is due tomorrow.

After class yesterday, at about 4:30, John picked us up in front of our dorms in an Uber. We went into the city, following rush hour traffic, and got off a few blocks away from the river to avoid more gridlocked streets. We walked along Michigan Ave, which is quite a nice street with a lot of shops and little cafes, and crossed over the river. We got to the boat landing early, so we took advantage of it to do a little photoshoot and admire the beautiful views.

When we got on board, we were greeted by the captain, Sean, and briefed with the legally-required but still important safety talk you always hear when getting on a commercial vessel. After Sean was done, our tour guide, Juan Pablo or JP as he introduced himself, gave us a brief overview of the 75-minute long tour. The boat slowly cruised along the river as JP explained different styles of architecture: modernism, art deco, post-modernism, and situational architecture, which means that the building was designed around the location where it is, for example curving along with the river.

Three-fourths of the Chicago cohort

After the tour, I was both filled with new knowledge and new hunger. We decided to go to a Mexican restaurant for dinner, and it was nice to change it up from the food the dining hall offers. The Admiral discussed the plan for our departure on Friday, which is approaching rapidly. I can't believe tomorrow is the last day of class!

Today, our professor gave one final lecture about AI and the implications for jobs in the future. We were presented with two points of view, one is that AI will take over 45% of the jobs currently done by humans, causing an economic crisis unless we do something about it, and the other is that technology has threatened jobs in the past, and we have always found ways to create new jobs despite that.

The library study space

The rest of the class was dedicated to office hours so that we could ask Professor Lee or the TAs any questions we had pertaining to our group project. We worked on our project, then moved to the library's collaborative study space so that we wouldn't be distracted. I had never been to the library before, and the space where we set up was awesome. The walls were whiteboard so I could jot down ideas on the wall as I worked. We were very productive and stayed in the library upwards of two hours.

Tonight the plan is simply to prepare for our presentation tomorrow, which will count towards 15% of our overall grade. It's crazy to think that these awesome three weeks are almost at an end.

Our little nook