The road to TAGA’s 61st Annual Technical Conference has been a long and bumpy one for the 2009 Ryerson TAGA Student Chapter. However, it was also a road filled with a lot of excitement, enjoyment and étouffée (good Nawlins food definitely goes a long way). This year’s Technical Conference was held in New Orleans from March 14 – 17 at the Hotel Monteleone.
The conference also provided students the opportunity to participate in various competitions including the Helmut Kipphan Student Publication Award and the Harvey Levenson Undergraduate Student Paper Competition. Seven student chapters attended this year’s conference. Out of these seven groups, RyeTAGA was the only chapter representing Canada! It was a truly humbling and remarkable experience for the RyeTAGA team to represent both Ryerson and Canada!
This journey began in April 2008. Since then, we (RyeTAGA) have planned and worked rigorously to produce another technical journal for the aforementioned student competitions. The group certainly encountered many challenges – too many to the point where it became a buffet of challenges! Several of the previous RyeTAGA members have graduated, and almost everyone in this year’s team, including myself, were experiencing the whole journal production process for the very first time. These challenges, however, proved to be blessings in disguise. They provided the team members and I with the greatest learning experience we could ever ask for in our university career.
So, after all the hard work, sweat and tears (of joy), we finally produced 250 journals, 600 multimedia discs, safely arrived at “The Big Easy” and got our game face on! This year, RyeTAGA’s Saleh Abdel Motaal was honoured with the Harvey Levenson Undergraduate Student Paper Award – an award previously rewarded to Zeinab Panahi (RyeTAGA’s current co-president). Aside from the competition aspect of the conference, it also offered so many great presentations.
I, along with my team, had the pleasure of listening to several notable presentations relating to the graphic arts industry, including presentations RyeTAGA’s very own Zeinab Panahi and Professor Martin Habekost. Professor Manfred Breede and Professor Rich Adams also contributed poster presentations to this year’s technical conference. Additionally, I found the topics explored in many of these presentations to be highly informative and relevant to what I am currently studying now in the School of Graphic Communications Management. These topics include the importance of adapting innovative technologies, achieving efficiency in production and the significance of sustainable development.
Not only was it a privilege to be exposed to all this research and latest findings, it was also great to see so many students participating at the event. As a student, attending the Annual Technical Conference poses a myriad of opportunities. The chance for one to network with key industry professionals and fellow students is right there at the TAGA conference. I took full advantage of this opportunity, and I’m glad I have done so.
Being given the chance to produce a technical journal, travel to New Orleans, listen to the many exceptional presentations and network with industry people have met and exceeded my expectations of what I hoped to get at this conference. I am sad that this journey has come to an end, but am absolutely happy to have taken part in this year’s RyeTAGA team! As a fourth-year student, I felt that this was the best way to end my post-secondary experience.
On behalf of RyeTAGA, I would like to thank all of our supporters who made it possible for our team to complete another successful journal this year. Embarking on this journey was, at first, seemingly impossible, but your generosity really helped us pull through. Your support was the key ingredient that truly allowed us to make all our plans a reality. We would specifically like to thank all of our sponsors for the funding, encouragement and the continuous support that they have shown RyeTAGA (for a complete list of our sponsors, please visit http://ryerson.taga.info). We would also like to thank the GCM community, both the faculty and the student body, for all their assistance in the journal production and funding. It was a real pleasure to be a part of RyeTAGA and good luck to next year’s team!
