Hi Michael, I'm the Vancouver-based Educator for SHIC and one of two people who ran the advanced workshops (the other being Baxter).
Your question is a good one! Whilst we did our best to accommodate students from all parts of Greater Vancouver - picking a central location that was very close to a train station - the trek for many students would have been quite a long one (Greater Vancouver is very spread out!). Since we currently don't have any feedback regarding this, it's hard to say to what extent students were deterred by the prospect of a long commute, and whether or not having access to a car factored into their decision to come or not (I should probably note that some of the students who did attend one or both of the advanced workshops had a long way to come, and made the journey by public transit). My own guess is that it was probably a minor factor overall, but one still worth addressing if we, or anyone else, ever decides to take another crack at something like this.
Hi Michael, I'm the Vancouver-based Educator for SHIC and one of two people who ran the advanced workshops (the other being Baxter).
Your question is a good one! Whilst we did our best to accommodate students from all parts of Greater Vancouver - picking a central location that was very close to a train station - the trek for many students would have been quite a long one (Greater Vancouver is very spread out!). Since we currently don't have any feedback regarding this, it's hard to say to what extent students were deterred by the prospect of a long commute, and whether or not having access to a car factored into their decision to come or not (I should probably note that some of the students who did attend one or both of the advanced workshops had a long way to come, and made the journey by public transit). My own guess is that it was probably a minor factor overall, but one still worth addressing if we, or anyone else, ever decides to take another crack at something like this.