I have little experience with collaborating with a large group with some being from overseas, therefore having my partner Laura from Ryerson was useful since we were able to discuss our situations as well as becoming friends. On our neighbourhood walk we chose to focus on transport since it is something common all over the world and shapes what you are able to do from day to day.
| Location | Toronto Georgy Porgys Grill & Bar; 1448 Lawrence Ave E Unit 1, North York, ON M4A 2V6 | London The Sun of Camberwell61-63 Coldharbour Ln, Brixton, London SE5 9NS |
| Vehicles | Majority of Canadian vehicles have automatic transmissions, and even being able to drive manual is becoming very rare. There is a running joke that a manual transmission is a “millenial anti-theft device” since no one can drive them, and they aren’t stolen very often. We have a 3-stage license program you can start at 16yrs, there’s starts at 17yrs & they have a separate class license for automatic. | Here in London having a car is rare due to how high the living costs are. To get from place to place public transport is favoured. Unlike Canada, automatic vehicles are hard to come across due to how much they cost and when it comes to obtaining a licence the majority take a manual test. Laura lives further from the city center so she has a car to get places whereas here in London everything is so close there is no need to drive. |
| Temp./Weather | At the time of our call it was 4 Celsius in Toronto, very windy, and looked like it might storm later on. Oct/Nov (fall) is pretty cold and rainy in Toronto, going below 0 often at night. | For once England wasn’t the cold stormy place! It was a lovely warm evening of 17 degrees. Even though it was humid and windy this was made up for by the fact I was nice and warm. |
| Public Transpo-rtation | The TTC only has two real subway lines, with some LRTs and streetcars, and lots of busses. Outside of the downtown core though, it’s mostly just busses and a lot of people drive. Being from outside downtown, I drive a lot to get around, unless I need to go to campus which is when I’ll use the subway (and the bus). Both systems are pretty vast, but the Tube seems superior to the Rocket. | The sun is right next to a few bus stops which can get you to central London very quickly. You can also take the overground and Tube which are just as useful. We compared the underground maps for Toronto and London and thought about how busy London’s looked in comparison. |
| Size/Gov-ernment | Ontario is more than 4x size of the UK (according to tripadvisor.ca), so we can drive 5 hours and it takes us to Ottawa, and we’re not even in a new province. They can drive 3 hours and they’re on the other side of the country. | The population of London is 8.982 million (2019) and we all fit into a 1,572 km² area. The Queen of England is on their notes like ours since she is the Constitutional Monarch. However both places act independently from the monarchy. |
| Covid Limitati-ons | This is a new development, but a lot of what we used to do is limited. I’m not downtown or on campus really at all this year, so I don’t go out to eat with my friends after class or sit in the student lounge. And I also don’t leave my house much at all, other than a walk around the neighbourhood almost every day, so finding somewhere to go for this call was interesting! | Because of Covid the places we can go are very limited, our environments and daily surroundings have changed in order to fit with restrictions. Even though travel is easy and quick in London, I have stayed in my area only going to places which are a short distance away. Therefore this was an interesting contrast between the restaurant Laura drives to with her family as opposed to the pub I walk to with my housemates. |
A difference between Canada and the UK that surprised me was that in Canada manual cars have become very rare, many drive an automatic and will for their whole lives from when they learn onwards. However, in the UK, automatic cars are considered a luxury due to the higher prices, therefore many choose to learn in manual and stay with it. Additionally due to raising living costs and more people living in crowded areas cars are becoming less of a necessity and more of a burden with how expensive they are to run and upkeep. But Laura lives far from the city centre and having a car is necessary to get places for her, in London it is different as public transport is well connected and affordable. COVID-19 has affected us both in very different manners, due to Laura’s location her life has not been hugely changed by restrictions since she lives far from campus and friends. Whereas being in London, COVID has drastically changed my way of life with entertainment venue’s being closed and large gatherings against the rules. This instantly highlighted the differences in people’s capabilities to travel as everyone’s situation is extremely different, shedding light on the way that Co-Pilot can provide this platform where everyone is on the same level in the world of travel as a community. Brining people together this way is becoming important during this time.
When the project was coming to and end we came back together to discuss what we had learned about international collaboration from this project (here’s the link to a recording of the highlights of our 60min discussion). Firstly, when collaborating online it becomes clear how different people may seem over text. Even though there are many benefits to this method of communication, such as helping people who are more shy, miscommunication can happen and something may be taken differently from how it was meant to come across. However this was combatted by how online it is easier for many to make friendships, this highlighted the importance of understanding someone on more than a face to face professional level. Since we were comfortable speaking to each other, even those who were quieter, it made way for a more productive work environment where agreements and decisions were easier to make. This was because people felt more comfortable expressing their opinions, to me this was the most important element to my groups’ collaboration. Text slang and emojis were also extremely useful when communicating since it gave our group-chats a colloquial and chatty atmosphere which made evaluating things and sharing ideas a lot easier for us all.
Even if we were functioning well as a group, Laura and I had both picked up on the difficulties of working around schedules and time zone differences. This became a bigger problem with international collaboration since we were all living very different lives. However it became clear that ultimately this made us work closer as a group and make sure no one was left behind as you needed to consider everyone if we were going to have a team call. These differences between our lives was not the only difference that we learned to work with, but also the diversity of perspectives that were brought to the table. However, this came as a huge benefit to our process, since the concept could be shaped by so many different ideas from different angles. I have also learnt from this as it helped bring different ideals to my own attention which I could think through which is turn would inform and mould my own perspective.