In the mid 80's, Macdonald defined a 2-parameter family of symmetric polynomials which specializes to essentially every previously known family of symmetric polynomials. He conjectured that these polynomials have several highly nontrivial symmetries and positivity properties. These polynomials were later related to many areas of mathematics, including representation theory of affine Hecke algebras, combinatorics, integrable systems, Hilbert schemes, etc. This talk will be an introductory survey to these ideas. It is the first talk of a learning seminar about Macdonald polynomials and related ideas which will be run this semester. (If you would be interested in attending further talks in this seminar please email psam@math.toronto.edu or dmuthiah@math.toronto.edu.)