Subscribe

Archive | School

Respect lost for University of Waterloo

June 23, 2010 by School

The University of Waterloo is ranked as a top university by the Macleans magazine. But over the past four semesters that I’ve really begin to doubt myself with my choice for university. (May be I should have gone to University of Toronto at the start.)

Granted hands down there are genius from this place from RIM to Open Text to MAPLE, granted that Microsoft do hire 50 or more students from Waterloo, and that there are insanely successful people on campus.

However some of the teaching staff are a joke. I’ve had some amazing professors that I would take any subsequent course with them. And there are also professors that I wish would never teach again, as it would do more damage to the students, and the university’s name than his personal gain.

The biggest complaint I have was the 2B term, I had the standard schedule of three computer science courses and two electives (as I have already taken one of the math course the previous term.)

CS246: The professor showed up twice for lectures in class, the first and the last lecture, and I’ve seen him for the midterm and final, he got sick at the beginning of the term, people do get sick, and it’s not his fault. But the course staff failed to realize the severity of his sickness and left the course to be taught by five different people, (tutor, 2 grad students and 2 professors) We all know in the end of the term the teacher evaluation is directed towards the professor and not the five other people, so then would they take the class too seriously? probably not, and would the course be consistent? probably not. The tutor wasn’t a big help as well, he was as lazy as a pig (that’s literally how I feel about him). Assignments being marked late, marks not being posted, never checks the news group, and just plain cocky. However the biggest failure in the course was the fact that there was one question from assignment 4 that showed up on the midterm, BUT, assignment 4 was due after the midterm, so how did they expect the student to study for it? and to learn from their mistakes?

Now this is university and the professor won’t hold your hands anymore, and I did study the material by myself from all the resources that I could find, (and there was a lot seeing it was a C++ class) but the quality of the class was just a joke and it is unacceptable.

On the other hand I still don’t understand why the university is using grad students to teach classes. Let’s use an analogy (in terms of age) grade 6 teaching grade 1.

PD2: Assignment 2, A response

June 23, 2010 by Coop

Warning: PD and CECS knows the existence of this blog. Thus if you copy from me, we will get into trouble, now, I personally don’t care about my outcome, but if you are smart, come up with your own (witty) answer to show them the stupidity of PD courses.

This post is regarding to: PD2: Assignment 2

So after submitting that PD2 assignment, the instructor emailed me regarding my submission, email attached.

At this point, I don’t know what is more funny, the fact that he actually think I would resubmit my assignment, simply because he doesn’t agree with my point of view, or the fact that he is in an utopia, in which he thinks PD classes are… lively, interesting, and full of useful information for students.

Dear Xin,

This letter is in regards to your PD2 assignment and exercise submissions.

You have a right to feel frustrated about PD2, your program, your university, your job or anything else you encounter.  However, PD2 staff members also have a right not to be subjected to insulting language.  I have instructed the PD2 graders not to grade your most recent assignment.  Please resubmit Assignment 2 using appropriate language throughout by July 1st, 2010.  If you choose not to write more professionally in future assignments, I will direct your case to senior PD2 administrators and then to the Associate Dean of your faculty.  I will also include descriptions of questionable material from previous assignments.

Please also ask yourself whether PD2 is really worth the level of frustration you seem to be feeling about it.  I suspect that you can succeed in this course without experiencing too much strain?and perhaps even learn something.  You can then get on with the rest of your studies.

When you rework the document, please follow the requirements laid out in the Assignment 2 Description, and keep in mind that human beings are at the other end of your submissions.

Tim Paci
PD2 Instructor

My reaction:

Here is the clip from YouTube:

Did I resubmit my assignment?

NOPE!

Did I lose the 10%?

YEPP!

Did I pass PD2?

YEPP! by 51%! Trolled that PD2 report as well!

PD2: (03b) Preliminary Thoughts

June 23, 2010 by Coop

Warning: PD and CECS knows the existence of this blog. Thus if you copy from me, we will get into trouble, now, I personally don’t care about my outcome, but if you are smart, come up with your own (witty) answer to show them the stupidity of PD courses.

Question:

Based on feedback and on your own perception, write a short paragraph in the box below (approximately 200 words) describing what you do well as a writer and what you find difficult or challenging. A good starting point might be to refer to the three writing stages this course is built upon (exploring, drafting, and revising) and to describe what you do well and not so well in any or all of them. In short, you can talk about anything from getting your ideas down on paper to proofreading for spelling and grammatical errors. If you are not certain what to write about, here are some questions to consider:

  • What have others, especially teachers, said about your writing abilities?
  • Are you generally confident about completing writing assignments?
  • Have you been able to improve your writing as a result of feedback? If so, what did you improve and how?
  • Of all the things that you have to say about your writing, what aspects do you perceive will be most relevant to communication in the workplace?
  • Are you satisfied with the time it takes to complete a writing assignment? Why or why not?

We won’t be marking this paragraph for grammar or style, but please write in full sentences (not point form). Also, note the time when you begin writing so that you will know how long it took you.

Continue Reading →

Co-op, you manipulative bitch

January 8, 2010 by Coop

So I went to see the CECS co-op coordinator for a back to campus interview. In which I discussed with him that I want to drop out of co-op, simply because, I have found it to be useless for me, as I already know what I want to do, (yes extra experience would help, but I can gain that myself.)

So I put the idea of me dropping out of co-op on the table, and the coordinator was like… um… “You shouldn’t go both ways, if you go back to the previous employers without co-op, you are screwing over a student’s opportunity at that company. And your past employer wouldn’t get a 3k grant from the government.”

So I thought, hmmm…. Let’s see….

First of all, you charge me 500 bucks a semester for co-op, (that’s $2,000 now) of course I’m going to abuse the co-op and the JobMine system. I am paying for a service, and if your students are not competent at finding a job then that is hardly my fault.

Second of all, I’m still working at that company, I don’t see the CEO crying about not getting a 3k tax credit from the government. Also we are *STILL* hiring students, but look at the result, offers was given but the student went a different direction and accepted offers from other companies. Sorry we don’t hire people without past experience and the ability to program.

Third of all, I think my boss is smart. He could hire someone who already knows the bells and whistles of the job, not get the 3k tax credit, but in a month could crank out 20k worth of profit. OR Hire a new student, train them for a month or two, get the 3k tax credit, and lose out on 1-2 months of sales.

You tell me.

Realizations of a Mathie

December 16, 2009 by School

I wrote this article for MathNews a while back, link to the article.

Once you become a student at the University of Waterloo and take up the honour of being a Mathie you realize:

  1. That the world becomes a much uglier place. Pretty blue eyed blonds are simply an urban legend. However, the world becomes so much nicer, and peaceful place, you can relate and talk to everyone.
  2. You realize that the smartest person from your high school now seems really dumb. However, the not so smart people have no chance whatsoever.
  3. You realize that high school teachers actually care about you, or at least try to, and now you really appreciate them. However, you realize that university profs don’t give a jack s##t about you.
  4. You should have really appreciated the small things in life before university, like “self cleaning” shirts, “self changing” bed sheet, and homemade meals. However, now it’s too late, you got to do your own laundries, change your own sheets, and eat cafeteria s##t or your own cooked s##t. Also that your mother’s pot pie seems like a delicacy rather than something you would avoid.
  5. You realize that no one else gives a s##t about being cool, or being in the “cool” gang. However, being nerdy is normal, and widely accepted by everyone. And grades/coop jobs are better than someone’s boyfriend’s Porsche.
  6. You realize that talking to yourself has become much more interesting, it’s like you are talking to a smart person. However, you catch yourself singing “the bus goes round and round” for hours nonstop.
  7. You realize that calculators are evil, now you can’t use them on tests, you will have to be careful with your additions. However, you can now do advanced multivariable integration calculus in your sleep, while dreaming on the toilet in space backwards and tied upside down. [I dare you try to figure out that image]
  8. You realize that TV is not a desire, rather a distraction. However, without a TV, chat rooms become your best friend.
  9. You realize that having a credit card, driver’s license or anything else doesn’t matter, because all you need is your university ID. However, you tried to pay for a bottle of water at the airport with your ID card and trying to get into a public library with your ID card.
  10. You realize that time and sleep doesn’t work so well; you will have to do both things everywhere. For instance, you are crunching LDEs while on the loo, or taking a nap, which don’t usually work so well. However, you will master the use of caffeine, that you can stay awake for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours.
  11. You realize that the money you spend in a weekend while in high school for that video game or that shoes wouldn’t even cover a text book full of weird Greek symbols. However, you realized that shoes and video games can only take you so far, while weird Greek symbols can make you lots of money.
  12. Skipping and not get caught was an honor. However, not so anymore.
  13. Realize that university of Waterloo is as hard as hell, and you wonder why the f##k you came to this place in the first place. However, now it’s too late to go back, as number theories are much more interesting when discussed with a similar intelligent being.
  14. Realize how lucky you should feel as there are tons of people who want to go to university but can’t. However…

[After investigating why this article suddenly had a series of random characters at the end of it, it was determined that Bill suddenly fell asleep, banging his head on the keyboard. — InsidED]

[No, f##k you, I didn't - Bill]

Bill Li

The whole idea of this post is that now school have started I have realized there are things that does not come freely and easily, such as home cooked meals, clean clothes, and nice things. We should be more appreciative of things that we normally take for granted. Especially our education.

Quick update at Tilted Pixel and the coop term

November 1, 2009 by Coop Work

Hi World!

I will try to keep this blog going for as long as possible. May be one day I can come back and read about my life.

Just a quick update about my life. Currently I’m on my coop term at Tilted Pixel. So far it is pretty amazing, however the work is horrendous, I’ve been working for the past 3 weeks non stop, and I am tired! I am so tired. I am so unbelievably tired. So far I’ve been with the company for 10 weeks, and I’ve worked on three projects, Tilted Pixel Platform Manager, Toronto Refurbishing, and Harrison Pets. I’m looking forward to finish Harrison Pets in the next week or so. This will give me time to start a small project, and will allow me to have enough time to finish the secure files component, and ultimately, finish all my documentations and paperwork.

I wonder who will be the new coop replacement for me. Well I hope to god that he or she is one bloody amazing programmer. Because who ever gets to maintain my code will suffer.

I’ve had my midterm review with the boss, and I have to say, I laughed a bit at my rankings, anything that’s work related was the highest ratings, communication wise I received a satisfied rating. Apparently I don’t send enough emails and I don’t ask for help. Which is kinda odd seeing how I can check out projects and read code to learn how to use undocumented features. Whatever works I can careless about the ratings.

The only good thing from this coop term was the pay and from that I was able to build a fast computer. Specs as the follow:

* EVGA x58 Classified 3x SLI motherboard
* EVGA 295 COOP FTW GeForce graphics cards
* Intel i7 920 CPU
* Rest to be updated

However my old Dell died for a number of possible reasons, and that being an University student I need a laptop, which lead me to buy a MacBook Pro. Which means now I have two computers, it is going to be a pain in the ass to move for my coop term.

Speaking of which, a couple of month ago there was a very interesting article in the mathNews. It stated that there are three characteristics to any housing, Location, Cost, and Cleanness, you can pick only two out of the three, and I had my first hand experience.

My coop started on August 17th, which means that I need 5 month of rent instead of the usual 4 month, and there was a location that was near the campus, and it was pretty cheap, however as the article suggested you can only pick two, and the only thing I have to say is that, that place was a dump, the condition of that place became unbearable to live in, that I had to moved to a new place. Let’s put it this way, if I stayed at that place any further I would be living in the framework of the house. It all started with the landlord renovating the place, which resulted in the whole roof being torn off, well the idiot owner didn’t take account of the possibility of rain, well in the end, it rained, and there was massive leaks, which means that all the carpets were wet and the whole place was just a mess. Then they decided to remove the carpet and redo the walls, so that means all the walls, roof, and floor had to go, and that resulted in the whole house torn to its wooden framework. That was easily the worst month of my life. Thank god for my mom, she found me a new place near my work, and I moved the very next day. But all in all that was a hell of an experience.

On a side note, Public Safety Canada ordered me to go through with my top secret clearance screening, I had to go to Toronto twice, one was security interview, and another was seeing a psychologist. Hell of two days of meetings. Full background check, full finger prints, 1001 psychological questions, 3 hours of meeting with a psychologist and 3 hours of security clearance interview. If everything goes well I am going to PSC for my next coop term. Ooohrah!

Last day of Winnipeg…

July 5, 2008 by School Travel

Today is my last day of Winnipeg.

July 5th of 2008 marks my last day of Winnipeg.

I came to Winnipeg on September 1st of 2002, and it has been my home for a good 6 years.

But one can never stay here too long, it was a temporary thing from the start.

After days of packing, cleaning, and loading, I am finally en route to Toronto to start at the University of Waterloo

The projected drive is approximately 3 days, with an 8 hour drive per day.