Tag: education Posts

While many people advocate going to school and getting an education, the reality is that education costs are more expensive than most people realize. Canada thankfully provides reasonably priced educations compared to the rest of the world, but it is far from free. Given that I grew up in Chilliwack, and that I had to move out to Vancouver to attend UBC, I spent approximately $11,000 per 8-month period, which included housing on the UBC campus along with a university food program (which tasted fairly similar to prison food, I imagine). Of those costs, approximately $3,000 went towards tuition, $1,000 for books, and the rest towards accommodation, clothes and food. Given that the average engineering summer job back then paid around $2,000 per month, it was essentially impossible to pay for a full year of school by financing it with the money you made during the summers, at least in […]

It’s one of those questions that everyone always asks you at parties — what do you do? I guess the normal answer is to tell people what you do for a living, which in my case would currently be web development. That being said, some people tend to tell people what they are trained to do. For example, if you have a CA, you’d say you’re an accountant, or if you have a mechanical engineering degree, you’d say you’re a mechanical engineer. If you took software engineering, you’d say you were a software engineer. I did my undergrad in engineering physics, which is one of the few engineering disciplines where you don’t really have a bone fide title when you come out. I guess I could say I’m an engineering physicist, but I’m not really sure what that means. In terms of a graduate degree, I did my master’s in […]

So a friend of mine pinged me online the other day and told me he had been laid off from a local company. I didn’t ask too many details because I was a bit busy at the time, but since then a larger picture has emerged. Apparently the local company decided to pack up and head south of the border. And while a lot of permanent employees were laid off, they also slaughtered the co-op students as well. As someone who used to be involved in the co-op program, I can tell you that this is a pretty low blow. These students have precisely four months to earn enough money to get them through another full year of school. It would be next to impossible for a co-op student to get another job at another company half-way through their term. There’s a certain responsibility you take on by hiring a […]

Well, it’s official — I passed my master’s exam with a whopping mark of 84% (A-) — good enough for me. So, all that’s left to do is get a few pieces of paper signed, print off a nice copy of my thesis, and hand it into the library for processing. And then it’s done. The guys from CounterPath took me out for a few free rounds of drinking last night. We started at Nevermind in Kits for a few beers after my defense. Then Des and I went for dinner on Granville Island (Bridges) and met up with everyone at 8pm for some drinks at the Yaletown Brew Pub. Here’s a photo of me waiting to catch the ferry to Granville Island (a few hours after defending my thesis).

First off, I met with my supervisor tonight to finalize my thesis.. Although I don’t have an official answer yet, it’s very likely I’ll be giving my defense next Thursday.. That’s really soon, and I have a lot of work to do before then, but the good news is then I’m completely done before I go on vacation, which would be pretty awesome.. There will definitely be booze ‘a flowin ‘a plenty Thursday night if I pull it off. On Friday I’m going to Cirque de Soleil, so I hope that my defense is Thursday so I can go out and get sloshed. On another note, I found the best way ever to make shitty coffee, should you ever want to attempt this at home. Here’s how: Put water into a kettle and pretend to turn it on (the coffee is shittier if you actually *meant* to turn it on, […]