Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from November, 2022

Finding Official UCalgary Course/Professor Ratings (NOT RateMyProf)

Like any anonymous review website, Rate My Professor is filled with fake positive reviews and review bombing. Sometimes, a professor just isn't there! So where can you go for extra information? You can check the official "Universal Student Ratings of Instruction" or USRIs. Many students know about USRIs and their importance to improving quality of instruction at the university. They are optional surveys done anonymously near the end of each semester through the UCalgary portal (you can only review the course if you're actually taking it) and each course has a written survey and a rating survey for various metrics. What few students know or take advantage of is that many USRI results from previous semesters are available for them to read (they are released to students if at least 20% of the section and a minimum of 8 students responded). The following information is made available (for specific lecture sections taught by each professor): Ratings on a scale of 1 (Strong...
Post a Comment
Read more

Staying Active (Indoors!) at UCalgary

University is a time and place to make healthy lifestyle choices that can have a lasting impact, even if you're a computer science student (your back and neck will thank you). Since you pay for the services anyway, why not take advantage of UCalgary's Active Living facilities? Staying active is important for good sleep, health, avoiding burnout, as well as countless other things. Now that it's cold out, it's a great time to take advantage of some of these indoor activities that could be a new and fun activity for you. For any of them, check in for a wristband at the Active Living Services desk. Squash and Racquetball We have the largest public racquet sports facility in Canada! Book a court online at https://active-living.ucalgary.ca/rentalsbookings/court-bookings or at the front desk (walk-in is usually fine). You can purchase a ball (either sport) for $4.75 and rent racquets for $2.50 each. The rules are simple to learn and they're both a lot of fun!
Post a Comment
Read more


Popular posts from this blog

IKEA Yearly Midsummer Buffet 2024 Review

Every year around June, IKEA hosts a Midsummer Buffet full of fish, meatballs, salad, and more. You have to be an IKEA Family member (which is free) and buy a $25 ticket in person on a previous day. I attended the Calgary buffet, and here is my full review!
3 comments
Read more

Rating my Experience in Each of my First Year Courses (CS/CPSC @ UCalgary)

Fall CPSC 231 (Intro to CS with Python), Required - This course was a nice introduction to the basics of programming with Python. It was fairly easy for me since I had some prior experience with coding, but I think it would be manageable for beginners too. The only downside was that the assignments were graded by a computer program, so even a minor mistake like a typo or a missing comma could lower your mark significantly. I heard that this course is better organized and taught than CPSC 217, which is the online version of it. I would give this course a 7/10 because it was good but not very challenging. PHIL 279 (Logic and Proofs), Required - This course was pretty interesting and different. It teaches you how to use logic and mathematical symbols to construct and evaluate arguments, and it required a certain way of thinking that was not intuitive at first. I took the online assessment version of the course, which gave me more flexibility but also required more self-disci...
20 comments
Read more

UCalgary Tech Recruiting w/ BobaTalks’ Jeff Nguyen

While this isn’t quite a tech blog, this post should have some important insights for any UCalgary students interested in a tech career. After seeing that  Jeff Nguyen , a recruiter in the student space, founder of BobaTalks (which provides free mentorship for students), and prolific "LinkedInfluencer" (the good kind) was going to have a booth at  CalgaryHacks 2025 , I knew I had to reach out. As someone deeply involved in both student mentorship and tech recruiting, he seemed like the perfect person to chat with about student recruiting, starting with how UCalgary students can stand out in the job market.  Q: UCalgary has good computer science courses and fantastic clubs. Even so, many students here find it tough to break into big or even mid-sized tech companies because there's not a lot of direct access to recruiters. What's your take on the best way for students in a market like ours to get noticed? Jeff : I believe that computer science is one of those fields wh...
5 comments
Read more