Month: January 2014

UBC SLC: The Birthplace of Quotable Quotes

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Let me start by confessing that I arrived late at the SLC. I missed the opening ceremonies and John Horn’s presentation. If you attended the conference, you do not have to tell me that I missed out on some really good stuff. Please, I do not want to hear it again. It just makes me hate myself even more for not getting my sh*t together on that day.

Having said that, I honestly felt like I did not miss that much because of the superfluous greatness of the workshops and talks that I was able to attend. Each speaker/workshop facilitator opened my eyes to see this wonderful world that had been waiting for me to explore. In my own Guinness Book of World Records, January 11, 2014 officially holds the record for the most number of epiphanies that I had in one day. I had so many that I eventually ended up writing down every word that the speaker said in order to keep up with all the light-bulb moments I was having. Here are my five most favourite ones:

 

From Darshan Soni’s “Social Media and National Tragedy: A Change in Our Perception of Events” workshop:

“We all make mistakes. But Social Media can frame those mistakes and display them infinitely.” -Darshan Soni

This is one of the many things that we already know, but do not take the time to think critically about every day. Most of us know that once we post something online, it cannot be deleted anymore. However, there are still a lot of us who do not really think before we tweet (or instagram, or reblog, or post a Facebook status).

 

From Mark Busse’s talk about the power of authenticity and vulnerability:

“Who you are is unique. What you’ve learned is not.” -Mark Busse

Mark Busse believes that to be able to obtain our dream job, and for employers to hire the right people, the first thing that we should talk about in job interviews is why we do what we do. He says that every person out there is talking about what they do or how they do it.  So once we find the answer to why, and start talking about it, we stop being like everybody else; we become unique.

“Passion is not something you pursue. It is something that you produce. You participate in it.” -Mark Busse

“Most people–teachers, parents, friends, mentors–tell you to pursue your passion. I’m sorry to tell you this, but that is bullshit. Passion is a feeling. You don’t pursue it”, Mark said. I definitely agree with him on this one! Passion is a feeling, that’s a fact. So is it something that we pursue? I don’t think so. I don’t think humans have the ability to pursue emotions. (If there is a scientific study that suggests otherwise, please send me a link to it. I would love to know more about this kind of things!)

Just in case you’re wondering, I also do not believe that we can actually pursue happiness. I believe that happiness is a choice. It is a product of what we do. If we choose to be happy, we do and revel in the things that make us happy. We don’t pursue it.

But I digress. On to the next one!

 

From Waneek Horn-Miller’s talk during the closing ceremonies:

“Dig deep. Find that one reason that stops you from quitting” -Waneek Horn-Miller

Oftentimes we forget why we do what we do in the first place. We usually want to give up, forgetting how far we’ve come. Listening to Waneek Horn-Miller’s amazing life experiences and words of wisdom definitely made it easier for me to dig deep.

“You are only as powerful as the person next to you.” -Waneek Horn-Miller

Most favourite quote of the day! Waneek said that we are only as powerful as the people around us. If we empower other people, we, too, are empowered. It is SO true! I really admire how Waneek’s talk emphasized the idea that humanity and community can help us reach our infinity.

 

It was undoubtedly a day of discovering my infinite potential. SLC 2015, I’m patiently waiting for you!

Term 1 Roundup (Part 2)

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ASTU 100B – FIRST YEAR CAP SEMINAR (Instructor: Dr. Laila Ferreira); PPE

I loved this course. Not only did I receive my highest mark in term one from this course, but it was also the only course where I enjoyed doing each and every assignment. This course is a part of the Philosophy, Political Science, and Economics (PPE) stream of the Coordinated Arts Program. ASTU’s main focus is academic research and writing. Each ASTU class is assigned a particular topic, and students analyze the academic discourse regarding this topic. Disability was the assigned topic to our class. Hence each of our reading and writing assignment revolved around the topic of disability. I definitely did not expect I would enjoy reading research papers about disability. Because I found the topic to be so interesting, I had an exhilarating time doing my research paper. Although our prof had the tendency to give out very confusing instructions, she was very helpful during her office hours. She did not have any problem with proofreading my drafts, so that definitely strengthened my research writing techniques.

One thing I learned from this course: Assigned readings are not as horrible as most students make them out to be.

 

POLI 100 – INTRODUCTION TO POLITICS (Instructor: Dr. Christopher Erickson); PPE

Poli 100 is another course in the PPE stream. Dr. Erickson always had interesting and hilarious lectures. He never failed to perfectly connect critical political concepts to celebrities (for instance, he mentioned Miley Cyrus when discussing the concept of globalization). That made waking up early to attend his 9 A.M. class a lot easier. Also, his lecture slides were very easy to follow and were sufficient to do well in the course. I only used the textbook whenever I felt like the lecture slides weren’t enough to understand a concept. The midterm and the final are fairly easy if you study the lecture slides. One thing I didn’t like, though, is that the five-page essay was worth as much as the final exam. I did not like this mainly because the essay that I turned in was crappy. And by crappy, I mean I-wish-I-don’t-ever-remember-that-I-wrote-such-paper-ever-again type of crappiness.

One thing I learned from this course: TRY TO DO YOUR PAPERS AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE. AVOID STARTING YOUR PAPER THE NIGHT BEFORE IT IS DUE. Hate that I had to learn this the hard way.

ECON 101 – PRINCIPLES OF MICROECONOMICS (Instructor: Dr. Clive Chapple); PPE

Another course in the PPE stream. Even though the exams in this course were the longest and trickiest exams I’ve ever written in my life, it was hands down my most favourite course of the term! Dr. Chapple always had the most effective analogies and examples which made understanding the course more comprehensible. Every course-related work that he assigned to us–from his Clicker questions to our weekly Aplia online assignments–greatly helped in understanding the course better. I also liked that he posted lecture notes on Connect ahead of time. That way, all I had to do was print them out and annotate them in class. The midterm and final exam were very tricky and time-consuming in my opinion, but you can pull off a decent mark if you put a lot of time and effort in mastering the concepts.

One thing I learned from this course: If you are genuinely interested in a certain course, you won’t care about how difficult it is; you’ll always enjoy studying it.

 

That was how my term one went. Tomorrow, term two begins! I’m ready to see what it has to offer.

Term 1 Roundup (Part 1)

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So….. it’s 2014. Which is crazy. So crazy. I mean, I can’t even wrap my head around the fact that I’m not living in the 2000’s anymore! And now we’re about to start the fourth year of 2010’s? WHAT?!

Tomorrow, second term will commence. I would like to prepare for its commencement by looking back at my first term as a university student (because maybe by writing this I will be reminded that term one did not turn out the way I wanted it to, which might eventually inspire me to do better in the second term). Let’s dissect the term according to the five courses that I took:

SPANISH 101 – BEGINNER’S SPANISH I (Instructor: Bruno Nassi)

This course is probably the easiest course I took last term. Since I had already taken Spanish (Beginner’s 11) in high school, I started the course being instantly familiar with 1/3 of its content. Every class, we would always do three to four sets of practice activities from the textbook, which allowed us to be comfortable in pronouncing Spanish words and speaking basic Spanish phrases. I personally didn’t think that the online assignments for this course were very helpful, since most activities were essentially the same with those in the textbook. But overall, I think the marking was fair. Exams are quite easy if you do the workbook exercises.

One thing I learned from this course: When learning a language, it is important to regularly use the new words that you learn every day so you don’t forget them and so that you get a good grip on how they are used. I know it’s common sense to do this, but I know someone who thought he was too cool to do such a routine so he only memorized the vocabulary whenever exams were coming. (If it wasn’t that obvious, that someone is me)

 

MATH 184 – DIFFERENTIAL CALCULUS FOR SOCIAL SCIENCE AND COMMERCE (Instructor: Gonzalo Davila)

This class covers the same exact same content as Math 104. The final exam and midterm exams are also the same as those of Math 104. The only difference between the two courses is that Math 184 is intended for students who have never taken a Calculus course before. The 1.5-hour workshop every week is designed to improve the students’ Calculus techniques, ideally up to the skill level of those who have already taken Calculus. Personally, I loved going to the weekly workshops because it gave me the chance to practice exam-type problems on my own without being afraid of being stuck on a problem. Here’s the thing: math is not my greatest strength. I mean, I used to like it. But somehow, sometime in high school, math scared me. That’s why when I took this course, I was afraid that I would fail it. The weekly workshops were heaven sent. The TAs were very approachable and helpful. It also helped that we were put into learning groups; whenever I could not answer the problem, my group mates were very kind to go through the problem with me. Although I personally believe that my learning style did not suit our instructor’s lecturing style, I liked the fact that he always took the time after class to answer ALL individual questions even when there were twenty students trying to ask him. He also seemed to hate the idea of failing anyone — he even set up a two-hour midterm review session outside of class hours in order to make sure we were prepared for our midterm!

One thing I learned from the course: I love and hate WeBWork at the same time.

 

To be continued..