blogONEAh, at 9:48am this morning, I had completed my last exam of my first year at UOIT. What were my experiences? What new things had I seen, heard, learned and done at university? What kind of professors and TAs did I get? …and many other questions. So many things to say, and so much time to say it, finding a starting point is really hard!
What I Have Learned
There are a bunch of things I have learned in these numerous months. I have learned simple things regarding computers, useful things from the world of physics/science, disturbing things in “ethics” and leadership. However, these are all head knowledge things! I personally think that some of the heart-learned things are more important at times, such as
- Always study and review when you have a chance to! - In other words, don’t study for tests and exams a day or two beforehand. This year, my studying habits have completely gone to hell. I’ve had a few occurrences where I would study for a midterm the day before I had it, and just last week…I began my formal review for a final the night before. That’s why first year is usually general and somewhat easier…because its the perfect time to have a transition between high school and university. What we’ve lost with OAC being taken out will never be made up for!
- Friends are few, Acquaintances are abundant - There were only a few people I really had a bit more time to chill with than others, which should classify them as my friends. The friends would usually meet up and eat, chill or study. The acquaintances were usually just a brief “Hello, how are you?/What’s up?”. However, there’s an on-going problem I face where friendships between people are skewed…and obviously this isn’t a problem anyone can fix instantly; it just takes time.
Of course, there are a bunch of other things I’ve learned…especially from my Impact of Science and Technology on Society course. This is ironic, since it was one of those bird courses that everyone loved to hate. From Impact, I’ve learned about bastards known as the Economic Optimists, who believe that natural resources are not needed in this world; who are over-confident in the flawed human lives we live, believing that we can truly solve all of the problems in the world; who skew statistics to hide from investors that the kids in Indonesia who are making their clothes and everyday products aren’t even getting paid 1/100th of our minimum wage. People accuse me of being a Marxist, but I haven’t invested enough time to really find out what this meant. From what I’ve read of Wikipedia though (which isn’t all that reliable, believe me)…it remotely deals with some aspects of communism and “power to the people”, if I’ve interpreted correctly. At this moment in time, I cannot comment on what I am.
What interesting things have happened?
So throughout the year you’ve seen my many posts exclaiming the random things I’ve done. A recap…
- Filming videos! - We’ve got more coming soon! We’ll definitely be working on the DVD version of “Let’s Master Tait” during the summer, and we’ll definitely enter the 2007 Insomnia contest if it happens! Filming has allowed me to release some of my artistic
sexualfrustrations which rage inside me like a spark to the O2 supply in one of the Apollo missions (…erk). So far we’re mainly focusing on comedy situations, so it’s allowing me to mature in my humor, as well as expanding my scripting and acting talents - accents can only support me for so long. When the time comes to start filming action, dramatic or other genre films…who knows what can happen! - I’ve probably attended my 2nd real concert! Campus Fest 06 exposed me to the excitement of experiencing bands live, which is kind of different than having a worship session inside a church.
- Rocking the sexyback - I’ve been challenged/encouraged further to expand my musical abilities…as seen from this post. However, what can be said about my advances musically for my faith? I haven’t written a song for/to God for a long time, and I haven’t had the tugging at my heart in a long time. You could probably say that I am dead; there is a high probability that I AM.
- I took the first steps and joined the EWB club at UOIT…kind of. I’ve only been able to attend a few meetings because I’ve been so busy and buses are always so sparse when they have meetings.
Other things?
I believe next year will be an even bigger opportunity to get things done and to have even more experiences. For example…by next fall semester, I should be in a new location. This will open up the doors for so many opportunities to do things, such as actually attending EWB meetings, or avidly attending Campus Church. I should also be able to meet up with friends more often, especially when Will and Aaron will be living in Oshawa as well. What does this mean?
- Possible jam sessions with Will
- More artistic opportunities with Aaron, Chris, Will and anyone we can find
Living in the Dirty Shwa will benefit in so many ways…maybe not in the immediate, and definitely not in the eyes of everybody watching my family’s life under a scope, but this is something most people won’t understand anyway due to their arrogance or ignorance (or both).
Best, Worst, Most, Least… (aka Awards?)
I think it’s one of my duties to produce a best and worst list (based on personal opinion) of my (note: MY! I could’ve EASILY put Paula DiCato down so many times…but I didn’t have her!) profs and TAs this year…so here we go! Categories with [P] will designate profs and [TA] for TA…I think that made sense:
Best Sense of Humor [P]: Rupinder Brar (Runners up: Robert Coke, Sean Bohun, Ilona Kletskin);
He was constantly making jokes whenever needed, made constant remarks about his own drawings (ie. “Now THAT is a circle”), and had to endure 3 fire alarms. That should get him the perseverance award too…because it sucked having both physics exams (close to completion) being fire alarmed. Big thanks to him for letting us finish writing on the 1020 one 
Best Sense of Humor [TA]: Darlene Griffiths (Runners up: Mihai Beligan);
She told it like it was, constantly made jokes about anything, and made tutorials on technical writing more bearable than they actually were in reality.
Most Boring/”Useless” Lectures: Chemistry - Mima Staikova (Runners up: Programming - Ramiro Liscano, Linear Algebra - Greg Lewis, Tech Comm/Impact - Alyson King);
Chemistry need not be boring…my grade 12 teacher definitely did not make it so. She came in 10-15mins late for the first lecture, which was followed by somewhat broken English and confusing instructions. I mean, I’m usually highly tolerant of accents and of people who are English-As-Second-Language…but sometimes it was even unbearable for me! Lectures (AND MIDTERMS) had typos, and was usually presented in a monotone fashion, partnered with useless monotone video clips from the textbook. I really wonder if her teaching style is reflective of how U of T’s teaching/style is? Or…maybe she is one of those research-based professors who only teaches because it’s written on their job description? Interesting fact: after the first two weeks, we only had around 20 people come to lecture.
Most “Useless”/Boring Tutorial: Programming - Anand Dersingh;
Anand is a great guy, so this award isn’t necessary directed towards him. However, having UA1220 filled with only 8 guys isn’t too good. That, and it was my first year programming with C++, so whatever he was covering was either presented in a very boring manner (constituted by anal raping long pauses) or was already- nevermind, it’s all because of the pauses. However, it was because of Anand that some of the material was better learned…so this award is more towards “Boring” than “Useless”! GG NO RE!!!!
Most Attractive (Non-gay perspective of Male & Female) [P & TA]: Let’s not elaborate too much, cause I don’t want people to start shifting their seats or closing window blinds. By the way, I added the males because I think its just a humbling statement that they’re regarded as someone who should be able to get a lot of ladies. So in no particular order we have… Olga Bulakh, Rupinder Brar, Ilona Kletskin, Mihai Beligan. Good balance, one of each type of each gender!
Most Stone Cold “I’ll F***ing Kill You” Profile Picture: Ramiro Liscano;
His greying/silver hair with his cool look sent shivers down everybody’s spine…it made us think he was hardcore strict. He wasn’t really, but I think he’s oldschool…so that would explain some of his lectures…
Most Swearing/Lord’s-Name-Taking-In-Vain [P]: Sean Bohun;
All lecture, every lecture.
Most Swearing/Lord’s-Name-Taking-In-Vain [TA]: Mihai Beligan;
Enough said. Probably one of the most down to Earth TA’s ever…
Ok…who wants to go on a smoke break? Anybody? Anybody? Fine…then I will go on a smoke break!
Most Joy In Coming To Class (aka Giddiness): Ilona Kletskin (Runners up: Robert Coke, Rupinder Brar);
if (Ilona_hascoffee == true)
bool giddy = true;
As long as she has caffeinated products (ie. iced cap, coffee), she will be fine.
Most Shaggy: Omer Yuksekher;
Saw him at beginning of year, no beard. End of year…he’s frickin Santa Claus!
Easiest Course: Collab - Robert Coke (Runners up: Tech Comm/Impact - Alyson King);
Open notes+laptop midterms AND exams…
Most Satellites Floating In Space: Ali Grami;
Ok, that was cheating…cause we all know he is elite pro.
Most In-tune With Their Inner Child [P]: Rupinder Brar - Nintendo Wii (Runner up: Sean Bohun - Apple Macbook);
What can we say? He loves his Wii!
Most In-Tune With Their Inner Child [TA]: Mihai Beligan - Nintendo Wii/DS;
Rants about the Wii’s availability, playing DS before class starts, requesting Rupinder’s Friend Code…hahaha.
Most Difference In Height Face-to-Face: Greg Lewis;
I am totally not lying, but we all thought he was pretty tall when he was standing up there in front of the lecture hall…sadly, as we descended down the rows or saw him in person, we found out we towered over him.
Endnotes:
In all seriousness, I think all my profs and TAs have their pros and cons and are all special in their own way. Each of them gave me a chuckle, either from a joke (ie. Ilona, Coke, Rupinder, Alyson, Mihai) or made me laugh from what they unknowingly say (ie. Olga’s “F***torial”, Anand’s “Vector P-P”, Peyman’s “Ohmagah”, Ruth and Anna’s “OK”). Totally looking forward to what second year profs I’ll get!
If you’re reading this and in UOIT, please post a comment here (ON THE BLOG, NOT THE STUPID FACEBOOK NOTE…AND IF YOU CAN’T READ THIS, YOU ARE BLIND AND NEED TO FAIL!!!111oneone 
PRESS “VIEW ORIGINAL POST”!) with your awards, your favs, who you thought was hot good-looking/whatnot…best moments, funniest moments etc!!
9 Comments
its all funny cause its true, i know from experence
UOIT RULES!!!…. okay not entirely….I want my zirconium ring…..
I think our TAs are > then all the other TAs that exist in Canada since I don’t actually hear any other uni ppl bragging about theres. Of course we have some bad ones, but it’s pure pwnage. We learn at like x5 our normal speed or ppl like me x10 muahahahah. It’s so good that I don’t actually study myself and just go to tutorials to learn all the crap there is to learn.
We have some good and some bad profs. Mostly good, but there are those like Mima, sigh… made me not want to learn chem when it seemed so awesome in grade 12.
Let me make this clear, MIHAI rules!!! then the rest of the TAs. There’s too much to comment…. advertise UOIT..
Hey, I personally thought Paula was…
ohhhh, anyways,
yes, Mima’s lectures and slides are completely useless. Spelling mistakes, missing words, missing steps for sample questions, and the list goes on. It takes so much concentration just to follow and figure out what she’s trying to say. *sigh.
The most boring tutorial just also happens to be my chemistry TA. He had no clue what’s on the midterms, and instead of explaining how to do a question, he picks someone randomly from the class and tells him/her to do it on the board. Awkward. :S
Most most favorite class just so happens to be Calculus!
Apart from the obvious reason, the profs all had great enthusiasm when they’re up front teaching the class. I NEVER had that during high school. It kept me awake during lectures and made me feel confident on my midterms/finals. 
Yes, can’t forget Rupinder!
He made physics interesting and easy to understand with his great sense of humor! 
Compared to my high school teachers… oo, lets not go there. We’ll all miss Rupinder.
lol adwin all so true great year though had a ton of fun going to tutorial with u till i dropped the course lol. it was good time, hopefully we’ll still meet up come the new year of school even though i’ll be a retard college student
All the lists you made are true! Here is what i think of the Profs and TA i had
PHYSICS 1020
[P]Rupinder Brar: amazing teacher, he is probably one of the few profs who loves teaching more than their research. He is humerous, best lecturer, wants you to learn and pay attention during class. His Exams and Midterms are nicely made with the main topics of questions. Therefore, his teaching style is far better than any other profs i had. He is linked with our age for instance when he first got face book he was talking about what each button means and what others have send him “What does the poke button do in facebook!”. As Adwin said it was unfortunate that fire alarm was pulled doing the exam for 3 consecutive times but i wasn’t affected because is one of the good things about having your last name start with the lowest letter in the alphabet.
[TA] Jean, and Peyman:
Jean helped me understand further the material learned in the lectures while Peyman sucked at establishing the connections between the theories (he is more so confused often)
Linear Algebra (Interesting course)
[TA]Ruth: a great TA she helped us with the material learned in class section by section. The best useful tutorial of the 1st semester! She was also my physics lab TA for the 2nd semsiter which was also great helped us with the understanding of complicated formulas to finish the lab fast.
[P]Greg Lewis: An intresting profs but not a great lecutrer, he usually just do the lecture before hand and go over them because it takes a great amount of work to work through the matrix’s and applications with Gauss and etc.
Calculus:
[P]Sean Bohun: He is an interesting profs who taught me easier way to work out a difficult problems with derivatives and integrals. I love all the short cuts in finding out the difficult questions.
[TA] Olga: She is another TA who went through section by section to give a brief understanding of the material that was learned in lecture. Even though her methods were mostly different than the way i do the work it helps to understand the main idea. She also encouraged participation in the class, even though i didn’t participate. lol
[P]Ilona Kletskin: A highly organized mannered prof i have ever seen, she is a great and delivering her lecture when she is caffeinated. lol
Chemistry:
[P] Mima Staikova: she is the totally opposite of Rupinder. She CAN NOT teach, her teaching method involves going over the slides and reading them out and also the video clips that came with the text book. I often wonder why i go to the lectures. lol Anyways, the lecture slides sucked as much as her teaching style very monotone.
Programming(C++)
[TA] Anand: He was a good TA, he knew the topics unlike others, but since i already learned the material it was pretty much a useless course for me. Although there was assignment problems that were typically hard but i managed with few hints and help.
[P]Ramiro Liscano: Monotone, and I don’t really pay attention in this course excepts for the participation on Turing Craft because it worth 5% at the end. lol Again this is because i knew the material!
Tech Comm/Impact
[P]Alyson King: The Worst course ever to take in the first year. I honestly don’t see why engineers have to take this crappy course. Its not like we are going to benefit from it! lol
This course is filled with so much reading that the others mostly bullshit through the books and bashing at what the engineers and scientist cause impact on the society and the environment and how technology takes control of the people.
Intro to Computer/Electronics
[P]Ali Grami: also a great lectures but his tests were too long and wanting me to write so much, but the Final was M/C so it was all good. I didn’t learn anything new because i got all the intro knowledges from high school from Mr. K classes.
There you have it my entire first year lists of course profs/Ta. This year has been great except for few chemistry and my marks. I can’t wait for next year!!!
Wow. That took a long time to read. lol. the most swearing award!
Nice review. Hope to see you in the ‘Shwa next year.
Oh, one addition:
“Most Likely To be Taught By The Students During Tutorial”: Peyman Rahnama;
- Sometimes the most confused person in the entire room…is him.
I have just “completed” my last exam of the year and it concluded with the increasingly popular fire alarm pull that some find so exciting and useful. No doubt people were upset, as was I, and now the waiting game begins, hopefully they mark whatever we have done cause I don’t want to go back and do it over again.
I’ll do a quick run-down of three profs as the others will probably not teach anyone else unless they are in nuke. For the nukes, I’ll write a short sentence that describes them:
Dr. Bennett - teaches engineering economics, nice guy overall trying to teach a course that engineers don’t give a damn about (well maybe a little). Teaching in the tent you don’t expect many people to pay attention, and it was the same for this class. He taught it well but not many listened. Seems to be more in tune with the software engineers so look out if you’re in the program. Course is easy, just don’t cram for it the day before, take some time to understand what the hell you’re actually doing.
Paula Dicato - only female and only one who gets the full name written. Taught us stats and screwed us over for the midterm. Even after that deadly test I still like her. Nice person to talk to in addition to being quite attractive. Class was in the tent so many paid more attention to her than the actual material. Good course and don’t underestimate it because she can make it worse than you expect it. She’ll probably do it next year again. Make friends early so you get help.
Dr. Bohun - teacher for engineering math and have to say this guy was the favourite for this year. Not only did he put up with our crap all semester, he actually taught us some pretty cool stuff. He rarely slept or shaved, yet always had girls in his office for help. Make friends, you will be rewarded. He also reminded me of this one guy from that movie “The New Guy”. Google image Sean Bohun and then DJ Qualls, you’ll see what I’m talking about. Anyway, great guy and I’d love to have him again.
Dr. Nichita - intelligent man whose lectures are complicated as hell and you only understand them afterwards
Dr. Pioro - if the guy didn’t say “due to this” more than 15 times during a class, there was something wrong
Dr. Waller - always good for a joke and an effective prof… can’t same the same about the final
I had some good laughs off your stuff Adwin, have a good summer…
Olga sounds like a great name for AddONE’s kind of girl.
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