British Student .ca

You can’t expect universities to be the same. At Durham, and perhaps around the UK, the university life is helped by student societies (clubs). In the first week there is an event (named Freshers’ Fair in Durham) where you wander around a hall (or a whole pedestrian road at sunny UBC) and see loads of desks of the different clubs. The saying goes that in this week you sign up to almost everything and then spend the next 4-5 years trying to get off their mailing lists. As a first year you go to a few events of some socities and slowly narrow your interests down until your most of your time is spent with maybe 2-4 socities. By the end of that year or the one after, your considering (or being encouraged to) run for a position on the exec of the socitey.

Living in 1st year residence it seems that hardly anyone spends their time on a certain club’s events. I even thought I would be away most weekends on trips with the outdoor/hiking club (they turned into a skiing club too quickly). In Durham there are subject related socities, but these are often run by non-subject members for those interested in the subject as a hobby not as their study. For example I’m sadly one of the few Durham Computer scientists in CompSoc and so I hang out with Physics and Engineering students who like to play with computer stuff when they’re not studying. At UBC however, subjects have their own socities where all students are automatically members.

Computer geeks and beer seem to be found together. After a Durham CompSoc weekly talk the audience will often migrate to a pub down the road for casual chatting with the friends that get made in the club. I thought I would get deeply involved with the Vancouver equivilant, The Computer Science Sudent’s Society (which is CS³ so it’s nicknamed The Cube). But it doesn’t have many events other than ‘distinguished lectures’ (actually organised by the academic department) and the occasional BBQ on the sidewalk(pavement) by the building.

After Christmas I found out the cool club for me is the Geography Students’ Association, as you may have gathered from the cool Beer Gardens I’ve mentioned in my past blog posts. I thank Sam greatly for inviting me to my first one, it helped me meet people outside my residence house and gave me somewhere fun to escape my cage/bedroom. This year would have been better if I had something other than classes taking up my time, I didn’t plan that well because I just expected to do the same as i did in Durham, and I expected other new students to be going to clubs too.

This can be counted as a wish if I time travelled to the start of the year. To get involved with the GSA from the start and maybe to find local non-university clubs to join. If I had camaping gear as soon as I got here(like a sleeping bag), I wonder if I would have got involved with the outdoor club as planned? Probably not, they are a weird bunch and like other clubs here they don’t seem set up or welcoming for first years who want to try something new.

Last Wednesday was eventful, being a lecturer, using my medical cover/insurance, some geography fun, and ending the night with some chain metal dancing girls.

I’ve mentioned that in my geography GIS class we’ve been ending the year on OpenStreetMap and Neogeography. My lecturer has become aware that I’m really obsessed with OpenStreetMap and so asked me the take half of the Wednesday lecture showing my stuff. I showed how to edit OSM and why it’s cool and got a little bit of feedback on how it went. There are mixed opinions on if I was too complicated or not, but it seems it was interesting either way and hopefully my passion came out.

From about Monday night my little finger had been a bit swollen. After the lecture I took of a plaster that I slept with to at least keep it clean and it looked like it might explode with puss. So I went to the pharmacist in the village to ask what cream I should put on it. He said it had got to the point I needed to see a doctor for antibiotics. So I went above Staples stationary shop to a walk in medical clinic. I never wanted to be in medical trouble abroad, but at least I now have my (required) medical insurance paid to date I just had to show my Care Card and not worry about it. The doctor stabbed my finger and pushed the goo out. A little bit of squirming (I would have been fine doing it myself) and a plaster, then I was on my way. He didn’t even give my jip for biting my hang nails. When I got back to my room, Steph was there to be house mum and hug it better.

Later that day I was lying on my bed thinking I should go out and enjoy the sun and grass in some summery way. Oh, it was the GSA(Geography Students’ Association) last Bzzr Garden and BBQ. I went to that, the burgers were delicious, as was the beer. Chatting to folks was fun (you could call it networking practice), and OpenStreetMap is really known these days. I even spoke to someone in my class who said she did an assignment on my Living With Dragons blog, apparently it’s the top search result for GIS neogeography blog or some set of terms.

Later that evening I went downtown to The Media Club for the CD release of Scythia. They had a cage with some dancing ladies wearing (not much) chain metal, but more importantly the music was great and a good end to the day. Me and my sensitive injured finger decided to avoid the mosh pit, despite one guy repeatedly trying to get me to start it with him. I’ve done enough anger-release moshing in my younger years.

This is my one class this year outside of the Computer Science department. I was egar to take it as I’m already a ‘neogeographer’ meaning I go out surveying roads adding them to a copyright-free map database, OpenStreetMap.org, as a hobby using volunteer created programs and systems. Now I’ve joined a class to learn how the professional geographers do it.

Immeditetly I noticed a difference in the people in the room and being a Computer Science student I only have the ability to interact with other Computer Scientists. The first lecturer the instructor, Jose Aparicio, asked a number of hand-up questions which included “Who’s used GIS before?”. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person who raised my hand. In the first lab a shocking number of students struggled with following the instructions to zoom in and out of the map in ArcGIS (click the plus magnafying glass icon, click the map with it). Points to me for being ahead of the class already.

I finished the first assignment in that 2 hour lab, although we had been given next week’s lab and our own time until the 3rd lab to complete it. Since then I’ve always tried to complete the assignments in the lab time. The 3rd assignment I needed an extra half hour. Currently I’m on the 4th assignment and I didn’t finish the last page, but then I did turn up about 25 minutes late because I was decorating a dinning hall. Perhaps I should be using some of the time to make friends in my lab class, as apparently there will be a group project.

Two weeks ago I went to a Geography Students Association(GSA) social with Sam the 5th floor RA and final year geography student. I had a good evening out of Totem Park for a change, sang a little bit of karaoke, and my team did terrible in the quiz. This night also came with the discovery that geography students are known for being the ones that know how to party/drink! I may or may not have been drinking beer in a lecture hall.

The lectures are interesting, especially as I relate most topics to discussions (and arguments) I’ve had amongst OpenStreetMappers. As I don’t need to fully concentrate on the lectures, I now make use of the time by editing OpenStreetMap and uploading the data I collected at the weekend. Switching between my neogeographer’s GIS program (called JOSM) and note typing. I’ll have to be ready to pay more attention at the end of term when there will be a lecture(s?) on data sources and I can make sure OpenStreetMap is accurately represented.

Yesterday I sat down close to someone I briefly met at the GSA social, and she remembered me enough to say hi. Yay I have a friend, I think she’s even in my lab class, which could prove nice come project time!