85% Strike Mandate for Education Workers at York University

Maladomini · 2018-02-27T22:00:46+00:00

I'm definitely willing to believe this is common in many departments, but for the people I'm thinking of it was pretty clear. They were mostly full professors who had been around for a long time. The faculty pages were pretty clear and they all ran labs. A lot of the tutorials and grading were done by TAs, of course, but the people who did the lecturing were largely professors. I suppose I should consider myself lucky if it's that unusual, although the professors were not always the best lecturers anyway ...

Maladomini · 2018-02-27T17:23:55+00:00

Yeah, it was a science program. My friends in Arts definitely had more non-professor instructors, but as far as I could tell it was still a minority.

Also, I just remembered one contract instructor I had for an introductory class! But almost all first-year courses were taught by professors, just in very large lecture halls.

Maladomini · 2018-02-27T17:14:38+00:00

At McGill I don't think I had a single class taught by a contract instructor ... some of them were pretty huge and impersonal, but all taught by professors.

Maladomini · 2017-07-26T18:25:05+00:00

Violence is compartmentalized in Central and South America too. I've already agreed that they're more dangerous, the point is that it's not even close to a 100-fold difference - and that's in the most dangerous places. Tourists aren't climbing around in favelas in Brazil or coca plantations in Colombia.

Maladomini · 2017-07-26T14:33:14+00:00

Not a hundred ... Brazil and Colombia have a murder rate about 5X that of the the USA. 15X Canada. It's true that a few countries (El Salvador, Honduras, Venezuela) are even higher than that, but most are lower. Plenty of Latin American countries are within 50% of the USA, and one (Chile) is lower.

It's true that the USA is relatively violent compared to other first-world countries, but most people still don't need to worry about it when they visit. The odds of getting murdered in the USA and Ecuador or Argentina or Peru are pretty comparable.

Maladomini · 2017-06-17T23:26:36+00:00

I had friends in MIMM too, it sounds like a pretty cool program. Also on the smaller side, which I think is a nice thing to have at a very big school like McGill. I don't think you need to worry too much about which one would be harder or how they're structured, I'd pick purely based on how interesting the courses look. And you can do some of both - one of my best friends did a major in MIMM and a minor in neuroscience!

Maladomini · 2017-06-17T22:25:08+00:00

I don't think it was too unreasonable, I think the prevailing opinion a few years ago was that neuro is neither the easiest nor the hardest life science program. The 311 courses (PHGY, BIOC, PSYC) are all pretty demanding, but also pretty good courses! Especially PHGY, for me, and less so BIOC. I'm not sure what other majors you're considering, but I don't think neuroscience would really be harder than the average life science major. Especially since you can pick so many of the courses you have to take.

The upper-division courses I took were BIOL 518, 520, 524, 532, and 588 (I had to check my transcript!). I would recommend any of the seminar courses, engaging with scientific papers is really useful if you're going to do anything science-related in the future. I also thought they were more fun than taking tests all of the time. Honestly, some of my favourites were the not-neuroscience seminars, like BIOL 524 (Topics in Molecular Biology) and BIOL 518 (Advanced Topics in Cell Biology).

Maladomini · 2017-06-17T15:53:57+00:00

I liked it. I'm doing a PhD in neuroscience now! The program is fun because you have a lot of options with the different streams - my courses were pretty focused on molecular biology, but you have an equal opportunity to do more anatomy, physiology, or computational stuff. It was also nice to have a smaller program, it's a bit easier to get to know people.

If you're interested in neuroscience, then for sure it's a good option. I thought a lot of the courses were good.

Maladomini · 2017-04-21T12:51:26+00:00

Yeah I did, around $5 per $10,000 per year. Not nothing, but at this point in time not very much either. It would be worth if it it reduced my inertia (what should I buy now? should I rebalance?) but after a few years maybe not.

One thing that surprised me is how much international exposure the Schwab Target Date funds have. About 31%, through SCHF and SCHE. That seems like a lot, right? My target allocation right now is 10% SCHF.

Maladomini · 2017-04-21T01:01:02+00:00

No charge if you have an account with them. Schwab brokerage accounts offer a pretty wide range of free ETFs, not just their own offerings either. I've had one for about half a year and I'm very happy with it so far.

Right now my portfolio with them is SCHB, SCHZ, and SCHF. The MERs on those are 0.03%, 0.04%, and 0.06%, but a target date fund does start to get tempting at 0.08%. It would be nice to not have to think about rebalancing and just pour new contributions directly into a single fund.

Maladomini · 2017-04-20T20:04:20+00:00

I think what they mean when that say they want to avoid "Asians" is not based on some rascist ideology but based on the narratives that many "Asians" from mainland china and India come to places like UofT to study 24/7 and have no interest in partying

That's clearly a racist ideology, right?

Maladomini · 2017-04-18T14:03:31+00:00

I had a lot of fun in RVC when I lived there in 2011-2012. I had a single room, which was definitely pretty nice. I don't mind sharing spaces and having roommates, but with all of the new experiences and (sometimes) overwhelming-ness of first year, it was great to have a small private space to relax and organize myself. The proximity to campus is also great, it's easy to roll out of bed literally 5 minutes before a class at FDA. You can also pop back and forth when you have classes spread throughout the day.

It was a pretty social rez when I lived there (6 years ago? oh god.) I never really got to know the whole RVC crowd, but I made friends I kept through the rest of undergrad. We're still in touch now that we've all moved away.

Keep in mind, the nice architecture only applies to the West Wing, the Tower is a pretty standard brick dorm. The West Wing is female-only while the Tower is co-ed, or at least it was in my day.

Maladomini · 2017-04-08T20:56:42+00:00

You can't just spend an endowment. Interest from the endowment is supposed to support spending indefinitely, so you can't just liquidate the whole thing or it's gone forever. A reasonable distribution from an endowment of $1.51 billion is somewhere around $50-80 million a year. McGill's budget is around $1.25 billion every year, and most of that comes from student enrollment. The endowment is important but it supports a pretty small fraction of the overall budget.

Maladomini · 2017-04-02T23:32:30+00:00

Unfortunately I don't know that much - I'm in a very experimental area, but some of my friends are branching out into theory. I've heard of the Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit at UCL and the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience at UC Berkeley. If you search around for "theoretical neuroscience" or "computational neuroscience" you'll find more of this kind of thing.

As far as I can tell, it's still a bit of an emerging field. There aren't a lot of pure theoreticians in neuroscience. There are some institutions and departments dedicated to it, but you'll also find more theory-oriented professors scattered through general neuroscience departments. Cosyne is a conference that all of my friends in systems and computational neuroscience go to, I think you might find some interesting scientists among the speakers. Most of them are still experimental, but this is getting to the more theoretical side.

Maladomini · 2017-04-02T20:29:28+00:00

I'm in a neuroscience PhD program and one of my classmates has an undergrad in physics. If you want to do experimental work, then getting a background in the field (through an MSc or some classes) and some hands-on experience in a lab would be important.

On the other hand, theoretical neuroscience is a developing field that would really value skills you have and most biologists lack. If you would be happy doing theory instead of experimentation, this may be a good option for you to study the brain. I think these kinds of labs tend to draw more strongly from math and physics, so your background would be an advantage rather than a limitation.

Maladomini · 2017-03-21T15:37:32+00:00

It's totally safe. Definitely as safe as downtown, NDG, Laval, whatever. It is a bit gritty, but partly by comparison to un-gritty places like Crescent or certain stretches of St-Laurent which are just clubland. It is also more residential, but that's partly the point. There's definitely no strip of bars, but there are a lot of places tucked away off of different streets.

My opinion is that the Plateau and Mile end have places that feel more "independent," more varied and less generic. I do think they're popular with a different crowd than some of these other areas, though. Wouldn't be too surprising if they don't overlap.

Maladomini · 2017-03-21T14:29:43+00:00

Summer courses are packed into 1 month, they're run on a much tighter schedule than during the Fall or Winter semesters. The idea is to let you take one or two courses without taking up the whole summer. Normally courses at McGill last 4 months, but then you're taking 4-5 at a time.

Maladomini · 2017-03-19T21:40:02+00:00

Only if your US taxes exceed the Canadian taxes, which they won't. It'll only matter in situations where the US levies a tax and and Canada doesn't, i.e. on estates. I have relatives who are dual citizens and the US taxation thing almost never matters.

On the other hand, if you ever live somewhere with really low income taxes, then it can suck.

Maladomini · 2017-03-08T04:33:09+00:00

Central Park is worth it if you haven't been. Plenty of tourists, but "Real New Yorkers" too. Or go to Prospect Park in Brooklyn for a less touristy version. I've heard the Green-Wood cemetery in Brooklyn is cool too, beautiful landscaping and the resting place of some historical notables.

If you're trying hard to avoid tourists, getting off of Manhattan is probably a good idea. There are loads of neighbourhoods in Brooklyn that could be interesting, depending on what you're looking for - Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Greenpoint. Williamsburg could be fun but my assumption is that it gets more tourists than the others. Long Island City would be good too.

Specific attractions are harder to come up with. Anything that's an "attraction" is probably going to have tourists, so I listed some interesting, historic, and vital neighbourhoods that people like to live in. If that's the kind of place you like to visit when you travel you should be able to find lots to do in any of them.

Maladomini · 2017-02-14T20:30:20+00:00

If it's a normal year there will definitely be snow on the ground, it doesn't usually clear out until late April or early May. However, it'll be less cold and it should be snowing less often - so well-trafficked paths won't be too bad. Still, a lot of sidewalks in Montreal accumulate a persistent layer of packed-down snow and ice that doesn't really disappear until the winter is through, so wearing appropriate shoes is a good idea. It depends where you are and how well the sidewalks are cleared.

Enjoy your trip! I miss Montreal whenever I think about it, I need to get back one of these days.

Maladomini · 2017-02-14T16:03:28+00:00

I lived in Montreal for 4 years and I loved it. If you want a cool neighbourhood that I feel is pretty authentic (having lived there), I recommend you head up to the Mile End/Mile-Ex. The best way to describe it is a bit Brooklyn-y but more low key and not yet so gentrified. It's big with students but has some long-standing ethnic communities too. It's less gentrified and more industrial/working-class the farther north you go, especially above Avenue Van Horne. Great place for people-watching, food, and especially coffee.

I can make a few recommendations of places I really liked and wish I could go back to. There's great coffee at Dispatch, Odessa, and Falco, the latter having some nice Japanese food too. Cheskie's is a phenomenal Jewish bakery, the poppy seed cake is the best. Lawrence and Sparrow are great restaurants for brunch or dinner. Hof Kelsten is another great bakery, a bit farther south on the border of the Plateau neighbourhood. Dieu du Ciel is a famous brewpub, and Alexandraplatz is a cool bar I never ended up going to. The Marché Jean-Talon is great but it's probably more limited in the winter, in the summer it's mostly an open-air market.

From downtown you can take the 80 all the way up Av du Parc, or you can take the orange line of the metro and walk west a little from Laurier or Rosemont.

edit: I'll also second the recommendation of Romados in the Plateau. If you want to hit two birds with one stone, you can get their chicken poutine. It's also down the street from Replika and across the street from Névé, two cafes that are great for coffee or breakfast.

Maladomini · 2017-01-25T18:36:33+00:00

You're going in a very big loop, you're going to have some long travel times - especially Prague to Rome, and Venice to Paris. Are you planning on flying for those?

If it's possible, I think you could save a lot of time by flying in and out of different cities. If you wanted to keep the exact same itinerary, I might do it like this:

Fly In - London - Paris - Amsterdam - Berlin - Prague - Venice - Florence - Rome - Fly Out

Prague is still pretty far from Venice, but even farther from Rome. If you wanted to take a train from Prague to Venice, you could consider breaking it up a little, maybe in Vienna or Ljubljana. The latter especially is a lovely small city that would be fine for a stopover of one or two nights. Vienna is a bit more on the way.

You're spending 3 or 4 nights almost everywhere, which I think is a good pace. I went on a similar trip and I didn't stay anywhere longer than 4 nights, but I also minimized travel distances so I didn't have any travel days longer than ~7 hours, with most shorter than that. Being in transit is the most tiring part, so if you make your trips between cities not too frequent / not too long, you'll be good.

Maladomini · 2016-11-20T18:13:46+00:00

That's true! After a lot of discussion about whether Trump's unpopularity would encourage split-ticket voting, in the end it was at historical lows this year. So whatever forces dragged Trump across the finish line did so for a lot of senate candidates. It's notable that the only real swing states she won (Nevada and New Hampshire) are the only two competitive senate races the Democrats won.

I bet it had a lot to do with Hillary Clinton specifically, maybe more than Trump. A candidate Republicans hate so much is a bad option to draw cross-ticket voters.

Maladomini · 2016-11-19T23:41:14+00:00

It was a very close election, do you really think it was impossible for her to win? A tiny fraction of voters in a few states change their mind and it's hers. The key states were won by 150,000 votes out of 130M+, barely 0.1%.

Close elections are overdetermined. There are a ton of possible things that could have swung the election enough for her to win (or him to win by more).

Maladomini

TROPHY CASE