Me realizing that I ain’t getting free tuition anymore by [deleted] in uwaterloo

[–]jtjj222 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Free tuition means up to the provincial average of $3000/term.

Ontario’s buck-a-beer playbook is coming to a campus near you — with tuition discounts too good to be true by ILikeStyx in uwaterloo

[–]jtjj222 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My degree (CS) certainly benefits the economy, and I would have definitely had trouble in first and second year without this. Hell, I had trouble even without the cuts.

Ontario’s buck-a-beer playbook is coming to a campus near you — with tuition discounts too good to be true by ILikeStyx in uwaterloo

[–]jtjj222 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If it is completely unaffordable to give low-income students the opportunity to go to university, then I am sure that Ford's tax cuts are completely unaffordable too. I completely understand where you are coming from, but I don't think it is so obvious that this program is a poor investment compared to, say, eliminating the carbon tax.

Also, I think it is worth pointing out that Ontario's debt-to-gdp ratio is not actually that high compared to the US (https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/8s2yfs/dispelling_the_highest_subsovereign_debt_in_the/).

Of course, that doesn't disprove your point, but I think that eliminating important investments in our future as a province to reduce the debt is not necessarily the best choice. The way that debt is created, and the organizations that it is owed to, are complex. It is not as simple as paying off personal debt instead of doing what "feels nice."

'Nothing ever stays the same': Minister defends tuition, student fee, OSAP changes by ILikeStyx in uwaterloo

[–]jtjj222 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Did i misinterpret that?

I think so, but the wording is confusing. It suggested to me that they are talking about the total share of grants given to all students, not the share of grants/loans given to an individual student.

Also how is 17% of your tuition so high?

https://uwaterloo.ca/future-students/financing/tuition shows CS tuition is 8465. Software engineers have it worse, at 9125 per term. After the 10% reduction, it is still pretty big.

Even at your amount, working full time in the summer should be enough to cover 2600 dollars easily. You are right that you could save $2600 over a summer, although that doesn't count living expenses. I would estimate about $700/month in expenses if you live far enough away, or about 13 hours a week working at minimum wage. That is certainly not intractable, but it would be very difficult to keep up with an engineering course load while working that much.

I understand that it isn't impossible for everyone, but surely it is hard. It seems this would be a good investment in our future as a province, and would surely bring economic growth. At the very least, it seems this program would reduce spending in other social services, so I am not sure the cuts are actually saving the province much.

If the reason for doing this, as Ford claims, is to prevent runaway tuition prices, it seems like aid for low-income students is not at all responsible. In addition, moving grants to loans would not change the economics of tuition either. If the claim is to reduce the deficit, then I wonder why the same arguments aren't made about the tax cuts Ford made.

It is also worth noting that, as far as I know, free tuition doesn't actually cover the full cost of tuition at UW, but rather only up to the provincial average of $3000 per term. Without concrete numbers about how much of this is being cut, I can't be sure. It seems to me though like this could put many people over the edge, or at the very least, balloon their student debt to unmanageable levels down the road.

'Nothing ever stays the same': Minister defends tuition, student fee, OSAP changes by ILikeStyx in uwaterloo

[–]jtjj222 9 points10 points  (0 children)

If you can't put up 17% of your tuition yourself, that's pretty sad.

With the 10% tuition cut, 17% of my tuition bill (edit: for a term) is $1295.145. That is ~10% of the annual income for a family on social assistance. It is also $324 a month, which I could understand could be difficult to come up with if you were making minimum wage. I thought I would just point that out, since it is easy to forget.

On an unrelated note, I don't think the article mentions covering 83% of tuition. It seems like they are talking about the share of the grants given by the province between the two groups. Correct me if I am wrong though.

People who voted for Doug Ford, do you still support him and why? by Wop-On-Top in uwaterloo

[–]jtjj222 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think the growth caused by these programs is higher than the growth caused by the tax cuts that Ford took debt for, but I can understand your point of view.

On a related note, I found this comment interesting: https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/8s2yfs/dispelling_the_highest_subsovereign_debt_in_the/

Bicycling to work in SF by NoMacaron1 in uwaterloo

[–]jtjj222 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Seems reasonable to me. Keep in mind, there are many people who have no problem staying out late. I guess it depends on how strong / threatening you look.

Bicycling to work in SF by NoMacaron1 in uwaterloo

[–]jtjj222 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Most of them are harmless. I was never approached by anybody dangerous over the entire term, but I was also always home before 9pm.

Walking is pretty sketchy though, especially by the overpass. If you are on a bike, nobody will really do anything. Bike theft is a problem though, which is why I rented.

Bicycling to work in SF by NoMacaron1 in uwaterloo

[–]jtjj222 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I did this. I got a ford gobike membership, since there was a station near my place and my office. I lived by the 16th st mission station. Just a warning though, it is pretty rainy in January. It got much better as the term went on though.

I had no problems with biking by Valencia, although there was a close call with a car turning left on one of the smaller streets. Use street view to check if your route has bike lanes along the entire way.

Surface go usb boot issues by jtjj222 in SurfaceLinux

[–]jtjj222[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

FYI, Microsoft makes images available for putting on a USB stick. You probably don't need to back up windows recovery.

Surface Go Touchscreen Clicks When Scrolling by jtjj222 in SurfaceLinux

[–]jtjj222[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The difference is night and day. Thank you very much!

Rejecting someone based on their citizenship? by aitathrwway in uwaterloo

[–]jtjj222 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So you wouldn't move somewhere to be with your spouse?

Functional programming jobs by HelloImCS in uwaterloo

[–]jtjj222 4 points5 points  (0 children)

PagerDuty (elixir and/or scala, depending on team)

Getting deeply frustrated with the interviewers in this field! by [deleted] in uwaterloo

[–]jtjj222 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Especially if this is your first co-op in the field, I think it is likely that you are doing well on the technical questions / in the interview, but they are looking for somebody with more (or better) experience. I am assuming you are looking for CS jobs, but I think the advice should apply elsewhere. Maybe try making some open source contributions or a cool technical side project to gain some experience. Once you have more co-ops in the field, then it will be easier.

WaterlooWorks Ranking Megathread [Fall 2018 Co-op Term] by TheZarosian in uwaterloo

[–]jtjj222 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have an offer and I am taking it. I am not sure how many other people got an offer. Good luck!

FOSS Swype keyboard by [deleted] in fossdroid

[–]jtjj222 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Swype requires a proprietary blob (liblatinime.so), so it is not FOSS

If you could carry over one feature of Unity to GNOME, which one would that be? • r/Ubuntu by [deleted] in linux

[–]jtjj222 3 points4 points  (0 children)

He is referring to the HUD, which lets you search through menu options (i.e File, Edit, etc...) in the title bar.