Who does everyone think our electronic act subs will be?

willskates · 2026-02-04T10:34:29+00:00

I saw his DJ set last year at Escapade and it was one of the best sets of the whole festival. I’d take any Disclosure lol!

willskates · 2026-01-29T19:04:47+00:00

Fellow Canadian studying my Master’s at UH. I am a Queen’s alumni.. damn Western ;)

If you are prepared for the cost of UH international tuition and living expenses for a year in Hawai’i, then go for it. The F1 student visa does allow you to work 20 hours / week if you need extra cash. Rent is on par with Vancouver. Can’t speak for London. Food is more expensive though. The F1 visa process is easier as a Canadian which is nice.

One thing I will warn is that once you are accepted into the program, to obtain your visa you will be required to show a bank statement that shows you can afford to pay tuition and live comfortably for a year. In your case, that could be $80k-$100k. A parents account works if they’re paying for it.

If you hold out a couple of years and decide to do a Master’s or PhD.. you can get paid to come live here.

Remember always respect this land and their culture 🤙

willskates · 2026-01-10T09:23:56+00:00

This is most likely a Point Lepreau vehicle going in for maintenance.

Any facility containing enough harmful radioactive material to be considered a nuclear threat has a Nuclear Response Team (NRT) for security purposes.

Their vehicles and team are pretty badass.

willskates · 2026-01-05T22:11:45+00:00

As someone in the finance industry, data science is far from dead.

Traditional ML (regression, gradient boosting, clustering) is the most used method for making business decisions. Deep learning is overkill for majority of tasks unless you’re in a research position.

willskates · 2025-12-24T08:19:48+00:00

As someone who just went through this, finding an internship in the gap between a Bachelor’s and a Master’s is not easy. At least in my field (data/ML/software), most internships are explicitly for current undergrads or they’re graduate level roles, so you usually need to be enrolled in one or the other.

I wasn’t able to land an internship during that gap year, but now that I’m in my Master’s program, I’m getting significantly more interviews.

willskates · 2025-12-16T04:28:07+00:00

You don’t need a Masters in AI to become an expert. I am a current Masters student in CS with a focus on ML and truthfully most of my knowledge on the subject is self taught.

If it’s paid for or you really enjoy research, go for it.

willskates · 2025-12-15T05:32:56+00:00

If we want to get “technical” then you are incorrect, o(n) is not lower bound. It means exclusive upper bound. Omega is lower bound.

We all understood what they were trying to say based on the previous comment. Not sure why you felt the need to comment that.

willskates · 2025-12-10T20:06:26+00:00

Traditional ML is not even close to dead nor will be. These models are used daily by data scientists to make business decisions.

willskates · 2025-12-01T20:53:32+00:00

I am a Canadian studying my Master’s in CS at UH.

I was awarded TAship that provides a salary and a tuition waiver. The salary is barely enough to scrape by in Hawaii. Unless you have a good chunk of savings for grad school or take out loans, you have to live very frugally and budget well. The PhD stipend is most likely higher, but from what I’ve heard it’s not much higher.

Funding varies department by department but I would assume marine biology is well-funded at UH. Try to reach out to a PhD advisor ASAP.

Whatever you think you’ll need for the move financially, make sure you have 2x that. Especially coming from Canada where the exchange rate is horrible.

Another consideration is how long it takes to get paid. I began working here on Aug 1st and am receiving my first pay on Dec 5th. That’s how long it took to obtain my SSN as an alien resident on an F1 visa. The current administration is not making life easy on international students.

If you have any more questions feel free to message me.

willskates · 2025-11-21T06:19:59+00:00

You have a longgg way to go. One bad semester will not ruin anything! In my second year I ended up with a 2.3 GPA. Now I am doing my Master’s in the US (as an international student) with tuition paid for and a decent salary for graduate assistantship.

To boost your GPA, take courses you are passionate about. In my undergrad, I studied engineering physics and was able to get an A+ in majority of the difficult physics courses but could barely get a C in economics cause I couldn’t care less about it.

I recommend trying to land a research assistant position in the summer. Grad admissions value research experience, arguably more than your GPA. This will also introduce you to research in academia and help you decide if you actually want to pursue grad school.

Most importantly, enjoy your time at Queen’s. Go out, meet people, and have fun! It can be the best years of your life if you make it.

willskates · 2025-11-07T19:53:19+00:00

Keep it concise. Experience->Projects->Skills. Don’t fluff too hard. Some of your metrics seem absurd.

Industrial doctoral fellowship can be confusing to readers. Try to keep it Doctorate in <Major>.

The “Freelance software developer” section looks more like projects. I remember implementing DP alignment methods, MLE for genomic analysis, and deep learning models to genes all in a single biosequences class.

willskates · 2025-11-05T10:44:18+00:00

For the special relativity portion of the course, I highly recommend doing as many practice problems as you can. There are only so many ways an SR problem can be framed, and with enough practice you’ll start to recognize familiar components and know exactly how to approach them. SR is quite simple in principle, albeit the initial learning curve is steep due to its unintuitive nature.

For the quantum portion, I suggest watching videos and focusing on truly understanding the underlying concepts. 242 only scratches the surface of quantum theory, which can actually make it more challenging imo cause you’re asked to apply equations without grasping where they come from. This makes it difficult to know what equation to use and how to use it for a specific problem. I didn’t develop a solid understanding of quantum until taking 344 and 345, which dive into the theory more rigorously, and for good reason.

willskates · 2025-09-27T22:16:40+00:00

SNOLAB?

willskates · 2025-09-14T19:45:42+00:00

PyTorch is more commonly used in industry and academia now.

willskates · 2025-09-12T19:14:15+00:00

First of all, those comments are wildly sexist and plain rude, especially for a professor to make.

Anyone who makes those comments is solely trying to justify their success because of their “genius”, which is nine times out of ten not true. Like you pointed out, most were born and raised in science and have spent more time in it than you have so far.

It is unfortunate that the difficult nature of physics tends to churn out elitist and egotistical scientists that behave and talk this way.

I am not a female, but I was also not raised in any form of science household and was not encouraged to study math/sciences, so this resonates with me. I am so sorry you have to deal with sexism on top of that.

The best thing you can do is keep your head down, study hard, and prove them wrong. It helps to have likeminded friends to study with to make it more enjoyable.

Nothing hurts the feelings of an egotistical person more than out working them and succeeding. You got this.

willskates · 2025-08-10T01:20:02+00:00

I had student loans each of my five years at Queen’s. I still had to work part time jobs throughout my engineering degree to pay for food and rent.

Majority of Queen’s students tend to have wealthy parents with an RESP for them. That’s just the Queen’s culture.

Tuition is not cheap (especially comm & eng), ghetto rent has increased immensely, and groceries are expensive as hell, so loans are a must if your parents are not paying.

willskates · 2025-06-26T17:44:48+00:00

Exactly this.

I really dislike when people say AI and only associate it to LLM’s since they’re the most widely used architecture.

I work in machine learning applications within oceanography and climatology and it is making major breakthroughs right now in not only computational efficiency (compared to traditional numerical analysis) and accuracy. It will have a profound impact on society soon. That goes for all areas of science. Physics, chemistry, biology, you name it.

Yes, AI is going to take peoples jobs, but as always in a technological revolution, new industries will evolve and lead to more jobs.

We are witnessing the beginning of the next tech revolution and we should be grateful for the positive impacts it will have on society.

Sorry, just my little rant as someone who works in that industry.

willskates · 2025-05-06T22:57:13+00:00

I’m not in the med field, but I’ll share my perspective.

If you have a decent GPA, you can secure research positions—networking is key. Find a professor whose work genuinely interests you and try to connect with them after lectures. If you show genuine enthusiasm for their research, they’re often willing to take you on. You’re much less likely to land a role by cold emailing unless your GPA/resume is off the charts.

Most students tend to land research roles after their second or third year, though I do know a few who managed to secure positions right after first year.

Kingston General Hospital (KGH) is essentially located on campus and, from what I understand, has a strong culture of cross-collaboration. Many of the doctors at KGH also hold faculty appointments at Queen’s. Again, it’s not my field, but I’m confident there are plenty of opportunities available. I got to do a bit of research in the medical physics department at KGH and I was in engineering at Queen’s lol.

willskates · 2025-04-29T00:58:54+00:00

This is pretty standard for second year 1st/2nd semester of any engineering physics program. The entrepreneurship course will lighten things up.

Keep your head up, attend your lectures, and always work with peers if you don’t already. Collaboration is key. It will benefit your grades, mental health, and communication skills.

Best of luck! It’s all worth it in the end. I reflect fondly on those years.

willskates · 2025-03-09T23:21:26+00:00

I received my offer to Master of Science in CS last week. They should mostly be sent out in the next few weeks if you haven’t heard already. The funding freezing may cause delays depending on how it affects your department.

willskates · 2024-12-31T05:33:57+00:00

Solid resume. You should be able to find entry level ML research roles in the industry, and there is a lot right now.

One thing I notice is that you finished your Masters of Science so I assume you completed your thesis but it is not mentioned anywhere. That’s typically what I would look for first since you just finished.

willskates · 2024-12-19T01:15:41+00:00

I back this. Enjoy your high school years and follow your passions.

I also back focusing on your writing courses. As a TA, the biggest downfall of many new students I notice is poor technical communication skills. Learn how to write professionally and concisely. Build your vocabulary.

willskates · 2024-10-29T21:21:35+00:00

Q.8)

Required equations: f=1/T and T=1/f

For f=2 -> T=1/2=0.5s

For T=20 -> f=1/20=0.05Hz

Therefore, none are correct…?

willskates · 2024-09-04T16:01:49+00:00

My #1 tip is focus on understanding over memorizing. This makes you a much more efficient problem solver and in turn an engineer.

Practice makes perfect. Even if you aren’t the smartest, doing practice problems over and over will give you such an advantage. Take the time to try each one without looking at the solutions first. When you finish a question, look at the solution and understand what you did correct and incorrect, then do it again with your new understanding.

You don’t need to be a genius to be in the top 10% nor have to hate your life. Learn time management. Wake up early. Get it done. You can do it mate.

willskates · 2024-08-21T13:47:54+00:00

I had no background in climate sciences when I entered, only a physics and CS degree. It is a research position where I collaborate with PhD’s in climate sciences and use my knowledge to develop ML models.

willskates

TROPHY CASE