For years I’ve laboured to make my lecture materials as clear as possible and easy to read. I tend to use prepared overheads and/or Powerpoints, and not too much blackboard work since my handwriting is a bit messy (and writing a lot on a blackboard or whiteboard gets to be a bit hard on arthritic hands). However, now I find out I should be making my lecture materials harder to read! Why is that? Continue reading
Students
Meeting your Waterloo
June 18 is the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, the final major clash between Napoleon’s French Imperial forces and the Anglo-Dutch and Prussian allies arrayed against him, near a small village in modern-day Belgium. The battle clearly resonated throughout the western world, resulting in the eventual use of the name “Waterloo” for a county and village in Ontario, and a university named after the city where it was founded. There is also a Waterloo in Quebec, Iowa, New York State, New Zealand, and many other locations according to Wikipedia. You might wonder what history has to do with the theme of this blog, but I’ve managed to find a connection. Continue reading
Co-op Students and Stem Cell Research
There’s an interesting article about two Nanotechnology Engineering co-op students who spent a work term doing stem cell research, an area I don’t work in but like to follow when I get a chance. It’s all the more interesting, because they were working with a Professor at the University of California, Irvine campus. What a great place for an undergrad student to be!
At the risk of repeating myself many times in future posts, I’m frequently amazed and impressed by the opportunities that our students have, if they’re motivated and adventurous enough to take advantage of them (which many clearly are). And this is certainly not the first time I’ve seen co-op students spending a work term in research labs at other universities. The article sidebar also gives another example from Harvard/MIT. An odd situation in some ways, if you think about it.
A Professor in Waterloo Engineering 