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Exams were over more than a week ago. 3 of the 4 grades are already posted, the only grade missing being that of the capstone project. I can be sure that I’m graduating on time because there is pretty much no way that I can fail the capstone project.

So there you go, I will be officially a new graduate student for hire on June 2, when the graduation approval will be posted.

For those of you who don’t already know, I will be receiving a B.Eng degree in Software Engineering.

I figure that besides actively job hunting through craigslist, newspapers, and whatnot; it would be a good idea to tell you, my dear readers, that I’m for hire, in case I miss some really interesting job out there. For details on my background, skills, and qualifications, you are welcome to take a look at my résumé.

Send me an e-mail if you believe I can be of service to you. Don’t leave comments as I’m afraid the anti-spam plugins may eat them.

After 4 years of blood, toil, tears, and sweat, (most of) my friends and I finally got our iron ring this Friday, March 24th. Having this special symbol of the engineer on the pinky feels great but it’s also difficult to not notice its presence. For instance, washing your hands with the ring on really hurts because it’s pointy and you rub it all over against your off-hand.

I’m not going to talk about the ceremony itself unless there is popular demand.

The evening of celebration was great. After the ceremony and the cocktail, our class of SOEN students went for dinner at La Cabane Grecque. Being part of a small program at university is great because we can go to a restaurant and celebrate with literally all of our classmates, plus some friends. We somehow got two TA’s, Stu and Daniel, to join us. But then again, it’s not so hard to invite Stu as long as we mention “alcohol” - just kidding.

After dinner, it was drinking and dancing at New Town. Ok, I’ll admit it: SOEN guys are not the wildest dancers, with a few exceptions. In fact, the lounge was already packed with other engineering students, so ordering drinks was a feat in itself. In the end, it was more like chilling than dancing but none of us (the guys) seemed to mind. It was still cool though because Fareena joined us for a bit and we even dragged Ahmed to the club downstairs.

I’m getting a bit sleepy and I don’t know what else to write for now. For pictures, please visit the gallery. (God, I look like such a retard when I smile while being drunk.) One of the TeamSuperGood members will post or has already posted a username and password on the SOEN 490 mailing list so you can also upload your pictures.

I don’t like many of my “fellow” students.

Among all Concordia students, the engineering and computer science guys are probably the filthiest. The men’s washroom on the 8th floor of the Hall Building has a constant smell of pee and its toilets are full of toilet paper turds. Seriously, how hard is it to properly aim at and flush the urinals? And why won’t the building management place a garbage can in the washroom so people don’t have to throw litter everywhere? Isn’t it less work than removing litter from the whole washroom?

Engineering and computer science students are also some of the noisiest people around Concordia. The difference in noise level between the 11th floor (where the economics people are) and the floor of engineering and computer science is incredible. Sometimes my team even has to retreat to the 11th floor to work because it is simply so much quieter, but then we get weird looks from the economics people.

I figured my friends should not suffer too long for my depression; so in an attempt to find something hopefully interesting to talk about, I have decided to write about some of my leaving impressions as I’m graduating from Concordia in a few months.

The feature of this first post is the 7th floor of the Hall building, the so-called cafeteria. Any student who has been at the Hall building in the past 2 or 3 years must remember how horrible the place used to be. The tables were dirty, the microwaves were filthy and frequently out of order, and the chairs were so out of balance that just putting a jacket at the back of one would tumble it.

Last summer, renovation work started on the 7th floor, so we basically lost the cafeteria for a good period of time. Students were forced to eat at the little Tim Horton’s snack shop, though they still provided microwave ovens. Renovation lasted until the end of Fall semester, when the 7th floor was gradually re-opened.

The change was enormous. Effective eating area got almost doubled, and there is even room with nice couches and low tables for students to chill at. We got all new tables and solid chairs, if only a bit awkward looking. For the moment, the tables and chairs are still clean. I hope Concordia keeps up with the maintenance.

Also, the renovation on the washrooms just finished around a week ago, though I must say that the washrooms of the 9th floor could have benefitted much more from a renovation.

At this point, something was still missing from the equation. I went to eat at the cafeteria two weeks ago and the first thing I noticed was a huge line up for two microwave ovens. Boy, was that amusing. I could not understand what was going on. Enlarging the cafeteria and then removing microwave ovens simply did not make sense. It turns out that we were getting 8 brand-new microwave ovens, in addition to the two old ones that were kept. These new ones even come with braille. I’m happy for the new students who get to enjoy the new facilities, but sorry for the graduating students who had to put up with a crappy cafeteria for the past 3 to 4 years.