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FAUCET Vol. 31 no. 2 • September 11th, 2014
The Tsunami Issue
The Career Hunting Issue
2 the plumber’s FAUCET the plumber’s Masthead Dean Of Students Faraz Oman Professors With Tenure Faraz Oman David Bailey Professors David Bailey Robert Forestell Daniel Galef Faraz Oman Adam Pickersgill Eddy Sayar Councillors Celestine Hong (Cover) Faraz Oman
Disclaimer The Plumber’s Faucet is a Publication of the Engineering Undergraduate Society of McGill University. The opinions expressed in the Faucet are not necessarily those of the EUS nor of any other university body, unless such opinion appears over an authorized signature of a representative of the said body. The Faucet does not print works which are sexist, libelous, racist, homophobic, or violating the copyright laws of Canada. It should be noted that some content is meant to be satirical or humourous in nature. For general enquiries, contact faucet@mcgilleus.ca. Complaints The EUS takes complaints very seriously. All complaints should begin with the heading “Official Protest to Content in The Plumber’s Faucet”, and should be sent to vpcomm@mcgilleus.ca, publications.director@mcgilleus.ca, and faucet@ mcgilleus.ca. the plumber’s FAUCET vol. 31 no. 2 Thursday, September 11th, 2014 ISSN (print): 1707-7478 ISSN (online): 2291-3513
Letter from the Editor: Welcome to the start of the year! After drinking your fill at Frosh and OAP, school has now truly begun. That dull moment you wish would never come back is now here. To help you ease into this transition we have some articles for those in the final years, those who need some advice this year to start anew, and those who need some de-stressing laughter. We have it all covered. Some of you are excited to hit the next Blues Pub like OAP is still here. So we have restarted the Dollarama Drinking Game, and hope to see new faces participating. We have some details on the game, and will try to keep it going til the end of the year. By the way, if you’re interested in fame, fortune, and copious quanitities of coitus, you should consider joining the ranks of the Faucet staff. No real experience is necessary - basic literacy is recommended, and you should have a sense of humour. We host our meetings at bars, screw around, and are the most widely loved group of writers on campus. At least that’s what they tell me. If you’re interested in joining the Faucet, your best bet is to send an email to faucet@ mcgilleus.ca. We’ll get you all the information you need. If you just want to send in a submission without joining full-time, you can do that too! Just send an email to the same address. And with that, I wish you the best of luck in the new school year, and hope that you find a way to drink five times per week, remain financially stable, and weasel your way into a passing grade in at least 4/6 of your classes.
-Faraz Oman
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The Hands-Off Learning Approach: Tried and Troubling by: Don’t Lego My Python I walked into the shop. It was a blank, windowless room, with caged fluorescent lighting and uncomfortably low ceilings. A brightly-coloured sign on the wall read:
CAUTION
Time ticked a few tocks and class was soon dismissed. We covered how to do absolutely nothing. We were told that by the end of the semester, some of us might become good enough at doing absolutely nothing that we might even get recruited to work for large manufacturing companies.
IMAGINARY SAFETY GLASSES REQUIRED AT ALL TIMES
On my way out of the shop, I passed an older sign that read:
The room was featureless, save for a whiteboard, a projector, and holes drilled into the floors here and there. The floors were slightly uneven, with faint pressed outlines and marks, as if heavy machines once sat there.
IMAGINARY SOLDERING IRONS FORBIDDEN
I took a seat and jotted down the course title: MIME 100 – INTRO TO MACHINING THEORY. “This course”, began the professor as copies of the syllabus circulated and chatter subsided, “is all about preparing you for the manufacturing world. As an engineer, you won’t actually use machines, so why bother learning how? It’s plenty good enough to watch others use them and identify how they’re doing it wrong.” I glanced at my copy of the syllabus: Week 1-11: Theory of Safety Week 12: Practical Applications: Safety Exam TBD (note: practical safety certification unavailable until further notice) “Who can tell me what MIME stands for?” Continued the professor. A student in the front row spoke up: “Miming in Manufacturing Engineering, Professor.” Spot on, obviously.
CAUTION
This was puzzling, but just as I began to recall what was a soldering iron, an man wearing an imaginary hardhat appeared, clasped his hand on my shoulder, and said: “I’m a recruiter at a large manufacturing company. I noticed you in class – you were doing absolutely nothing. Impressive. Very impressive. How would you like a tour of our plant?” On our way to the plant, I recalled an exchange I had back in first year with my MIME 001 prof. I knew too much back then. It went something like this:
Why are there no tools in our shops? No need for them! Why no need? Tough safety regulations say so! Why are there tough safety regulations? To avoid injuries! How is this enforced? By getting rid of tools! “Beautiful, isn’t it?” The engineer’s words pulled me out of my daydream. He adjusted his imagi-
4 the plumber’s FAUCET nary hardhat to relieve an itch that wasn’t there. Real hardhats were no longer required because of the new regulations, but that didn’t mean we could act like safety wasn’t important.
building these things. However, union agreements kept workers working, resulting in workers working on absolutely nothing. It was all just business as usual.
On the manufacturing floor beneath us, hundreds of workers in bright white suits were working in unison. Curiously, they had no tools. In fact, they were not working on anything at all. Their movements were fluid and calculated, their hands waving meticulously – doing nothing, holding nothing – just like I had learned in MIME 100. The workers were surrounding a large empty space, shaped vaguely like an airplane.
“We have an opening for a Quality Control Engineer. You need to have excellent mining skills and the ability to identify faulty mimes. Do you –”
“This aircraft is the new industry standard. With a security factor of just over infinity, it’s the most secure aircraft in the world. It’s the fastest one, too: It will take you to your destination immediately – provided you don’t want to go anywhere.” I studied the workers below us in awe. A large screen next to the work zone read 99999 DAYS SINCE LAST ACCIDENT. The screen only had 5 digits. Interestingly, this was roughly the same amount of time that had passed since the new safety regulations were put in place in school. As no new engineers had hands-on knowledge, soon enough employers couldn’t find anyone with the skills to build things, so companies had to stop
At that moment, a thunderous crash boomed across the plant and the workers were thrown away from the imaginary aircraft. One of the imaginary engines had detached itself from its frame and exploded into a thousand imaginary pieces upon contact with the floor. “Oh dear”, sighed the engineer. “Business as usual I suppose, business as usual.” He readjusted his imaginary hardhat and continued on as if nothing happened. “One thing I should add – these workers are only here for a little while longer. Soon, they will be replaced with robots – imaginary robots, of course, no one can build real ones anymore. Your job then would be to inspect the imaginary robots, monitor the imaginary aircrafts, and, most importantly, touch nothing. Are you interested?” You bet I was.
This is an illustration for the article
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Fastest Ways to get Fired by: Hadi Sayar
(WARNING: HIGH CHANCES OF ACTUALLY LOSING YOUR JOB)
Congratulations, you’ve managed to keep your job, or your internship, for an entire work term. It’s now time sit back, relax, and let your final week at work pass by without doing anything to further jeopardize your career. Nah, who am I kidding. Here are ways you can fuck with your bosses before its all over.
8. “Yeah, I just got a call from a guy called Rob. I gave him my username, password and the pin to my company credit card.” 9. “Did I download 50 TB of data from Torrent? Yeah, I wasn’t going to do it at home!” 10. “Oh stop worrying, crack’s a stimulant. I’ll actually be able to work harder from now.”
1. “So I took the liberty of decorating your desk, sir. I heard that dicks were really in this year.” 2. “Dude, what part of: ‘Not MY problem’ don’t you understand?” 3. “What do you mean put on some clothes? See? Speedo?” 4. “Why is this a problem now? I’ve been storing porn on our cloud servers for weeks!” 5. “Don’t worry, I’m using my boss’s VISA.” 6. “I thought you said that your desktop computer was open-access sir?” 7. “What are you talking about? I never signed a nondisclosure agreement!”
Dollarama Drinking Game
Blues Pub is back and so is the dollar cups. In collaboration with SEAM they are continuing to charge $1 for a cup to encourage sustainability. So the Faucet has stepped in and made the Dollarama Drinking Game. The game involves bringing a different drinking vessel every week that has been bought from Dollarama. We will be continuing the game this year and hope for new contenders. See us at the Frosherheros Blues Pub and others to get a picture taken, and hopefully be one of our winners. Check out the QR code for more details.
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Back-to-School Poems for People Who Treat University Like Middle School ON THE BACKPACK
by Daniel Galef
The third week of September has always been a grisly time for schoolchildren. It is then that the romance of education, sparked by the back-to-school excitement of fresh books, new teachers, virginal fountain pens and notebooks unstained by ink blots and baffling mathematical formulas, begins to yield to reality. —Russell Baker, “The Cruellest Month”
or THE MODERN SISYPHUS
Students in the tiled halls walking like neanderthals. Now I know how Atlas felt when his lot in life was dealt. Filled with books and almost bursting, for relief my spine is thirsting. Packed with papers, binders, books; it’s no surprise the way it looks. Paper, staples, pens and pencils even protractors and stencils. No wonder we are always hunching, for our spines are always crunching. Like a hermit’s bindle-sack, I carry home upon my back, like a turtle, like a snail. With a backpack, duffels pale, and totes are nothing but a sack. No wonder, then, we don’t look back.*
Students in the tiled halls walking like neanderthals, tromping on with glum nonchalance, even as they overbalance. *Of course, it’s also quite impossible.
EVERYONE’S GOT AN ANGLE The school bells ring, and students throng to fill the tiled halls. Meanwhile, they rush to fill their orders at the shopping malls. Back to school sales outshine Yule sales, power tool sales; every fool sails off to purchase, flee the churches, left in lurches to satisfy urges. A pencil case, a new rucksack, a calculator or two, in grammar school crayons suffice; now only laptops do. Papers, staples, pens, and pencils. Even markers, binders, stencils. And of course, that prime reactor, the humble, useless, base Protractor. It’s funny how it always ends up stuck on shopping lists, as no one uses them, for no remaining use exists. Unlike compasses and sponges, protractors’ geese are not yet cooked, though slide rules have been ruled out, tablets tabled, even hornbooks booked. I’ve never opened mine; it sleeps beneath the snows of essays past and dreams of angles neatly named, first radians, arcminutes last. Ad men sacked the team who backed the man who cracked: They’re cheap, compact! It’s simply tact why none dare act on one small fact: Why Protract?
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From The Pot For those who are unfamiliar with the Plumber’s Pot, it was an EUS publication which used to terrorize campus with its absurd and feather-rustling sense of humour. It reigned from 1951 until it was finally banned in 1988. The Plumber’s Faucet now takes its place as the premiuer humour paper on campus, but occassionally we like to look back at the glory of the days of yore. We found an interesting article for you which required only a few redactions - enjoy!
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN It seems to me that any female analysis is incomplete without its obvious counterpart: a male analysis. Yours truly, COLD MOLD
ELEMENT: Men SYMBOL: M DISCOVERED BY: Ms. God ATOMIC WEIGHT: 160 lbs/mole of man OCCURRENCE: surplus in McConnell Engi-
neering Building, Gerts, and gay bars - but quality varies
GENERAL REMARKS: Two basic isotopes exist:
(1) Engineer (2) Artsie (may also go under a variety of trade names such as asshole, [redacted], weirdo, [redacted], airhead or any combination thereof)
Composition of these isotopes as follows: Engineer: 50% beer 30% lust 10% engineering knowledge 10% IBM copier Artsie: 90% air 10% bullshit
CHEMICAL AND PROPERTIES:
PHYSICAL
CHEMICAL
a) extremely reactive, especially with Wo element with 36-26-34 dimensions b) unusual ability to heat up quickly and slow to cool down, especially with Pubnite as a catalyst c) in order to control heated element, addition of ice into shorts is very effective d) all isotopes become very unreactive in presence of work e) generally exhibits affinity for beer (esp. engineering isotope)
PHYSICAL
a) application of flattery results in a ten-fold increase of ego as well as an increase in malleability b) extremely low melting point c) basic relationship between Wo and M element is Wo 10M (ha, ha D.F.) d) artsie and engineer isotopes produce an immiscible mixture
USES: none as yet TESTS:
a) Friction applied to certain parts produces hardening. **DANGER** Hardening accompanied by intense desire for Wo element, or if not available, cold showers or jogging. b) If thrown oblong shaped ball, will run across field and throw down, while screaming and jumping.
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Eat Like a Student Like a Pro by Liquid Giggles Alright kids, the school year is here, and that means it’s time for a diet change. Maybe mommy and daddy were cooking for you when you were home for the summer, or maybe you just can’t afford your usual ingredients since the internship is over and you spent all your money on beer at OAP. Whatever the reason, you’re back on your student diet, and I’m here to help you do the student diet right. Listen, I am not one of those cooking-channel suburban pinkos who wants you to follow an elaborate recipe you don’t have the ingredients or time for, and I’m not a fresh-from-the-cradle freshman who thinks it’s his duty as a toddler to eat Kraft Dinner. I’m a bitter old 7th year mechy who needs enough nutrients to finish his assignments and offset the beer, and doesn’t have time to plan, make, prepare, or clean up fancy meals. So, without further ado, here’s how to cook as a student.
Anything with 3 or more ingredients: Listen, you do not have time to remember all those ingredients. And there will probably be some stupid ingredient in there that you will use 1/40th of in your recipe, then the rest will go bad. Save your time and money. Meals with more than 1 type of food: A meal with carbs, meat, and greens? What am I, a magician? I can’t even get to class on time, how do you expect me get multiple distinct foods to finish at the same time? Plus, 3 types of food means triple the prep time. That’s ridiculous. Instead, make single-food meals, and mix it up during the day to get your variety. Carbs in the morning, greens in the afternoon, meat at night, and skip a meal if you want. Simple.
Foods to Avoid: Kraft Dinner: This stuff takes like twenty minutes to make, which is annoying by itself, but the real problem here is that it is a mess to clean up. Cheese in the pot? That requires soap, and if you leave it for a day, lots of scrubbing. And for all the trouble, it’s just empty carbs that you can get much more effectively from beer. And you look like an idiot going through the store with 30 boxes of KD.
Good Student Foods: Couscous: Yeah, yeah, sounds like fancy hippy food. They are these little grains of carby stuff, probably wheatbased. You boil half a cup of water and add a bit of salt, which takes like 3 minutes. Then you turn off the stove, and put half a cup of couscous in. At this point, you just wait. The stove is off, so no worries about burning. Wait 5 minutes, empty couscous into bowl, rinse pot (no sauce – it’s easy), and you’re done. <10 minutes, it’s better than pasta, and doesn’t need sauce. You can add some store-bought basil pesto if you’d like, and people will actually think you are eating fancy. Just make sure you get small-grained couscous – I got some giant Israeli couscous once, and it took 40 minutes and felt like tapioca. Why does that even exist?
I hate children
Cabbage: Medieval peasants perfected student food ages ago. Buy a cabbage for a couple dollars, and cut it into halves, thirds, or quarters, depending on how big you want your meal. Take one section, stick it in a pot
the plumber’s FAUCET with some water, and let boil for about 20 minutes. It takes some time, but you don’t need to watch it. Come back, drain water, and eat that delicious cabbage. It fills you up, is good for a diet, and comes down to less than $2/meal.
Save time for the important things Sausage: You need to eat meat, otherwise you’ll become small and weak and grow dreadlocks and stuff. You can buy sausage cheap at the store and stick it in your freezer. At Provigo, they even have this 12 pack fancy-flavour variety pack. When it’s time to eat, stick some aluminum foil on a pan, drop a couple sausages down, and stick it in the oven at 350. Come back 30 minutes later, or maybe 2 hours later. Who cares; sausages don’t burn easily. The wait doesn’t matter, because you can do other stuff in between. When the time is up, remove the sausages and discard the foil. The foil is important, because then you don’t make a mess, and probably don’t even have to wash the pan. Bon appetite.
Frozen dinners: If you’re lazy, go to Provigo and get some frozen dinners on sale. Anything outside of the $2-3 range is either overpriced or nasty. Marie Callender’s is sometimes $1, but it is the worst. Load your freezer with this stuff, and cook in the microwave for 3 minutes. Fast, cheap, relatively tasty, and you only need to clean the fork.
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Frozen vegetables: Eat your greens. They make you feel good. Grab some frozen peas or beans for a couple dollars at the store, and dump some in a pot. Put a bit of water in there, and boil. After boiling for a second, pour off the water (get a Dollarama strainer), and you’re done. For quick eating, you can run cold water over them for a second so that you don’t need to wait for them to cool. Pot cleaning is easy, and cutlery is optional. Bacon: Did you know that you can just buy bacon? Only buy it if it is $4/lb or under. Don’t get fooled by those 375 g packs. You might think that bacon is not a meal, but it is if you eat the whole pack. Put foil on a cooking sheet, drop the bacon on it, cook for 10 minutes at 400, and eat. Some people say 20 minutes, but that will cook off the delicious chewy fat. When you’re done, dump the grease into a flower pot or something and wash the pan – if you used wide foil, this should be easy. Bacon is also good because you can buy in bulk and freeze it. Be warned though: bacon will make you fat. But you can deal with that when school is done. Closing Remarks And there you go, now you know how to eat like a student. If someone has more than 5 minutes to spend preparing a meal, they are probably in Arts and will need the meal preparation experience for their careers. Remember that this list of good and bad student foods is by no means exhaustive – there must be DOZENS of different things you can eat. Feel free to experiment, but remember that the food should only have 1-2 ingredients, not require more than 2 cuts or measures, and should not require your attention for more than 2 minutes while cooking it. Otherwise you’re wasting drinking time.
You could always just buy some watermelons
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Faucet Study Guide by Faraz Oman & other Fauceteers School has begun, and even though it is not time to start studying yet, you should start to brush up on you skills to get through this hellish semester. This will require: study skills, essay tips, an exam guide, and most importantly, how to procrastinate properly. The Faucet has already gathered much of this valuable information, and you can trust us, because we are a publication. Some may be outdated but others will last a lifetime. We would like to remind you of a few of our favourite tricks for getting through school.
study exactly what he taught, or exactly what he “expected” you to teach yourself. If you just started studying, it is probably finals, so you best check the content of the midterm and match it with the notes you copied off your friend. If you are not doing this yet, remember to do everything last minute. It is the key to success in engineering, and is the only thing that works. Mostly because it is the only thing people have tried. To help you with this, the Halloween issue from 2011 has provided you a solution: Midterm Man. His methods never go out of style, and allow for maximum efficiency.
Essays We are not in arts, but there will be the occasional essay, so we might need the most help we can get. Essays are not a wall you have to climb - they are a mountain! Proving 2+2 = engine won’t help you here, so you need to get in there and write the damn thing. Rocky Mountain Runaway has some tips from one of his articles. One is to open your essay in a text editor, change some of the jargon, then submit it. You have until the time the marker finds out the file is corrupted, which probably gives you an extra few days. Also, just say what the prof wants to hear - a simple and effective way to score a few marks. An extensive review on essays is written by Rocky Mountain Runaway, and can be found in issue 10 of 2013-2014.
Studying A time will come when you need to start studying, whether it is for your first midterm (1 week from now), or for finals. It is unavoidable, and here are some tips to make the most of it. Know your prof, because you’ll either have to
Exams Everyone has to take these. They are tear-inducing, anxiety driving, mind blasting, and people just don’t like them. You can get through them, and here’s how. Remember, you don’t have to really know what’s happening. Although its best to know the basics,
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like what the integral sign looks like or how to draw a matrix. Maybe what the Fourier Series looks like, but only what it looks like. Now, when writing your exam, remember what everything looks like and regurgitate it, replacing the variables with the values given. This mostly works for math, but can be effective in other subjects. Free body diagrams can single-handledly get you through most mech courses. Set Phasers to Pun goes into detail about that in his article from the final issue of 2013-2014 year. He says that early morning of exam day is the ideal time to prepare your crib sheets. You know his advice is good, because he somehow graduated.
Procrastination This applies year round, whether it be exams, studying, or listening to a lecture. This is how to do it right. When studying for exams, pick out a TV show that is awesome and doesn’t have many seasons. Some good picks are Orange is the New Black, Suits, and House of Cards. These shows are highly addictive, and thus effective ways of taking your mind off of exams. Inevitably, you will waste something like 30 hours going through the series. But the beauty is, that will be it. You’ll hit the end of the season, then have nothing in the way of you learning about fluid flow. Or starting another series.
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Speaking of study breaks, let’s not forget the best of them all - it will cost you about 50 hours but sure is worth it. Brigid Cami gives some advice on how to make most of your study breaks and how to properly ration food so that you can make it through exams. Her article is featured in the Career Hunting Issue of 2012 -2013. Lectures aren’t the best place to spend your time but sometimes they are mandatory. At those times you need to figure out how to pass the time. You could take notes, maybe even sell them to the guy who doesn’t want to. Or not, and just befriend someone so they give it for free. Liquid Giggles wrote about pissing away your time in the Apocalypse Issue of 2012-2013. He offers some great advice.
Success The main goal of our time here is to get our iron rings. (Pssst - they give it before you officially graduate). The common misconception is that this requires a lot of work, but we engineers are more concerned with results rather than the process. Have you ever made a copy pool, or threw up on your invigilators (on purpose) just to get a potty break? How well do you do in labs? Answers to all these questions and more great advice were provided by our ancestors (rest in peace) in 1972. The Plumber’s Pot featured an issue called “How to Make it in Engineering Without Even Trying.” This is really all that matters, and you can find the article re-published in The St.Paddy’s Issue of 2013-2014.
Conclusion School will be hard, and we are here for you to provide you with what you need to succeed. Whether it be to add to your list of things to procrastinate about, or a distraction from real life. We are here for you. Now that you have procrastinated doing nothing, I really hope you never actually follow our great advice. Ever... (unless it works for you).
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Usque, Usque by Daniel Galef
Since the Rector, holding a water bottle to his forehead in a darkened office in Harkness Hall last week, declared College a dry campus, a number of entrepreneurial citizens of town as well as a few students and faculty members have taken it upon themselves to open a number of pubs and drinking establishments in the area immediately surrounding the campus. While a full list of the dozens of watering holes sprung up overnight can be found in the student newspaper, available in the student center lobby, the dorm common rooms, and the lavatories in the faculty lounge, this list encompasses a few prominent examples.
147 Zweisteine Street (Hector Hall) The Error Bar, situated in the back of what used to be Hector Hall, is legally twelve feet off campus, according to an obscure zoning law discovered by the proprietor, Dr. Quentin Hugo, Lecturer in Quantum Chromodynamics. Here, only a short walk for most physics students from afternoon lectures, scholars of the only pure science can enjoy drinks and conversation in an atmosphere (primarily diatomic nitrogen gas, with oxygen, carbon dioxide, argon, and cigar smoke) devoid of responsibility and chemists. While the Error Bar maintains a distinct advantage over all other recently-opened establishments in terms of proximity, a close second is the pub only a block away, opened by the theological school in order to draw away business from the sinful Hugo:
4 Onetroo Path (basement of local church) The Bar Nun plans to cater primarily to students looking to escape from the vice and wickedness engulfing the campus and the world with a friendly environment of board games, health drinks, and hourly mini-sermons from the owner, Dr. Isamglass, who has already organized two protests outside of the Error Bar, which refuses to acknowledge the display, having no objective proof of the Bar Nun’s existence. Despite a beautiful front and noble cause, initial reports from dissatisfied students indicate the wine is
limited to communion, the women to matronly overseers, and the song to page forty-seven of the Revised Second-Edition Temperance Society Psalm-Book.
18 & 22b Yellowood Lane (rented spaces) The closest spaces available on short notice were all quickly snapped up, the next closest being across campus. Downtown, academic and now business rivals John Ferringsworth and Peter O’Body, both active members of the student body and School of Humanities, have opened rival establishments across the street from one another. Ferringsworth, an aspiring poet with two self-published chapbooks and over three outside published poems (only one in the school paper), had been extremely secretive regarding his poetry-themed pub, saying only that he “represents the last shred of hope and spark of justice in a cruel world where the masses who toil needlessly under the leaden yoke of academia, torn at constantly by the twin wolves of critics and society, are prevented from getting wasted.” Set to open tomorrow, both John’s Crossingthe Bar and Peter’s poetry-criticism-themed Pub Lishorperish (named for the co-owner, fellow English student and almost-published critic, Sarah Lishorperish) already have students excited.
111 Drinkinagain Avenue (next to offices of Dewey, Cheatem, and Yamazaki) Interestingly, Ferringsworth is already facing possible litigation from Davis Stenssen, a law student who opened Passingthe Bar almost half a week ago.
101010 Information Superhighway The Space Bar was opened nearby to the southwest gates by a collective, open-source effort of the computer science department, headed by Dr. Ditzen-Daschiz.
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The Faucet’s Guide to Finding a Job with LinkedIn
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Student Debt
by Adam Pickersgill For those of us venerable and ancient plumbers facing graduation from the protection of the supple bosom that is McGill University, searching for an employment opportunity is at the front of our minds (only just behind beer, sex, and math). For you younger pups, it may be prudent to search for a summer employment opportunity or an internship of some sort, if only for a little extra beer money, as we all know that it is never too early to save up for alcohol. No matter how you cut it, employment is good. Consequently, here at the Faucet, we have taken pains to compile a foolproof and comprehensive guide to finding a job as a prospective engineer. We guarantee a successful result, or your money back!
Networking: The easiest and fastest way to earn employment is through excessive brownosing and ass-kissing. Professionally we call this “expanding your personal and professional network.” The first thing to remember when engaging in such activities (other than to brush your teeth frequently) is that not all asses are created equal, and it is vitally important to kiss only the right ones. Try to think of people in your life (preferably that you have not previously vomited upon due to your 41st beer) who are already in a position of success or authority, and then pucker up and try hard not to drive them away with any debilitating social awkwardness you may have. Another strategy is to try and find the next Gates, Jobs, or Zuckerburg and hitch your wagon to that, though this is much riskier. If you do in fact suffer as I do from the inability to talk to people about anything other than engineering topics (the aforementioned beer, sex,
and math), fear not, for our society has invented a way to expand your personal and professional network without leaving the comfort of your bedroom. This magical application is called LinkedIn. It is kind of like farmersonly.com except inteded for the lips and asses of working professionals instead of cold and lonely Saskatchewanians. LinkedIn is itself a maze of social rules and etiquettes, and if you are not well-versed in them, the site can be as harmful as it is helpful. Fortunately no actual human interaction is required, so the Faucet was able to decipher these rules and have included some general guidelines in the next section.
Your Profile: The most important part of your LinkedIn job search is the careful growth and maturation of your personal profile. Your profile is effectively your first and foremost opportunity to present to potential asses how red and ready your lips are to kiss them. The first things on your profile are your picture and your title. It is important to get your best side for your photo, so channel your inner 13 year-old girl and go #selfie on their asses, preferably while wearing the most paisley of ties that you may own. The next step is to indicate your primary position, keeping in mind that nobody wants to see “Student” at McGill university. Try your best to suspend your inherent engineering need for accuracy and go with something more dynamic like “Buzzword buzzword buzzword at McGill University.” Good buzzwords include; dynamic, in-
14 the plumber’s FAUCET tern, fellow, partner, research, associate, and potato. Your short bio after your title should include many more buzzwords, as well as how your work makes all of the money while at the same time saving the world from hunger, poverty, and war. The next important section is your previous employment. In general, there are three types of jobs which other members want to see; the big company, the flashy startup, and the character-building job. The big company is all about brand recognition. Just like when you are talking to someone at a bar, you are trying to find something you have in common. Working at a company whose name is recognized by many people is important when you are trying to lure strangers into hiring you. Consider this where you proudly display your first conquest. The flashy startup is key to showing how your internal motivation drives you and that your work is innovative and fresh. Try to find someone in computer science or software engineering who might be building some new app, preferably with only a single syllable in the name. It doesn't matter if your “company” never really got off the ground, as long as you held a title beginning in C and ending in O. A character-building job is something that shows you know how to work hard when you need to, like waiting tables, flipping burgers, and generally jobs that Concordia students otherwise monopolize. Finally you need to show off your skillz. And by show off, I mean list endlessly things you may have only done once. Be they a programming language you used for that one project, extremely generic skills such as “project management” or “design process development”, or something that makes you look well-rounded such as “Can play guitar well enough to get laid” or “boatrace time under 4 seconds.” No matter which skills you choose to highlight, just remember to put your best lip forward.
Connections: Similar to your friends on Facebook, these are the people you are linked-in with, like Facebook,
LinkedIn will try its damndest to have you connect with absolutely as many people as possible. The Faucet however has learned that instead of connecting with everyone you ever went to highschool with, their mothers, cousins, and that dude you met at that party one time, you should be much more selective on LinkedIn. Think of your connections list as more of a wishlist and/or resume of people whose asses you want to kiss, and people who can attest to your prowess at analingus, respectfully. Approach this as you would networking in real life - only talk to the prettiest asshole in the room.
Endorsements: If you wish to achieve maximum brownosery (and accordingly receive the most job offers) it is extremely important to endorse all of the skills of connections whose asses you are trying the most desperately to cover with your saliva. Leadership? That dude is a mix of George Washington, Winston Churchill, and Napoleon Bonaparte. Programming? Linus Torvalds calls him regularly for help with Ubuntu. Marketing? Steve Jobs stole her sales model. Chess? The guy toys with Deep Blue. Endorse often and shamelessly - there's nothing other LinkedIn members like hearing about more than the fact that one of their connections endorsed another of their connections for their proficiency in underwater botany. Stay Tuned for the next edition for the Faucet's approach to CV writing! Brought to you by:
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16 the plumber’s FAUCET
FAUCET CROSSWORD PUZZLE by Daniel Galef *
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______ __A_ ______ ____A_ E__ ___
Clues: 1. A type of mathematical operation known as a ‘transform.’ 2. One of Poe’s names. 3. Every member of that annoying subculture plays this. 4. Erstwhile Python. 5. Entity in Lewis Carroll balancing precariously. 6. Part of ancient analog computer memory (e.g., UNIVAC’s) and of modern digital computer parts building. ~*~Solutions to be posted in the next issue of the McGill Daily.~*~
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