The Cannon February 2022

THE CANNON SkuleTM’s Newspaper since 1978

cannon.skule.ca

FEBRUARY 2022 Volume XLIV

Archivist Tea Time with Godiva’s Crown 0T1 JULIANNE ATTAI External: SkuleTM Archivist One of my favourite weeks of the year is Godiva Week. I experienced for the first time in 2019 as a doe-eyed frosh, and saw it evolve during my second year online. Over the holidays, I reached out to Kirsten Koehl, the inaugural Godiva’s Crown in 2001 for an interview to find out more about how the competition started, and how it has evolved in the past 20 years.

What was Godiva Week back when you were in school?

Godiva Week was just a lot

of fun back then and there weren’t a ton of rules - we were there to have a good time. We still had the chariot races, Mr. Blue and Gold, and Cannonball always finished off the end of the week.

Godiva’s Crown was thrown in my third year, which was 2001. So that would have been the first year that it actually ran.

complete. Each activity was timed, so how long did it take you to cut through the two by four, how long did it take you to hammer in the nail, how long did it take to drill a row of screws type of thing. It was us power women doing these male tasks and showing them what we’ve got, that’s kind of how I saw it.

They put on music for us, and then we just had to kind How was Godiva’s Crown of go and perform on the spot. invented and what was the In my case, I was a former first competition like? gymnast so I walked on my I don’t know if it even hands and spun around and started as a bit of a joke in did some cartwheels. We still the grand scheme of things. bribed the judges just the We were all given these like same as Mr. Blue and Gold typical masculine tasks to did, and we had an interview

part where we stood in front fun, because in my first year of the judges and explained I commuted. That was just why we should win. brutal. I’d fall asleep on the train sitting on the stairs Why did you decide to because it’s so jam packed. compete?

So then, when I started Because I like competition hanging out but getting more [laughs]! And it was really involved in second year, that’s fun - I really liked being when I really started to have involved in Skule™. It wasn’t fun. Then third year just kind stressful at all, and we had of went to the next level; we people cheering us on as got into our specialties and we moved from activity to it just kind of takes a little activity in the Pit. bit more of that pressure off because you’re now doing What was that experience stuff you kind of want to like? do. It just made the whole I had so much fun at environment more fun.

SkuleTM, I never felt down.

Godiva’s Crown In fact, it was when I got continued on page 3 involved that it became more

Calculus or Attack On Titan?

(Or What Da Vinci Taught Me) blurted out in a dorm room half-drunk at 3 am to a friend.

When I first got into “Elon Musk, of course.” engineering, I had the The answer hadn’t chance to meet a lot of surprised me; there couldn’t different people and see a be anything more regular lot of their differences. Of than an engineer looking up course, being the inquisitive to a brilliant businessman. detective I am, I ask a lot of But as I started asking questions when getting to this question to more and know people. Annoying? more people (and started Maybe. But it’s also really to sober up), I realized that insightful when I realize almost everyone gave me a some questions really unite name in this list: Einstein, people.

Tesla, Edison, Bezos, Jobs, “Who’s your idol?”

Gates, Zuckerberg, Musk.

This was the question I Again, no surprises here: ZEYNEP KELES Cannon Writer

The Deck of Cards Analogy pages 6 & 7

All scientists, businessmen and/or engineers who made tremendous impacts in their respective fields (and some of them made a sh*t ton of money in the meanwhile).

But the true surprise came to me in an illuminating all-nighter before the finals week of my first semester here. In the caffeineinduced haze of solving linear algebra, I paused for a moment and asked myself the same question.

My answer (although Calculus continued on page 4

2T2 Spirit Heads Interview pages 8 & 9

CREDIT: DAVID LOCKE

Fall 2021 Exam Cancellation page 10

2 • THE CANNON

FEBRUARY 2022

THE CANNON Masthead EXECUTIVE TEAM EDITOR IN CHIEF MARKETING DIRECTOR

Diana Li

LAYOUT MANAGER

Neha Marfani

PHOTOGRAPHY/ GRAPHICS HEADS

Dina Castelletto David Locke

WEBMASTER

George Liu

Nafilah Khan Amanda Plotnik

PODCAST LEADS Minha Khan Tudor Sigmund SENIOR EDITORS

Letter From The Editor Why hello there, Our plans for a November/December issue have derailed, but do not fear for I had already planned for three this semester, fulfilling our yearly quota of five. But thanks to that, this issue is chock-full of amazing articles from a variety of first-time writers!

Of course the New Year is here, and that means new Spirit Heads have been selected and we’ve interviewed them! As a bonus, we got a submission from the SkuleTM Archivist interviewing the very first Godiva’s Crown from 0T1!

A New Year also means it’s a good time for personal and philosophical reflection, of which you can check out our calculus/Da Vinci and Deck of Cards articles for some thoughts to get your own brain juices tingling!

Lastly, a New Year means a fresh semester to start over with academically, and we have articles covering elective choice, the purpose of our coding courses, and the results of a focus group on returning to in-person studies courtesy of ISTEP! I also covered the big elephant in the room of deferred exams in my own article, as I had promised several folks throughout January.

As always, feel free to check out our website or issuu to view past editions, follow our socials on our Linktree, join our Discord server if you’d like to get involved, or just shoot me an email!

And now back to playing Pokemon Legends Arceus for me.

About STATEMENT CONTRIBUTORS WRITERS Rauha Ahmed Ruknoon Dinder Shreya Garg Anton Ivanov Zeynep Keles Sophie Kim Andre Li Wayne Ma Rafiq Omair SPECIAL THANKS Julianne Attai Celin Begeshev Nancy Li Qin Liu Jeremy Mainella Leigh McNeil-Taboika

The Cannon is the official (serious) newspaper of the University of Toronto Engineering Society. Established in 1978, it serves the undergraduate students of the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering. Submissions are welcome by email to cannon@skule.ca. Advertising and subscription information is available at the same email or from the Engineering Society at 416-978-2917.

DISCLAIMER The views expressed in this newspaper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the Engineering Society unless so indicated. The editors reserve the right to modify submissions to comply with the newspaper’s and the Engineering Society’s policies.

CONTACT The Cannon 10 King’s College Road Sandford Fleming Building Room B740 Toronto, ON M5S 3G4 cannon.skule.ca cannon@skule.ca @cannon.news

cannon.skule.ca

FEBRUARY 2022 heel click. I don’t distinctly remember anything being set out as the Queen of Clubs, Getting involved in Godiva’s but maybe the top part of Crown, Cannonball, and all the crown was a club? They those things just made it that took a gold hard hat and then much better. literally used a saw to cut out a shape, but it was such a What was your connection botch job it was funny. They to Mr. Blue and Gold? had to put a blue material Mr. Blue and Gold and inside to try and fill it out so I were friends outside the it didn’t look so bad. roles, but the only thing we did was dance at Cannonball What was Godiva’s Crown together [pictured]. Mr. Blue like the next year? and Gold also gave Godiva Mr. Blue and Gold always her crown, but the next year has to come back the next I gave it to the next winner. year to introduce the start Our Spirit Head roles had no of the next Godiva Week, other connection whatsoever. so I ended up doing the Mr. Blue and Gold was same thing. I pulled in three a fun representative of the friends of mine, and we did a Skule™ community, so he had dance to the Backstreet Boys. a much bigger role. He would It was quite fun, we even did do events like F!rosh Week the dance at Cannonball in and wear his cape. Godiva’s our dresses, it was really quite Crown on the other hand fun. was so new since I was the It ran pretty similar the first one. No one knew what next year, though people it should look like. could pick their own songs.

You could tell some people Do you know how the heel had stuff prepared, but there click and Queen of [suits] were others who just kind of traditions start? According got up on stage and went for to Skulepedia, you would’ve it. It was still new and they been the Queen of Clubs. were trying to get people Well, I think, for me, I involved, so anybody could had to drink for that year join last minute. everyone said Godiva [laughs]. I never had to Godiva’s Crown continued from page 1

What was your favourite part about being a Spirit Head?

You’ve got your younger years, who are looking up to you and know who you are, so you become someone that they can come to and ask advice and things like that.

And of course you’re showing others how to get involved and have fun. It’s really important to be involved in some way, because otherwise, you can get too consumed in the academic portion, and then get lost and stressed and overwhelmed. You need to have an outlet, and so it was just good to be able to to show that you can do that and still be successful.

What values did you feel were important to embody as Godiva’s Crown?

It was almost like showing the guys that we could do things they could do, it was a very positive position to hold. Just showing the world that girls can do anything .. that was sort of my vision with that and that you can still have fun at the same time while doing well with school and being involved.

CREDIT: KIRSTEN KOEHL

Crown and her legacy going forward in the future?

I really hope that Godiva’s Crown would kind of become the leader of Mr. Blue and Gold in a way. [laughs]

imagine he would be at her beck and call sort of thing, and that she would be that strong leader. That would be my vision.

Last question: any other She is now [during 2T1] advice for future Godiva’s actually, so I think you got Crowns? your wish.

Have fun. Be strong. And How did you see Godiva’s Well, there you go. I rule the world.

Autumn Breeze WAYNE MA Cannon Writer

The cold concrete scratches against my shoes as I stroll swankily down the street.

Walking to the beat of the perfect Sunday song playing.

The crisp fall air bites my cheeks where the rain ran over.

I pull my hands out of my warm pockets and feel the cool breeze trickle between my fingers.

CREDIT: DINA CASTELLETTO

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The orange sun peeks in between the buildings down the street and scares the rain away.

Cars rush past in classic downtown fashion, their honks saying ‘hello’ over the tunes singing in my ears.

The warm wafts over me till I’m warm as hot chocolate, the concrete is soft under my soles, and I blend into the pace of the city.

4 • THE CANNON Calculus continued from page 1 dated by a few hundred years compared to all other answers) revealed a true life value to me.

Leonardo Da Vinci?

What’s so interesting about this? Just another brilliant engineer of his time?

No, not just an engineer; but also a painter, architect, draughtsman, scientist, theorist, paleontologist, astronomer, botanist, cartographistOkay, that’s enough, before you make me feel like a slacker.

The point of all of these questions and answers became clear to me once I realized what it means to truly be an engineer. No, not having an engineering degree; but having an engineer’s mindset.

Engineers are problemsolvers; while most people look at the world and see problems, we look and see

FEBRUARY 2022 more solutions waiting to be figured out. While the general image of engineering students is a math-andcoding-crazed outcast, we are, in truth, in training to become the pillars that keep the world together.

And if we want to have that kind of power, we need a wider vision. We need to be open-minded, multi-faceted, we need to welcome different people and experiences. We need innovation, and innovation needs experience, broad minds and different areas of knowledge to generate ideas from.

Don’t most of us feel like all we should be spending our time studying, solving another calculus exercise, coding another line, drawing another force diagram? We focus on our education to get a better engineering degree, a 4.0 instead of a 3.9. But along the way, we sometimes forget our education to get into the mindset of an

engineer. If we want to solve problems, we must be able to see every possible opportunity, from the tip of our noses to the other end of the horizon. Building a wider world view, knowing and connecting with people of all backgrounds, experiencing new hobbies and places…

Sounds like your GPA is under 3.5.

We hear all about how the 1% got to the high places they are in now.

“You know he doesn’t even have a college degree, he quit and started his business.”

“People thought he was an idiot because of his marks, and now his inventions reshaped the world.”

We miss the point sometimes. The true asset they had is not only the daring spirit they showed when they said “adios, muchacho” to a formal education. It was also their expanded vision and world view. They didn’t

only look at the field of computing, engineering, manufacturing…

They delved into different businesses, met weird people with weird ideas, pursued hobbies that definitely made a few Tinder dates awkward.

And they gained along the way their creativity, their innovation mindset, their open-mindedness, their analytical skills, and their experiences.

And these allowed them to catch that one spark in their industry that no one else could.

So what, do I go and get a minor in architecture when I’m studying chemical engineering?

Not exactly. We simply take a moment to think how Einstein was a violin player and an avid fan of Bach, and of the recent research that proved the link between musical and mathematical intelligence.

We think about how Elon Musk is an anime fan and a certified bookworm. We

think of how Zuckerberg is into hunting and Gates likes playing bridge.

Most importantly, we stop to think about ourselves. When it’s the first weeks of the semester and we see all these different opportunities around us that can bring us varied and valuable perspectives, we don’t stop to ask “does it have math though?”. We stop being afraid and finally catch up on the final season of Shinjeki no Kyojin. We go to that book club or art class we’ve always put off.

We smile and nod when someone says “would you like to learn about our lord and savior, RuPaul?”. We go to that party, we go and say hi to those people, we join that club… We live that life.

And we wonder what they fed people in the Renaissance era. I mean, who today can claim to know so much about so many things like Da Vinci?

That’s impressive, dude.

OPINION

A Comprehensive Guide to Choosing Electives ANONYMOUS Don’t get me wrong – my intention is not to shade anyone, especially those whom I have taken my electives with. I simply want to author a comprehensive guide on how to choose your electives based on my own experience. Below I have included a list of decision factors I wish I had considered before taking certain electives. I hope you find this guide helpful in one form or another, or perhaps find something to look back at and laugh at, agreeing or disagreeing to the points made based on your own elective experience.

1. Satisfying Minor (or Certificate) and degree requirements The most obvious reason to take a certain elective is to satisfy degree requirements.

Elective requirements differ based on discipline, which is why, for example, a third year Chem student won’t have the opportunity to take the same number of electives as a third year ECE. As you may already know, we can choose a Minor (six courses) and/or a Certificate (three courses) from a selection of various diverse Minors and Certificates. But how do we know whether a list of potential electives meets degree and Minor/ Certificate requirements?

For non-ECEs this is where U of T’s Degree Planner, accessible from your Acorn account, comes in. With this incredible tool, you can map out what semester you plan on taking specific courses and see whether degree and Minor/Certificate requirements will be fulfilled by the time you plan on graduating. ECEs can plan their semesters and

check degree requirements through Magellan, but for Minors and Certificates you’ll just have to keep count manually.

2. Categories of Electives There are four different types of electives that you might see on your program requirements, and different courses fulfill each of those requirements. Free electives are the easiest to explain, they’re ‘free’ so any course outside of some very few exceptions can fulfill them.

These are the rarest, usually only one for your four years here, so use these wisely.

Technical electives are exactly what they sound like. Technical courses cover topics directly related to your discipline, other engineering departments, or even some Arts and Sciences courses that are deemed mathematical/ scientific enough. On the

other end of the spectrum there are Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) electives, which are meant to give you some more breadth to your degree, and are usually more writing focused. If you search it up, you can find a list of approved HSS courses, and the Engineering Faculty offers a few of its own HSS electives like several TEP courses. There are also Complementary Studies (CS) electives, which all HSS courses also fall under, but there are more courses that count for these if you look it up.

3. Individual vs. Group assignments While some electives are completely team based, others only mark solo deliverables. I’ve taken a CS elective and a technical elective, and both had group projects. However, I

have also taken a technical elective that didn’t have group projects.

This depends on your comfort level with group work – some individuals are very comfortable working in groups whereas others may prefer individual projects over group projects.

4. Class size I have had the chance to take an elective with several lecture sections, while on the other end of the spectrum I’ve also taken an elective with less than twelve undergraduate students. The nice thing about taking a popular elective is knowing others that might be taking the elective – this comes in handy if required to make groups or for discussing course concepts. However, something I found nice about taking a smaller Electives continued on page 4

cannon.skule.ca

FEBRUARY 2022

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Tragedy of December 6 RAUHA AHMED Cannon Writer

On this day of sorrow, We remember the taking of lives. Fourteen brilliant flames snuffed out, in a moment of heartbreak and woe.

Fourteen sets of hopes and dreams, crushed beneath a manic heel.

Scattered thoughts and racing hearts, the dreadful silence before the screams.

CREDIT: WWW.CLIPARTMAX.COM

Electives continued from page 5 elective is that I was more participative in it than I ever was in a large elective class.

This might just be specific to me, but I found participating in smaller classes to be more comfortable than in larger ones, specifically for in-person classes. Another perk – I always had the chance to sit at the front of the class, no matter how late I was running.

5.

Course Delivery Method Of course both online and in-person have their perks and drawbacks, but it’s really up to you on which you prefer. I personally love the idea of physically sitting in a classroom and writing concise notes knowing that even if the lecture were to be recorded, I would probably not rewatch it simply because I’m attending it in person.

However, I also like how I don’t need to commute and can watch lectures whenever convenient for me, and that I can replay them if needed. Of course some online courses are also run synchronously via platforms like Zoom, while others operate asynchronously so that might be another thing to double check on the syllabus for those courses.

6. Marking Scheme These vary greatly

elective-to-elective. Some may have two midterms, an assignment, and a final.

Others may only have a single midterm, but multiple assignments, and a final. Furthermore, some may not have midterms at all but may have take-home assessments instead. You might want to consider which works best for you when making your elective choices.

7. Offering Time Now this is something you should definitely consider before choosing an elective. Certain electives are available year-round (i.e. every semester including the summer). Others, on the other hand, are only available once a year.

Something else to consider is that courses available year-round often span four months during the Fall and Winter semesters, but only two months during the Summer. They will still cover about the same amount of content even if they are being taught for half the duration; this just means you’ll have longer lectures/more asynchronous videos a week, and less time between assignments/ assessments compared to the same elective being offered in the Fall or Winter.

A useful tool to determine the semesters in which specific electives are offered

Still, they live on in our memory; with their courage and their strength.

We honour every single name, these brave women from our history.

Forever is how long it’s been, they like to say in contempt.

But time hasn’t changed a thing, as women still struggle to be seen. is U of T’s CourseFinder.

More generally, course codes ending in ‘F’ signify that they are taught in the ‘first’ semester, ‘S’ signifies that they are taught in the ‘second’ semester, and ‘Y’ signifies that they are taught yearlong. Fall/Winter are first/second, but Summer is also divided into two semesters of two months each which are first/second.

On the other hand, many summer courses are also offered for the full four months, and are labeled ‘Y’, but taught exactly as they would be Fall/Winter and still only count for that same amount of credits.

Additionally, CourseFinder provides the different sections’ exact days and times for courses. Of course if certain electives conflict with your core courses you probably shouldn’t be enrolling in them.

8. Personal Interests Although I mentioned at the very beginning that degree and Minor/ Certificate requirements usually are the underlying reason for choosing specific electives, it is also important to take your own personal interests into account. Even though all the electives I

have taken so far have been to satisfy my Minor and Certificate requirements, I still had the flexibility of choosing from a list of electives within those Minors/Certificates - and the electives I chose were very strongly influenced by my personal interest in the course content. I have found myself to do better in a course which I actually enjoy rather than one I don’t enjoy. You’ll have to stick with your elective choice for an entire semester (unless of course you drop the course during the semester) so you should see yourself enjoying it for the duration of the semester. Oftentimes “bird courses” can go poorly if you just don’t care about the content, while you might do exceptional in difficult courses you are passionate about.

9. Career Prospects This connects with the first point I mentioned as well. Often, students pursue Minors/Certificates based on which field they want to go into after graduation.

For instance, if a student wants to work in the Energy sector, the Sustainable Energy Minor might be a Minor they may consider

pursuing, as many of the courses offered as part of this Minor directly cover content on the Energy sector.

But additionally, many disciplines offer different ‘streams’ of recommended technical electives to take for certain specializations. Or alternatively, you might see a job posting for a position which requires knowledge gained from a certain course, in which case you might want to enroll in that course if you would like to apply to the position.

“But how do I find out this information?”, you might ask. Well, I feel like the best way to learn about an elective is to ask someone who has already taken the elective. If I were asked about my experience with a certain elective by an interested peer, I would try to give them my honest opinion and experience with it, so that they have a clearer idea of what it’s like and whether they should take it. I hope you may find this guide useful and I wish you all the very best with your electives!

6 • THE CANNON

FEBRUARY 2022

November Rain SOPHIE KIM Cannon Writer

We sometimes forget that it rains in November.

Because The onset of frost is always so shocking, and on our doors the wind is knocking, and we have perfected the art of pretending no one is home— Because we sometimes forget that the frost is alone; that it lays to nap, to sink and seep between the dry and crackling skin of the earth— Because we forget that there is heat.

We often forget there is warmth in November, one which melts butter and hands and last night’s arguments into nestles.

There is a November rain thanks to this hair of fire in the air that coaxes the mind’s entanglements, that softens precipitation into warm weeps from above.

CREDIT: WWW.UDISCOVERMUSIC.COM/ARTIST/ GUNS-N-ROSES/

The Deck of Cards Analogy ANTON IVANOV Cannon Writer Before you continue any further, just make sure that you’ve read the title to this article, because it is important.

Got it? We good to go?

Alright then.

Have you ever considered an explanation to your life?

Like the purpose of why you exist and what not?

Okay, maybe not a fantastic first question to start things off with, but then again, you are literally reading a newspaper, who knows what the hell could be in those? Just a bunch… world politics and some…

Sudoku.

But hey, stick with me for just the next few paragraphs, alright, maybe I have the answers on how to get 100 percent on some of your final exams… Okay, I don’t have those answers, but still, just… bear with me. I don’t mean like the animal, but… you know what? Let’s just get on with it.

Now life, life itself, clearly has a purpose, right? And it clearly has to be a well defined purpose if it’s going to explain life, right? Right?

Surely, you can’t just have this really big fundamental concept just exist without any sort of specific explanation? I mean, that

would be ridiculous, that would be… reasonable?

Think about it for a second, have you ever gotten a consistent answer for the meaning of life? Not really.

And if you did, the answers that are similar are probably still too general, and don’t necessarily reflect the life of

that person that accurately.

You can’t get a defined answer. I mean maybe you can but that is just difficult to pull off. I’m pretty sure Greek philosophers also had differing views on that, and they’re supposedly the smartest guys when it comes to questions like these!

CREDIT: CHRIS RAMSAY

What does this all mean then? Well, it means that the purpose of life is that there is no defined purpose.

Now hold on, before you say anything, note that I said “defined” alright? I didn’t Deck of Cards continued on page 7

cannon.skule.ca

FEBRUARY 2022 Deck of Cards continued from page 6 say general. I’m not trying to type up an article with a pessimistic attitude that would be fitting for a Joker standalone movie. There’s a reason I say defined and it’s because it’s simple: if there is no defined purpose in life, then that means that the purpose can then be left to be defined by someone themselves, because it does still have to be defined (this is the part where the professor would insert the typical “the problem is left as an exercise to the reader” in their assignment… but I’m not that evil… right?).

It would have to be defined by someone who has a life, such as you, the person reading this who is in possession of life or some form of it, because I sure as hell would be concerned if someone without a pulse is reading this… unless we’re talking artificial hearts or something, in which case, that’s really cool… man, I’m starting to get side tracked like Cohen (Cohen, if you’re reading this, you are still one of the best profs in my opinion, scout’s honour, whatever that means).

Anyways, you’re the one who gets to define the purpose of life, although it is only for your life, because that’s something that exists on an individual level, not a whole entire concept.

We already established it’s different for every person, so it exists on an individual basis. So now, with that in mind, I can basically define life as this: life has no defined purpose, other than the purpose that you give it for yourself.

Some of you might think of this as anti-climactic.

Well, I’m sorry you feel that way but, oh well, you only lost about a few minutes.

But I’m still not done yet.

You have to agree with me that the purpose of your life is that you pick the purpose.

It’s consistent with what I pointed out earlier: the answers you get from people is inconsistent, although this

is my general observation, so I could be wrong. But this then becomes a pretty solid answer, especially when you consider the potential answers: the purpose is whatever the religion you follow teaches you, it could be to become very rich and live a luxurious life, or to live a very simple and go-withthe-flow life… or it could be to literally eat one of every single donut. It is up to you!

This also then means you can’t really be judged that harshly for not living your life how other people expect you to live it (unless it involves hurting other people, in which case, not cool dude). Someone tells you “oh, you HAVE to be

doing exactly what it is you were supposed to do without having acknowledged it. But to have recognized it makes a difference. After all, it’s better to ride a roller coaster while seeing where it goes and what it’s like.

So now, I threw this at you: life has no defined purpose, but you make it for yourself, and if you haven’t yet, then your purpose is to find and adopt it. But what if you don’t think there’s a reason to? What if you think the purpose is too muddy, too pointless to find?

Remember when I said to remember the title of this article? I want you to think for a moment how that would tie in to what I’ve said

will… I hope). Anyways, it’s simple. You have this hand of cards, and the cards in it define how good it is, or how bad it is. As the game goes on, you gain some cards, you lose some cards, and you exchange some of them. Natural, right? You play to improve your hand but because of the rules of chance, you never know how it will go.

And this is the importance of the analogy, because this is one side of life that I think of as a deck of cards and this game you play: you’re playing to better your hand, and so sometimes, things will be good, and sometimes things will be bad. Things will look good that then

“

So like I said, life is what you make of it, no matter what. And if you don’t know what you have to make of it, you don’t have to worry, because you then have your life to figure out what to make of it.”

a top student” or “oh, you shouldn’t worry about being fit”, it doesn’t matter. They can’t tell you, because they don’t have the answer. They can make suggestions, and then from there you can decide, but it doesn’t impose what you have to do.

“But- but, I don’t know what my purpose is! What do I do?”

See, that’s where things become even better with this answer. You want to know what to do if you don’t know what it is? Your purpose then is to find whatever that purpose is and embrace it!

Because that’s actually one of the answers! Some people go about their lives with no exact direction, but they eventually adopt a certain purpose, even if they don’t actually know it. You could have lived your whole life

so far. It wouldn’t because I haven’t brought up the analogy yet, I simply needed to give a bit of context in order to tie in this very short point. Plus, in the midst of writing this, I realized it was probably ideal that I also provided what I gave you just now in order to give you the whole entire cake, and not just a slice of it… or cheese, if that’s what you like… cheese is really good… maybe I should’ve said cheesecake…

Consider you’re playing a game that involves you holding and exchanging cards, almost like poker. If you don’t know about poker, that’s okay. If you do know about poker, I better not see you gambling with me in Las Vegas (disclaimer: I have never gambled, especially for money, and I never

go bad, and things that look bad will go good, like getting a 90 on a test you thought you would fail. You keep playing to work so that the hand improves.

But sometimes, your hand becomes really bad, like, really, really ugly. We’re talking like a 20 minute wait line to the nearest washroom when you had three burritos from Taco Bell bad. And in that moment, all you might think is “this is it, I’m done. I want to quit, I don’t want to do this anymore”. And you’re tempted to reach for the option to forfeit this game you play with this deck of cards. To throw down your hand, call it a day and leave.

I get that, I think we’ve all been there. But I want to tell you to never throw your hand down. Because once you do, you’re not getting it

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back.

But why should you keep playing? Why should you bear with this bad hand? It’s because as long as you keep playing, the opportunity for you to change your hand exists. The opportunity for you to trade out your cards exists. You keep playing, and you will always, ALWAYS, have the chance to make things better. You decide to forfeit, and that chance is gone. You stick around long enough, you might be surprised with how things turn out. Things can happen, they can change, I’ve seen it, and I think you have too.

As long as the game isn’t over, which I assure you will never be the case, not for a long time, you’ve always got that opportunity.

So like I said, life is what you make of it, no matter what. And if you don’t know what you have to make of it, you don’t have to worry, because you then have your life to figure out what to make of it. And even if it does get ugly, even if you do get hit badly, like failing a course, even if you do get a bad hand, keep playing.

Stick around. The game is still going, you’ve still got chances ways to go for your hand to improve and for life to become even better. And sometimes, your hand can change in an instant, when you least expect it.

Congratulations on making it through the whole article, unless you skipped to the end, in which case, I am disappointed, but eh, it is what it is. I hope that I didn’t sound like an absolute lunatic from typing this, but even if I did, maybe you had a good time reading it, and that is satisfying enough. Take care of yourself. Oh, and if you see a guy with a grey lunch bag strapped to his black backpack, wearing boots, tell him uhhhh, let’s see, tell him that his… sandals look nice. Yeah, that’ll be a funny prank, especially if I end up forgetting that I wrote this.

Take care, and have yourself a good one!

8 • THE CANNON

FEBRUARY 2022

FEBRUARY 2022

cannon.skule.ca

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10 • THE CANNON

FEBRUARY 2022

OPINION

What is a Credit Worth?

ANONYMOUS On December 15th, 2021 the UniversityofTorontoannouncedthat all remaining in-person exams for the Fall 2021 semester would be canceled due to outbreaks of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 across Ontario.

However, the Faculty of Engineering was ill-prepared to handle everything that followed. Their response was not well communicated at all, and arguably insulting to the larger student body.

Before we delve into anything else: the response of most U of T faculties to outright cancel all in-person exams was outside of the norm; the vast majority of other universities had a few days buffer period of in-person exams or exams that got rescheduled for later in December, and then moved the rest of them to an online format. The option to move exams online was explicitly laid out by the Vice Provost in their initial email, released in advance of any faculty-level decisions. It was the individual faculties of Arts & Science and Engineering that opted to cancel exams outright. Considering the circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic as a whole, the lack of a contingency plan that would allow a smooth transition to online exams is simply unacceptable for faculties that deem themselves amongst the most prestigious and advanced in all of Canada.To give credit where credit is due (haha – get it?), the Faculty of Arts & Science gave students the option of declaring any of their courses with the exams affected with a “Credit or No Credit” (CR/ NCR) notation (including program requirements). Moreover, students from this faculty could request a late withdrawal (LWD) instead. They also had the option to take deferred exams in April 2022, all after receiving their marks back in January.

Some more context for those of youunfamiliarwithallofthesepolicies and notations: any course with the CR/NCR option selected on Acorn will appear as either CR, meaning you have received the credit for the course (i.e., passed it), or NCR, meaning you have not received credit for the course (i.e., failed it). LWD means you withdrew from the course past the drop deadline, with no distinction of if you passed it or not. The key idea behind all of these notations is that they completely replace both the lettered and numbered grade for the course on your transcript, and prevent that numerical grade from being counted towards your GPA.

In normal circumstances, Arts & Science students are eligible to choose CR/NCR for up to 2.0 credits (i.e., four half-year courses) on their transcript through Acorn. However, they must do this before taking their final exams and without seeing their final mark in the course, and they cannot apply this notation to program requirements, meaning any course that counts for a major/minor, leaving them only to be used on breadth requirements. They can also LWD from 3.0 credits. The Engineering Faculty, by contrast, does not allow for either under normal circumstances.

“Normal circumstances” is an important distinction, as there have been two exceptional circumstances in which the faculty has allowed for CR/NCR and LWD for its courses.

The second instance was during the Winter 2020 semester when COVID-19 first began affecting academic proceedings. All instructors were forced to modify their course delivery and examinations to be run online for the first time, something which most of them were extremely unfamiliar with, and thus the faculty allowed for CR/NCR that semester as it felt that it could not properly distinguish the exact grades/ knowledge levels of students (“a lack of integrity of grades”) given the spontaneity of the online transition.

When student representatives went to the faculty to argue that this was again the case in Fall 2020, when many instructors still had little clue how to navigate an online environment, the faculty refused, arguing that instructors felt that they had enough time to modify their courses during the summer to preserve that sense of integrity, with better ideas of how to virtually run both lectures and assessments. While true in many scenarios, the opinion of many students is that this wasn’t the case for certain courses and professors.

The first instance of CR/NCR for the Engineering Faculty is a bit more interesting. This occurred in the Winter 2015 semester, when there was a massive strike by TAs and sessional lecturers that resulted in some assessments and termwork not being marked on time. The faculty’s decisiontoofferCR/NCRoptionsdue to late marking seems inconsistent with their decision to forgo it in Fall 2021, given that canceled assessments have the potential to be even more stressful for students. For individual students, some could argue that the exam cancellations benefitted their own marks in some courses, however the logistics surrounding the sudden

pivot still caused undue stress for many students who were already dealing with pandemic-related issues in their personal lives.

The Engineering Faculty Council’s Undergraduate Assessment Committee (UAC, formerly known as the Examinations Committee), drafted a letter/guideline to be sent to all professors outlining the two methods they required to be used to “assess” student final marks.

It was a best-of-both approach on a student-by-student basis, which seems rather fair, but that wouldn’t last. The Engineering Department Chairs later forced the UAC to modify their guidelines to a mere “recommendation”, citing that professors should have more “academic freedom”. As a result, many professors opted to assess student marks using only one of the two methods class-wide, or simply use their own custom method that could disadvantage certain students.

Class Representatives tried to remedy this, and some succeeded in convincing professors to change the marking scheme, but in the end many could not be swayed. Some justified their actions, saying that if you are unsatisfied with your assessed mark, you could always sign up to take a deferred exam.

Unfortunately, the process for taking deferred exams was confusing as well. Students could file a special consideration petition on the Engineering Portal by January 7th, or 48 hours after they received their marks, to take a deferred exam for the course sometime in January or early February. Since the university is not re-opening until February 7th, and the scheduled deferred exams are still online. If online exams were always an acceptable option, why not offer them to all students in December?

Additionally, for those who were not happy with their professor’s chosen grading scheme and saw the deferred exam as their only option, being forced to study for an exam while also settling into a new semester can be more taxing than they were prepared for. The university is typically rather strict about professors communicating grading schemes in advance so students are able to feel prepared at the start of a course for the ways they will be graded. The option of deferred exams is not consistent with this principle.

The biggest issue with these exams from the start is obvious: the lack of clearcommunicationfromthefaculty about the logistical details. It was discussed at UAC that there would

Not Too Bad Nuestra Economía Mental ANDRE LI Cannon Writer This is not too bad Till now, I am still not dead But look at the long-lasting wound And my brain internally fried Nothing is to be sad The worst thing is to be afraid “It’s not what it is”, I said Our youngsters deserve a better end Tomorrow will be a different kind When Pablo Neruda returned to his land Dictator under people’s hand It is a Jesus demand This will never be too bad Hand in hand, towards new year’s light Some small attempts we tried So all brothers and sisters can be glad be at least a week’s notice before the first exams, and that very few would be scheduled on that first Saturday the 15th. This information was then passed to the student body by the Engineering Society. This promise was not kept, as the vast majority of the exams were on the 15th at 9am, and first year Core8 students had another on Sunday the 16th, which was not communicated as a possible date to students. These exam dates were sent to students on Tuesday the 11th, a mere four days before most exams. In addition, many students reported that the exact format of individual exams was confirmed just a day or two prior to the exam itself.

This is a completely unacceptable timeframe for students to work with.

As for the CR/NCR option, student representatives including the Vice President Academic sat down with the Dean and Vice-Dean Undergraduate to argue for it to be available to students using many of the same arguments covered in this article, but were met with resistance. They reported that the faculty had walked into the room with their minds already made up and they didn’t consider any of the students’ arguments. One of the concerns they raised was upper years having too many CR/NCR’s on their transcripts and how it would look when employers and grad schools review them. However, recent graduates reported that their CR/NCR during the Winter 2020 semester were not questioned, and CR/NCR was still enabled for Arts & Sciences programs that compete

with certain disciplines for these positions. Interestingly enough, the Engineering faculty enabled CR/ NCR for all ArtSci courses with canceled exams that engineering students were taking. The faculty has also argued that restricting options like CR/NCR is necessary to ensure rigor in their programs; however the Computer Science degree is also very rigorous and well known, yet still implemented the CR/NCR option.

The Dean also cited that back in Fall 2020 when we went completely online, he had a discussion with other engineering deans about avoiding CR/NCR as much as possible, and he was not comfortable going against that. I admit that I was not able to check if other engineering universities had followed through with this. There was also disagreement over whether CR/NCR would disincentivize students from taking deferred exams by offering them relief. The student representatives felt this would have meant that a lot more students wouldn’t be sitting and waiting till February to hear whether they passed a course or what their academic status will be.

As the new semester dawns, students have little reason to hope for more clear, consistent messaging in the case of emergency shifts in academic policy. Especially for those whose lives outside of school remain chaotic due to financial stress, health issues, and other pandemic-related disruptions, the faculty needs to do better. Otherwise, how can they claim to truly value student experience?

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FEBRUARY 2022

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OPINION

Why We Learn How to Code RAFIQ OMAIR & SHREYA GARG Cannon Writers You may recall taking APS106 (or for some, APS105), a first year engineering coding course.

Given that coding doesn’t directly relate to many of the fields within engineering, students often question the purpose of taking these courses in the first place.

This might sound like a valid concern, however programming can be used to teach students a lot more than just coding. Many skills that are taught during these courses can be transferable to a student’s career and their life in general. Let’s go over some reasons why learning how to code is advantageous, and hence why we take these courses.

1. The tech industry is flexible and pays well.

The Tech industry is one of the highest paying industries to work in. One of these reasons may just be the flexibility with techbased jobs such as coding.

This doesn’t mean that this is the case with all jobs in this industry, but many coding jobs can be done remotely with little effect on the quality of work produced. Why does this matter? Think of the let’snot-mention event that has caused many people to lose their jobs over the course of the past two years, and hence impacted the livelihoods of many individuals. Don’t think that no coders have lost their jobs as well, but many tech companies have continued to thrive despite the changes, and thus have continued to expand their workforce.

2. It’s a ‘short-cut’ for many tasks (aka a time-saver).

You’ve probably heard of the phrase ’time is money’.

Well that’s because it’s true.

Think of it this way: you spend hours going through a list of test results for a class,

determining which students passed and which didn’t, based on a detailed criteria.

Wouldn’t this task be so much easier if you could just input the names and test scores and find out who passed and who didn’t within minutes, if not seconds? With a little bit of code, you can,and it minimizes the chances of human error. As with the example mentioned above, programming doesn’t have to be complicated; a simple program that an engineer can code might help them save time by automating tedious tasks. Whether you’re creating a silly guessing game or complex neural networking, knowledge of programming enables levels of efficiency that cannot be achieved otherwise. As engineers, our job is to apply.

Apply math. Apply science.

Programming languages, whichever one may choose to enlighten themselves with, demonstrate the results of applying such subjects to solve realistic problems. It is vital, as engineers and professionals, to conserve time and energy.

So a program, regardless of how simple or complicated it may be, can enable just that, freeing you up to do the creative thinking, and leaving the computer to deal with those otherwise tedious or repetitive tasks.

3. It’s advantageous to know the basics.

If you end up working with a team in which some members are software engineers, you need to be able to understand the work that’s being done in order to help them and give good feedback.

APS111 and APS112 have taught us a great lesson: effective communication within a team can lead to success just as quickly as a lack of it can crumble it. As engineers, simply knowing how to create or implement something is useless if we are unable to communicate its usage and importance

to the rest of the team. For example, a mechanical engineer might benefit from creating graphical simulations to demonstrate designs to team members who may not come from an engineering background.

4. Don’t like a coding language? Move on to another.

There are many intricate and marvelous languages to choose from when writing code. Each programming language has different uses and applications; for example Python is used for machine learning and artificial intelligence, Javascript for interactive web development, C/C++ for operating systems and system tools, and R for data analysis. Having the option to choose from a list of various coding languages gives a coder flexibility, and I’m sure no one ever minded a little flexibility.

5. It optimizes processes with little human input.

One of the most important parts of learning how to code is understanding the logic behind it; this boils down to problem solving, which is employed in every field. Code is not representative of hard work, rather it is an intricate design made to enable smarter work. An effective program completes tasks with little ‘work’ necessary–few lines, little effort. However, to create a program like that, an engineer must develop their logical skills to manipulate a program into doing exactly what they want. This is similar to what engineers of other disciplines aim to accomplish with their designs. For example, a civil engineer might be tasked with designing a truss so that no resources go unused, within the time constraint they are given by their client. The ability to apply logic to a problem to optimize resources is a vital skill one must take advantage of and carefully develop as an engineer.

CREDIT: WWW.TECHREPUBLIC.COM

6. It tests your patience and helps build resilience.

More often than not, you won’t get your code perfect right away and this can lead to frustration. Because of this, coding can help build your patience and being patient also helps with learning how to cope with failure. For overachievers, the process of learning how to code often comes as a grave shock. How can one aim for perfection when developing a program if the process is anything but that? When learning something as intricate and complicated as coding for the first time, one is bound to feel uneasy. However, it is important to realize that feeling uncomfortable is not necessarily a bad thing. It is part of the important process of building professional resilience. A good program is not developed without initial errors–whether it be syntax errors, logic errors, etc. It is an uncomfortable, tedious, and frustrating process. Yet, it teaches us patience, resilience, and also demonstrates how it all wonderfully pays off in the end. These skills develop habits that translate well into the classroom and the workplace.

employer chooses you over another applicant. Nowadays companies look for wellrounded employees who have skills that are applicable in different fields and programming is a skill that is in high demand, regardless of the field.

8. We get a guided introduction.

Many students would not have had the opportunity to learn about programming before starting their first year in engineering, so courses like APS105 and APS106 serve as an introduction for them. Learning the basics of programming by yourself can be overwhelming, so these courses offer students the chance to have a guided introduction into the world of programming by professors who are experts on the subject.

As you can see, there are many reasons for why learning how to code is advantageous; this article only went over some of these reasons. Every engineers’ career trajectory is different, so these courses may or may not be more beneficial to you than others. However, being taught programming for the first time can ignite a passion in an individual who may have not even 7. It’s a resume booster. known they had. Therefore, The workforce nowadays is learning how to code enables hard to break into, and having engineering students to avail a skill such as programming opportunities to pursue this on your resume can be the passion. Who knows–it might deciding factor in whether an just be your cup of tea!

12 • THE CANNON

FEBRUARY 2022

Don’t Look Up the Statistics

Capitalist Interest at Odds with Human Life AMANDA PLOTNIK Senior Editor **Spoilers for Don’t Look Up (2021) Don’t Look Up is a 2021 satire-ish (more on that later) film distributed by Netflix and starring a barrage of the biggest names in the entertainment industry, from Jennifer Lawrence to Meryl Streep to Ariana Grande. The premise seems simple: an Astronomy graduate student and her supervisor discover a giant comet which has the potential to wipe out all human life--a “planet killer” as it is called. The satirical elements of the film lie in the responses of the United States government and the public, and the ways that the two influence each other to create a perfect storm of disinterest. The film currently boasts a 55% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is less of a universal condemnation and more a testament to the polarizing nature of the plot’s more political elements. Due to the nature of the genre, Don’t Look Up isn’t judged as a film about a giant comet, it’s judged as a film about COVID-19, climate change, and real-world politicians with similar modus operandi to Streep’s President Orlean. Though the film was originally intended as a climate change metaphor, the timing of its release coincided rather well with a new kind of widespread skepticism--the global response to the threat of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. We continue to see case numbers plunge in the wake of governmental recommendations to not get tested, which isn’t particularly reassuring.

One can’t help but wonder whether the impetus for the modified guidelines

is public interest or a failure of the government to support businesses as their workers go on sick leave following positive test results. Don’t Look Up’s occasionally heavy-handed satire is open to far too many interpretations to be pinned down, leaving some viewers disappointed based on their own personal choice of which metaphor matters most, and whether they agree with the film’s perceived message on that topic.

One of the problems with Don’t Look Up is that it’s painfully easy to forget that it’s a satire film. The state of the US government serves as a heat sink of comedic relief, but then again, wouldn’t the Trump administration have done the same had it been fictional? The film leans hard into an absurdly dysfunctional government, but not hard enough that a jaded viewer won’t see it and think it’s plausible that the actual White House will soon come to resemble the narcissistic goon squad presented in the film.

Actions such as nepotistic hiring by the President are no longer funny to see on screen given that it’s already happened, and it’s a huge problem that it did.

Don’t Look Up isn’t telling a joke here. It’s taunting us with reality. It’s fair to make the argument here that satire doesn’t need to be funny to accomplish its goal, but the problem is that the film lacks a clearly defined satirical goal at all.

We got out the cathartic rants about nepotism when it was happening for real, so the film gives us nothing novel or clever to laugh at.

Few people thought Donald Trump’s hiring practices weren’t worthy of mockery to begin with.

Where Don’t Look Up begins to succeed in its

satirical catharsis, however, is in its portrayal of media and celebrity culture. Do I honestly believe that a mainstream talk show would prioritize Ariana Grande’s relationship drama playing out on live TV over a “science story” about a comet? Absolutely, but to be fair, they have every incentive to do so.

For an analogy of how the early media coverage of the comet in the film might have been received had it been prioritized, I can’t help but think of COVID-19 developments and the ways they’re covered. Media companies are well known for manufacturing big stories for clicks, which is why early coverage of new COVID-19 variants have the potential to be useful, informative works of journalism. However they also have the potential to be fear mongering. Without the test of time and vast amounts of peer reviewing, it can be almost impossible to tell the difference. By contrast, Ariana Grande will always get clicks, and if it’s happening live, it’s hard to be accused of reporting fake news. It’s incredibly frustrating as a viewer of this piece of fiction, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that the comet is a real threat whilst seeing the public brush off warnings, but to empathize with inuniverse media consumers, the doubt is understandable.

The public serves as a looming presence, almost a character in its own collective right, throughout the film. Just like in real life, the public of the film can get incredibly frustrating. After becoming overly heated on a talk show appearance, Jennifer Lawrence’s character is relentlessly mocked for her behaviour on the Internet in a way that feels depressingly childish.

This is one of the points where the satirical goal becomes clearer. As she is a main character, we’re meant to empathize with Lawrence when we see her unable to function in society as a result of her newfound Internet fame. That being said, the jokes at her expense are also kind of funny, and it’s easy to tell why people latched onto the crazy doomsday woman meme. But is the humour worth it? There are plenty of viral content creators on social media who cash in on all sorts of questionable material, from “pranks” that involve doing legitimate harm to others for the entertainment of an audience, to sexualization of childish imagery, to stealing the creative work of BIPOC and queer artistis and dancers. This has become normal to the point where content creators regularly produce apologies of questionable authenticity, but mostly get off scot-free.

By having us look at the people being harmed by the content creation machine, Don’t Look Up asks us to question our values when it comes to the content we consume and perpetuate.

Much like fast fashion, social media content is often enabled by processes which cause harm to people in ways we are expected to ignore.

At best we are aware of this harm yet unable to prevent it, and at worst we are kept completely unaware by those in power who profit off exploitation. The companies and individuals that profit will not only disregard their own harmful practices, but they’ll go out of their way to make sure you ignore them too. This is why it was so controversial when Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen openly admitted to the company’s morally bankrupt values.

We always knew it was the

case that Facebook was lining their pockets at our expense, but it’s out of the ordinary to see an insider admit it. It’s a moment that makes us “Look Up,” if you will.

The really defining plot point of Don’t Look Up to me is, fittingly, the intervention of big tech. Around the midpoint of the movie, the United States government is convinced to take action to deflect the comet, but moments after the mission launches, the President is persuaded by a billionaire donor to call off the entire operation on account of the comet containing expensive metals they want to extract.

Through careful messaging, the public comes to believe that the giant planet-killer comet is actually a net good given the financial benefit, even though said benefit will be reserved for tech moguls.

The latter half of the movie plays out an even more depressing plot than the first half: the wealthy minority will always overpower the majority. In a functional democracy, the President is always considering the public opinion in the interest of their and their party’s continued political success. However, when public opinion can be swayed by the media they consume, and media companies can be bought out, those with money will always matter more. And so, in Don’t Look Up, we see an apathetic public lulled by propaganda into believing that a poorly-thought-out plan by an insane billionaire will save them. A concept that feels perfectly, bitterly believable in a world where Elon Musk fans continue to talk about Hyperloop as if it will revolutionize transit despite evidence Don’t Look Up continued on page 13

cannon.skule.ca

FEBRUARY 2022 agendas.

Don’t Look Up offers a fun, cathartic perspective otherwise. Here, Don’t Look on whatever social issue you Up becomes a cautionary want it to, and the ways the tale of the potentially media manipulates us to disastrous consequences of ignore expert perspectives. ignoring experts in favour It’s not a perfect movie. of billionaires with different You could have a whole Don’t Look Up continued from page 12

discussion about its choice to criticize social media using the voices of actors with massive social media followings themselves, such as Ariana Grande and Timothée Chalamet. You could also talk about the smug, hamfisted way the

movie grabs you by the collar and tells you social media is bad in a way that can at its worst feel reminiscent of an unfunny conservative political cartoon. But the satirical beats of Don’t Look Up, despite their hit or miss nature, are objectively

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entertaining. It’s a movie that’s worth a watch and a discussion, which makes it a rather valuable piece of art, and one that strikes a chord in the midst of rampant confusion about how society should adapt to the latest COVID-19 developments.

OPINION

A Plastic Fan’s View on the Rise of Canadian Soccer RUKNOON DINDER Cannon Writer Top of the FIFA World Cup (WC) qualification table, unbeaten in 8 matches, only 5 goals conceded and wins against the 9th and 13th ranked teams of the world. Sounds like a record you expect from a European powerhouse, not 40th ranked ‘minnows’ Canada. But that is exactly what has happened, and it has not surprised anyone, with good reason.

Canadian soccer has been taking the world by storm for a few years now, and names like Alphonso Davies and Christine Sinclaire have become famous in the global soccer community. While the women’s team has always been a huge source of national pride for us, the men’s team has grown into a force to be reckoned with as well. How did this change come about?

And what does that mean for the future of soccer in Canada? Let’s start at the very bottom.

It would not be wrong to say that Canadian soccer was dying a slow death ever since the golden generation of 1986 played at the FIFA WC in Mexico. After the dissolution of the Canadian Soccer League, there was a period in time when we had to rely on the US Pro Leagues to create professional opportunities for our players.

That was about to change following the unexpected CONCACAF Gold Cup victory in 2000: in 2002, the Canadian Soccer Association decided to address this gap and created a Grassroots Standards for growing the game. However, even this

path was filled with hurdles and it wasn’t until 2006 that this idea was implemented seriously on a national level to Long Term Player Development. This process has involved significant work but has finally started to fundamentally change the way Canadians see soccer and play it, particularly at youth level.

Between 2014 and 2016, soccer overtook hockey as the largest sport in the country by youth player participation.

With nearly three quarters of a million registered players, soccer was the top team sport in the country in 2014, only outdone by swimming

Studies by the Canadian Youth Sports Report found that most parents think of soccer as cheap, skillful and tactical as opposed to the other major North American sports, which are seen as being expensive, brutal and dangerous; that due to the physical nature of those sports, it is “easy to be injured participating.”

This resurgence of soccer interest in the country has partly been a result of the emergence of an extremely talented squad of players, led by an equally talented coach in John Herdman, an Englishman who learned his trade at the academy of

cup, domestic cup, club world cup, continental cup and continental supercup).

Having already won nearly all there is to win at a club level, Davies has clearly stated his desire to take Canada directly to the upcoming FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022TM. David, while lesser known of the duo, still led the goalscoring charts in the French Ligue 1 last season with Lille as they won the league title themselves. In them, Canada has two world class players who can win a match on their own.

These two talismanic figures are supported by veteran Red Star Belgrade goalkeeper Milan Borjan

“

Soccer is growing in Canada in a truly distinct Canadian way, and while the nation hasn’t competed in the World Cup finals since 1986, a decade of practically uncontested growth is about to change that.”

overall. Soccer was the top team sport for kids aged 3-6, tweens 7-12 and teens 13-17, as well as for both boys and girls.

Nearly all regions equally contributed to this growth: the Atlantics with their strong ties to European culture, the four big provinces with their large immigrant base and, surprisingly, even the Prairies took an active interest in soccer participation.

A positive perception around soccer’s ‘image’ has proven to be quite helpful.

the famous English club, Sunderland. Two players who need no introduction to the soccer faithful worldwide are Alphonso “Phonzie” Davies and Jonathan David. Davies, at the young age of 22, is already considered the best full back in the world, an unbelievable achievement for a Canadian in soccer. In 2020, he played a significant role in making FC Bayern Munich become only the second club in history to have won the sextuple (league title, league

and 38-year old skipper Atiba Hutchinson who together provide the leadership and experience to this very young team. Alongside Hutchinson in midfield, there is another bright prospect in Stephen Eustaquio, who plays his club football with Portuguese Primeira Liga outfit Pacos Ferreira. In attack, David has shared time with Besiktas striker Cyle Larin, who is proving a sensation in qualifying. Shoring up the defense, we have MLS

superstars in the likes of Richie Laryea (Toronto FC), Alistair Johnson (CF Montreal) as well as goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau (Vancouver Whitecaps).

While the average age of the team itself does not cross 25 years, there are fantastic backup options in place with the likes of Toronto’s homegrown Tajon Buchanan, playing in Club Brugge and Theo Corbeanu, a loanee from Wolverhampton Wanderers.

This allowed Herdman to create what he describes as the “hockey approach” to team building. Outside of the core players of David and Davies, the Les Rouges constantly change their lineup based on form and tactics, often during the same round. This allowed the team to excel against the more traditional rigid formations other teams deployed and added a very unique Canadian style to the team.

Coincidentally, this national team also reflects the diversity of Canada’s diaspora in a way previous generations couldn’t. Whether you’re a Ghanaian immigrant, or a 3rd generation Italian from Toronto, you have someone like Phonzie or Cavallini to look up to. And the more these young players gain fame and exposure on the global stage, the more soccer gets picked up locally. Therefore, it was no surprise that soccer interest skyrocketed as Canada moved up from rank 97 to 40, becoming the most improved nation in a calendar year.

Another reason that makes Canadian Soccer continued on page 15

14 • THE CANNON

FEBRUARY 2022

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FEBRUARY 2022 Canadian Soccer continued from page 13 soccer such a hit among the young generation is the rise of globalism and national shift in mentality away from US-Canada isolationism.

Soccer is the world’s sport and soccer institutions are globally famous, dominating followership. This desire to fit in created the cross cultural dialogue that made basketball a global sport and it is starting to turn Canadians towards soccer as well. While the best Canadian players are already plying their trade in Europe’s heavyweight leagues, the domestic circuit has undergone a massive shift with the introduction of the Canadian Premier League to create a breeding ground for future young talents and give Canadians a team to call their own at home. In true Canadian fashion, it keeps certain Americanisms in the

sport such as playoffs, drafts and trades, but discards the US franchise model for a traditional British club model with a promised promotion/ relegation system, making it an instant hit among the locals while also garnering curiosity on the international stage.

The biggest unitary factor of soccer these days is the low cost and widespread accessibility of the game, particularly viewings of Canadian soccer teams, on all platforms, whether in person or online. Every major city in Canada now boasts (or is in the process of boasting) at least one Tier 1 soccer team in the CPL or MLS, a fact you cannot say for hockey and certainly not for basketball. Moreover, ticket prices are far more affordable than any other sport. Even foreign leagues like the English Premiership, Championship or European

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continental competitions cost less to stream here than what viewers pay for in the UK. While basketball brought a battering ram to door on hockey’s monopoly with the Raptors’ rapid emergence and championship win in 2019, soccer has been slowly creeping up on its more popular rivals for a while with steady organic growth.

Soccer now ranks #2 and #3 in Montreal and Vancouver respectively while every team on Canada’s Tier 1 has shown follower increases in the thousands.

This growth culminated in about 50,000 fans flooding into Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium, which had been blanketed by around 20 centimeters of snow the day before, to see Canada beat Mexico and end their twenty-one year winless streak. And that wasn’t all. Another estimated 1.15 million people tuned into

Sportsnet’s broadcast of the Canada vs. Mexico game.

To put that number into perspective, it’s about the average number of people who watch CTV news every night, and more than the average viewership of Hockey Night in Canada. Needless to say, it broke all Canadian soccer viewership records. This is no measly feat for a sport that has been constantly ridiculed for being ‘boring’. Not to mention the unreported popularity among young Canadians as seen by iconic moments of the match being shared all over TikTok, Instagram, and Twitch.

A younger demographic is being drawn towards soccer thanks to its financial benefits, an insurgence of new talent, recent success and a generally supportive environment that surrounds the beautiful game. Soccer is growing in Canada in a truly distinct Canadian way, and while the

nation hasn’t competed in the World Cup finals since 1986, a decade of practically uncontested growth is about to change that. Now, does any of that guarantee long term success for soccer in Canada? Will soccer turn into a cultural force in the country and matchdays become a day of festivity like in Europe?

Or will it just be a flash in the pan? Let me know if you are a licensed prophet. But there’s one thing we know for certain: Canadians love cheering for Canadians. The whole country united with the Raptors against the US in 2019 and again with the women’s team at the Olympics in 2021. If the men’s team can match their performance this time and make it to the biggest sports tournament on Earth, you can bet on us getting together once again to take on the world.

the protection of private property is the foundation of all personal liberty?”

It didn’t seem like they did.

“Seriously, guys.

Without a strong economic motivator, I’m just going to stand here and not solve this case. Cash is fine, but I prefer being paid in gold bullion or autographed Penn Jillette posters.”

Nothing. These people were stonewalling me. It almost seemed like they didn’t care that a fortune in computer money invented to buy drugs was missing.

I figured I could wait them out. I lit several cigarettes indoors.

A pregnant lady coughed, and I told her that secondhand smoke is a myth. Just then, a man in glasses made a break for it.

“Subway™ Eat Fresh and Freeze, Scumbag!®” I yelled.

Too late. He was already out the front door. I went after him.

“Stop right there!” I yelled

as I ran. He was faster than me because I always try to avoid stepping on public sidewalks. Our country needs a private-sidewalk voucher system, but, thanks to the incestuous interplay between our corrupt federal government and the public-sidewalk lobby, it will never happen.

I was losing him. “Listen, I’ll pay you to stop!” I yelled.

“What would you consider an appropriate price point for stopping? I’ll offer you a thirteenth of an ounce of gold and a gently worn ‘Bob Barr ‘08’ extra-large longsleeved men’s T-shirt!”

He turned. In his hand was a revolver that the Constitution said he had every right to own. He fired at me and missed. I pulled my own gun, put a quarter in it, and fired back. The bullet lodged in a U.S.P.S. mailbox less than a foot from his head. I shot the mailbox again, on purpose.

“All right, all right!” the man yelled, throwing down

his weapon. “I give up, cop! I confess: I took the bitcoin.”

“Why’d you do it?” I asked, as I slapped a pair of Oikos™ Greek Yogurt Presents Handcuffs® on the guy.

“Because I was afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Afraid of an economic future free from the pernicious meddling of central bankers,” he said.

“I’m a central banker.”

I wanted to coldcock the guy. Years ago, a central banker killed my partner.

Instead, I shook my head.

“Let this be a message to all your central-banker friends out on the street,” I said. “No matter how much bitcoin you steal, you’ll never take away the dream of an open society based on the principles of personal and economic freedom.”

He nodded, because he knew I was right. Then he swiped his credit card to pay me for arresting him.

STICKNOON’S STICKTHOUGHTS

4891

RUKNOON DINDER Cannon Writer I was shooting heroin and reading “The Fountainhead” in the front seat of my privately owned police cruiser when a call came in. I put a quarter in the radio to activate it. It was the chief.

“Bad news, detective.

We’ve got a situation.”

“What? Is the mayor trying to ban trans fats again?”

“Worse. Somebody just stole four hundred and forty-seven million dollars’ worth of bitcoin.”

The heroin needle practically fell out of my arm. “What kind of monster would do something like that? Bitcoin is the ultimate currency: virtual, anonymous, stateless. It represents true economic freedom, not subject to arbitrary manipulation by any government. Do we have any leads?”

“Not yet. But mark my

words: we’re going to figure out who did this and we’re going to take them down … provided someone pays us a fair market rate to do so.”

“Easy, chief,” I said. “Any rate the market offers is, by definition, fair.”

He laughed. “That’s why you’re the best I got, Lisowski. Now you get out there and find that bitcoin.”

“Don’t worry,” I said.

“I’m on it.”

I put a quarter in the siren. Ten minutes later, I was on the scene. It was a normal office building, strangled on all sides by public sidewalks. I hopped over them and went inside.

“Home Depot™ Presents the Police!®” I said, flashing my badge, my gun, and a small picture of Ron Paul.

“Nobody move unless you want to!” They didn’t.

“Now, which one of you punks is going to pay me to investigate this crime?” No one spoke up.

“Come on,” I said. “Don’t you all understand that

16 • THE CANNON

FEBRUARY 2022

The New Normal: How the Student Experience is Evolving QIN LIU & LEIGH MCNEIL-TABOIKA External: ISTEP Preliminary findings from focus groups investigating engineering students’ experiences during the 2021 fall term.

After a year and a half of taking classes online, most engineering students have now returned to inperson classes, tutorials, and practicals. As researchers with the Institute for Studies in Transdisciplinary Engineering Education and Practice (ISTEP), we ran focus groups during the Fall Reading Week with seven undergraduate engineering students to learn about their experiences this semester.

These students are from four programs and six of them are currently in their third year of study. These students told us that most of their courses are in-person but often have some online asynchronous components.

A few interesting themes emerged.

Feeling positive about being in-person All seven students indicated that they have a much better mental health this term when compared to last year. As Betty* said, “I think my mental health [is] miles above last year…

I’m a very social person, so being able to see people and talk to people is ‘thumbs up’, fantastic for my mental health.”

In-person social interactions also help students learn more efficiently. Felicia shared that “it’s so easy in online learning to get stuck on something” whereas “this year, I’ve noticed … if you’re working with a friend, [you can] bounce an idea off them right away, or talk through a problem right away. You just notice yourself finishing stuff faster.”

All students favoured the in-person environment, despite some feeling like having generally less time to study or anticipating a less satisfactory academic performance, relative to online. Emily commented: “personally, I definitely prefer being able to go to class in-person, … even though I think I definitely did better academically last year than I probably will be doing this year.” Similarly, Catharine said: “I had a lot more time when it was online, but I definitely like being back in person. I’m

tired or I need a break and I’ll treat that as my break. It feels like there’s a lot less time for everything but at the same time, when I do have the time for things, I feel a lot more productive.”

This transition has been overwhelming for some students. Alice described feeling overwhelmed as: “Sometimes, I’ll be sitting in the lecture hall, and I’ll be like, ‘What? I’m in a lecture hall. What? There’s people around me.’ It still is very weird to me. … I feel like a lot of the profs maybe have not acknowledged that.” and

“

hear anything.”

A call for keeping a balance of in-person and online learning The seven students reported vastly different strategies for how they prefer to learn. While some strongly preferred in-person learning, sharing that they never went to the online office hours but got their questions answered during in-person tutorials, others strongly preferred online office hours and the availability of recordings of live lectures as supplementary resources.

Now that we are finally returning to in-person learning, the question still remains: will engineering education simply return to what it looked like in 2019?

The input from these students suggests that we should instead try to find the best balance between online and in-person learning. What do you think and why? We will be conducting more focus groups and will do another student survey in May. We The learning environment, look forward to hearing what amidst many other you have learnt about your factors, also seems to have learning preferences through affected students’ academic this transition and how this performance dramatically. transition may help improve Some of them did much teaching and learning in our better academically in the Faculty moving forward. If in-person environment you have comments about whereas others’ academic this article or are interested performance peaked last in participating in future year when all courses were focus groups, please feel free to contact us. offered exclusively online.

Being aware of these differences, one participant *Please note that names made the following recommendation, which have been changed to protect was echoed by another. identity of the students.

This recommendation also Authors: resonated strongly with Qin Liu, Ph.D.: Senior us and nicely captured the findings from our study Research Associate of ISTEP, over the past year about qinql.liu@utoronto.ca Leigh McNeil-Taboika: online learning during the Master’s student of the pandemic: “I guess all this [is] to Collaborative Specialization say, if it’s possible to keep in Engineering Education, an open [mind] to iterating leigh.mcneil.taboika@mail. utoronto.ca

Now that we are finally returning to in-person learning, the question still remains: will engineering education simply return to what it looked like in 2019?”

very appreciative of being able to see people in person again, especially since I like being around people.”

Returning to in-person is another transition The students noted that they needed to make adjustments to adapt to returning to in-person learning. They are making efforts to improve their time management, to cope with the shortage of time for studying due to the additional time they are spending to commute, travel between classes, and socialize with their peers.

George, a commuter student, shared: “I’ve learned to optimize when I commute.

So, for example, if I feel productive on campus, I’ll stay a bit longer on campus and then I’ll leave when I’m

added “I really care about working out every day, and it’s just overwhelming that … I can’t really do that anymore, and I feel like that’s taking a toll on my mental health as well.”

Another challenge presented by the transition to in-person learning is the lack of adequate spaces on campus for students to attend online classes, tutorials, and office hours. Felicia noticed that online class activities are “easier to forget, but also even if you know that they’re happening, it’s harder to find a spot to actually go to them”.

Betty similarly commented that “you’re kind of on your own to find places to watch lecture, which is usually very difficult because, especially at tea time, there’s a lot of people walking around … so it’s really loud and you can’t

and trying to still find that good balance between the in-person and online things, recognizing that for different people, a different balance might be better. I know a lot of my friends still benefit more from having the online videos and just watching those, but then there’s the other end of the spectrum where it’s just the in-person stuff [that] is helpful. And so if profs recognize that and are flexible with it and try to work with the students to figure out what’s working best, that’s very helpful versus just being firm on the way that they want to do it.”