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Announcements:

CSSS Director Meeting Questions

posted by Mitchell Gale on June 3, 2022, 7:22 p.m.


Hi All,

The Computing Science Student Society is meeting with the Director of the School of Computing Science next week. We would love for you to let us know what questions you might have regarding computing science at SFU.


Please fill out this Survey by Sunday June 5th, 11:59PM. Please fill it out once for each question (feel free to ask multiple questions)

http://websurvey.sfu.ca/survey/427752636



Similar to last time we will follow up with answers to as many of these questions as we can get to.


See below the previous announcement during the Summer 2021 & Fall 2021 semester with questions/answers discussed during that meeting.


Thanks,


Mitchell Gale

Computing Science Student Society President



From: Mitchell Gale <mgale@sfu.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2022 12:05 AM
To: cmpt-students@sfu.ca; csss-announce@sfu.ca; csss-honorary@sfu.ca
Subject: Re: CSSS Director Meeting Questions
 

Hi All,


Thank you for your patience, one of the questions lead to action that is still currently ongoing, so I let the discussion go for a bit before following up.


Here are my summarized, high-level notes from out meeting with the Director as well as other information I know from within the department.


Courses:

"Will there be an increase in course offering in Surrey?"

        Yes, there will be increases in the course offerings in Surrey.


"Will courses continue to have recording lectures?"

        The option of recording lectures is left to the individual instructors.


"CMPT 105w and CMPT 376w seem to have a lot of overlap in material"

        Since students still are in the middle of transitioning requirements from not requiring CMPT 105w to requiring it, there is some overlap. The plan for 376w is to make it more technical in the future.


"Are there plans to continue offering online courses?"

        Some select course offerings may be offered online, but a vast majority will be in person. Instructors will need to justify why their class will be better, if taught online.


"CMPT 405 covers similar material to CMPT 307"

        Initially parts of the course may be similar as it is a grad course (CMPT 705) as well, but once a foundation is made for undergraduate and graduate students the topics should dive deeper than CMPT 307.


Course enrollment issues (specifically CMPT 105W/CMPT 295)

        There have been 700 seats of CMPT 105W offered between Spring 2021 and Spring 2022. Issue could resolve itself as students catch up on taking it.   There have been 1000 seats offered of CMPT 295 between Spring 2021 and Spring 2022 which is already a lot of offerings and a lot of seats.


"When will the new courses such as Web Development I/II, Mobile Computing and others be offered?"

        Offerings will start in Summer 2022 and will happen in various semesters for various courses.



Admin:

"Why was the 2.4 GPA requirement added to enroll in so many CMPT courses?"

        The requirement has been in the school for a number of years but just started being enforced. Students with low GPA often struggled in higher level CMPT courses. Quality of courses also lowered because classes may have needed to support students who did not have as good of a foundation.


Question about students making ethical decisions for the companies they choose to do a co-op at.

                Discussions were sparked within the FAS Co-op office as well as on a course offering level on how to better educate and cover the wide range of ethical situations students may face throughout their careers. These ethical situations can be from the standpoint of the choices/actions made by the company at, large as well as the individual tasks required for their jobs. The School of Computing Science is trying to add it to both the Co-op and the general Computing Science requirements where it makes sense.


Concerns about teaching quality from instructors
               Biannual performance reviews occur with each instructor, feedback from the end-of-semester course evaluations are taken seriously. Please fill out and encourage your peers to fill out the evaluations (usually send via Email, sometimes physically filled out during lecture). Evaluation rates are considerably low in many courses. Syllabus is almost a contract between an instructor and their students, it should outline expectations of a class. Flexibility is up to the instructor's discretion, and may change based on class size, slight change in material coverage, etc. If the change is disruptive it can be reported and investigated by the CS department.


I know the School of Computing Science has been working on hiring some new faculty, hopefully we see lots of new, motivated instructors over the next few semesters teaching various courses.




Thanks,


Mitchell Gale

Computing Science Student Society President




From: Mitchell Gale
Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2021 10:46 PM
To: cmpt-students@sfu.ca; csss-announce@sfu.ca; csss-honorary@sfu.ca
Subject: CSSS Director Meeting Questions
 

Hi All,


The Computing Science Student Society is meeting with the Director of the School of Computing Science next week. We would love for you to let us know what questions you might have regarding computing science at SFU.


Please fill out this one question survey by end of day Thursday December 16th, 2021.

http://websurvey.sfu.ca/survey/415802770


Similar to last time we will follow up with answers to many of the questions.


See below the previous announcement during the Summer 2021 semester with questions/answers discussed during that meeting. 



Good luck on your remaining finals.


Thanks,


Mitchell Gale

Computing Science Student Society President




From: Mitchell Gale <mgale@sfu.ca>
Sent: Saturday, July 10, 2021 12:08 AM
To: cmpt-students@sfu.ca; csss-announce@sfu.ca; csss-honorary@sfu.cacmpt-students@sfu.ca; csss-announce@sfu.ca; csss-honorary@sfu.ca
Subject: Re: CSSS Director Meeting Questions
 

Hi All,


Thank you for your many questions.


I asked the Director your questions and provided a summary of responses below.


Bold are the questions.

non-bold are a summary of the response/discussion had.

Indented sections are my comments on them.


As many of you know the remote course offering list can be found here. https://www.sfu.ca/students/support/classes-2021/remote-classes-fall.html


Some notes about Covid-19 and on campus learning.

 - Ventilation is being inspected and improved as well as additional filtration systems

 - Bulk of courses are in person

 - Instructors are being recommended to record lecture slides/voice and host online. In most cases this won't be a room recording as some lectures previously had, but likely a screen capture and audio recording. For in person classes, exams are going to be in person, so being close to SFU is important.



"CMPT courses have awarded the lowest average grades in SFU over the last 10 years, as well the lowest average grades for 2019/2020 (both lower and upper division courses). Are there any plans to deal with this at all, in regards to scholarship acquisition, grad school applications, and how our transcripts look to employers?"

Computing Science Courses are around the average grade given by SFU for the over the past 3 years (time frame they looked into this for).


He showed me the differences and it was exceptionally close to the SFU average for the past 3 years, within a few hundredths of a grade point.


"When is ASB construction set to end"

Scheduled to be done around the end of the Fall term.



"Can there be more evening classes?"

Evening classes are not offered often, they need to work with the instructors schedule. They also can make the course less accessible to people taking early courses causing large gap between their classes.



"Do concentrations still exist within Computing Science"

Yes they do.

http://www.sfu.ca/students/calendar/2021/fall/programs/computing-science/major/bachelor-of-science-or-bachelor-of-arts.html (Look near the bottom of the page)



"Taking courses CMPT courses abroad is difficult in terms of transferring of credits."

If not all the same topics are taught in a course at SFU it is possible that the course will not transfer over. There are lots of Universities and their courses change, so it's not practical to have a list of all Universities and which courses can be transferred.



"Will CMPT 318 (Cyber Security) be turned into a regular course"

Yes, it will be turned into a regular courses with a unique course number.



"Are there plans to be more Cyber Security courses in the future?"

Yes, there are plans to have more Cyber Security courses in the near future.



"Can CMPT 376w be made more technical"

Apparently the course is in a bit of a shift due to the addition of CMPT 105w some of the material now covered in CMPT 376w will be taught in CMPT 105w leaving CMPT 376w to see coverage change.



"What is happening with the removal of CMPT 127"

CMPT 127 is being combined with CMPT 125.



"Why do some upper division courses in the AI column not have CMPT 310 as a per-requisite?"

The school does not like making unnecessary per-requisites to courses as they can act as "gate-keepers".



"Will Cryptocurrency/Blockchain be added to coverage of courses"

They are important technologies and they likely will have components taught in future.


When exactly courses covering these technologies will be taught, it's not yet know.




We will do this again in the Fall.



Thanks,


Mitchell Gale

Computing Science Student Society President
csss_president@sfu.ca

Note:
July 13th at 4:30PM there is a discussion where students can talk with faculty on how they would like to see in person classes return.

Meeting ID: 663 5066 0702
Password: 528995


From: jkl53 <jkl53@sfu.ca>
Sent: Monday, June 21, 2021 6:07:04 PM
To: csss-announce@sfu.ca; cmpt-students@sfu.ca; csss-honorary@sfu.ca
Subject: CSSS Director Meeting Questions
 

Hi All,

The Computing Science Student Society is meeting with the director of Computing Science at the end of this month. We would love for you to provide us with some questions about the future of Computing Science at SFU, Covid related topics, any suggestions for improvements, or anything else you would like for us to ask.

Please fill out this form with your questions/suggestions by Saturday June 26th:
http://websurvey.sfu.ca/survey/403650706

I'll follow up with this email after the meeting with answers to many of the questions.

Best,
Johnson Luong
Director of Communications | SFU Computing Science Student Society

CSSS General Meeting - June 9 2022

posted by Jared Murphy on June 3, 2022, 12:25 a.m.


Hi all,

This is notice of the Computing Science Student Society's next general meeting.

Date: Thursday, June 9, 2022
Time: 7:00PM
Location: TASC 9204

The following is the Agenda:
- Report of Officers
- Announcements
- Motions
- Open Floor
- Approval of minutes

Attached below is a copy of last meeting's minutes. Have a look and reach out to your exec team if you have any questions.

You are automatically a member of the CSSS if you are a declared CMPT Major, Minor, or Honours in any program of study offered at the undergraduate level by the School of Computing Science; or currently enrolled in any undergraduate course offered by the School of Computing Science; or are an Honorary Member of the Society.

Voting is restricted to members only.

You may attend the meeting remotely by joining the General Meetings voice channel on the CSSS Discord at the link below.
http://discord.sfucsss.org/

Hope to see you there!

- Jared Murphy, Director of Archives

attachment 1

CSSS Resume Review Workshop - Link

posted by Valerie Kistrina on June 1, 2022, 2:05 p.m.


Hey All! 

The Resume Review Workshop with Campus Program Coordinator from Visier, Emily Ma, will be hosted virtually, today at 5:00PM
Below is the link to the event as promised 😃 

We hope to see you there!

Resume Review Workshop with Campus Program Coordinator from Visier
Date: Wednesday, June 1, 2022
Time: 5:00PM-6:30PM

Thanks,

Valerie Kistrina 
CSSS Director of Educational Events


CSSS Resume Review Workshop - Updates

posted by Valerie Kistrina on May 29, 2022, 5:23 p.m.


Hey All! 

The Resume Review Workshop with Campus Program Coordinator from Visier, Emily Ma, will be hosted virtually on Wednesday June 1 at 5:00PM! 😃 
The Zoom link will be shared prior to the session by e-mail.

Thank you to those who sent in their resumes. We have selected resumes and grouped them by those seeking for first co-op, second+ co-op, and those seeking for new grad positions.

Emily will be sharing resume screening best practices and providing customized feedback. 📑✍️ Although your resume might not have been selected, the session will contain valuable feedback that can transferred to your own resume and there will be time allocated for a Q&A.

We hope to see you there!

Resume Review Workshop with Campus Program Coordinator from Visier
Date: Wednesday, June 1, 2022
Time: 5:00PM-6:30PM
Location: Virtual. Zoom link will be shared prior to the session by e-mail. 

Thanks,

Valerie Kistrina 
CSSS Director of Educational Events

CSSS Biweekly Newsletter: 13th Edition

posted by Johnson Luong on May 25, 2022, 11:27 p.m.


Biweekly Computing Science Student Society (CSSS)
Newsletter: 13th edition

Welcome to the CSSS newsletter!
Here we hope to inform our students of exciting opportunities and events, while cutting down on the sheer amount of emails sent for each individual event.
We hope you will find this newsletter beneficial! If you have any suggestions, events, or simply want to contact us, you can reach me at jkl53@sfu.ca
- Johnson Luong

📅 CSSS General Meeting

Q: What is a General Meeting? 
A: General Meetings are how the Computing Science Student Society passes information along to the student body and motion money to be spent on items and events. By attending you will get to have a better understanding how we operate and have a say in how we run.

The following is the Agenda:
- Report of Officers
- Announcements
- ✨Exec at Large election (x2)
- ✨Frosh Chair election
- Election results ratification
- Open floor
- Motions
- Approval of minutes

*Voting is restricted to in-person attendees

🤝Exec at Large Responsibilities
- Share responsibility for the day-to-day operations of the CSSS and its resources.
- Be available to the other executives to assist them with tasks relating to the operations and activities of the CSSS.
- Write a continuity report at the end of their term for the next executive member who will fill this position.

🪑Frosh Chair Responsibilities
– Be responsible for overseeing the organization and planning of Frosh Week.
– Chair a Frosh Week Committee and hold regular meetings to discuss and plan Frosh Week.
– Hold their position from the time of their appointment until the conclusion of all Frosh Week events that were planned.

You can run for both positions, but can only hold one of them. We recommend you have a short speech if running.

Date: Thursday, May. 26th, 2022
Time: 7:00 - 8:00pm
Location: In Person @ TASC 9204 (or Remote on the CSSS Discord in he #General_Meetings Voice Channel)

🎮 Kabam Game Dev Talk

Interested in game development? 🕹️

Join the Game Dev Club on May 30th where their guest speaker, John Harvey, a senior developer at Kabam games, will be breaking down the first few minutes of a game's experience.

This 1-hour talk starts at 11:00am and will be delivered in a hybrid format, both in TASC1 9204 West (Burnaby campus) and online through Zoom. Don't pass up the chance to ask questions & learn from a seasoned professional!

Date: Monday, May. 30th, 2022
Time: 11:00am - 12:00pm
Location: In Person @ TASC 9204 (and online through Zoom)
RSVP: https://forms.gle/hsX7KBA4xd4vmyqZ8

🎲Google Build Your Tech Career Workshop

Are you a student looking into building a career path for yourself and want to make the right decisions and choose the right things but are confused on where to start? 👀

You: sounds about right.

That's okay! Come and Learn from a Google Employee❗
Date: Tuesday, May. 31st, 2022
Time: 4:00pm - 5:30pm PST
RSVP: 
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfpcY4t1uetKBY8Un-z8t0UFeg3B3txo6VQEEUYjzQBGlfj7w/viewform

🖱️  DSSS Kaggle Workshop

Interested in data analytics and machine learning but unsure where to start?

The SFU Data Science Student Society (DSSS) is hosting a Beginner Kaggle Workshop where they will examine, analyse, and fit a model to the Titanic Dataset while teaching you to use the Kaggle platform and the Python language!

🚢Titanic: Who Will Survive?
Workshop Date: Saturday, June 11 @ 2:00PM-3:30PM PST,
Virtual Zoom link: https://sfu.zoom.us/j/65330127689?pwd=d1lReDh0TytNNFVwalk4Y1I1NnlPQT09

Eventbrite registration: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/beginner-kaggle-workshop-titanic-who-will-survive-tickets-347755595347

🐝FAS Hive Volunteering

Want to help welcome new students to SFU in the Fall? Be part of supporting new students by helping them connect and feel welcome at SFU!

SFU is looking for HIVE Welcome Leaders from all Faculties to facilitate social and orientation activities this Fall. Not only are you helping new students, you will develop your leadership, problem-solving, and event planning skills, and gain an honorarium for your time! Formal training is scheduled throughout June/July. Please check MyInvolvement for more information about this opportunity.

Apply: https://myinvolvement.sfu.ca/home.htm > Opportunities > Getting Involved > All Opportunities > FAS HIVE Welcome Leader.
Deadline: Sunday, May. 29th, 2022

🎉Join Our Event's Committee! 

Want to get involved with the CSSS?🥳

Come take part in our Event's Committee. Where we'll be planning out events for the year. Everyone is welcome! 

If you would like to join please let our Director of Events (
Oliver, Liversticks#7734 on discord) know so we can give you the role to get access to the channels in our discord.

❗P.S. Our first Event's Committee meeting is coming up soon!
Date: Friday, May. 27, 2022
Time: 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Location: TASC 8003 (or on Discord)
Join Our Discord Server!
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