Yesterday was another busy day at the University of Toronto.  The Department of Computer Science hosts a ShowCaSe competition every year, and I got a chance to volunteer at this year’s event.  The competition is essentially a chance for high school students to demo projects that they’ve done at school.  Things ranged from games the students programmed, to things like attaching a webcam to remote control cars.  All of the ambassadors and faculty members were amazed at the work done by these high school students!  I wish I had more time to play around with these projects, but I had to give Bahen tours.  But congratulations to the winners once again!  I’m sure they’ll have an awesome time at AutoDesk!

In addition to the ShowCaSe competition that was held in the morning, the Department of Computer Science also had an Open House in the afternoon.  This Open House was slightly different than the March Break Open House we had a few weeks ago.  At yesterday’s Open House, students and their parents got a chance to listen to some of our undergraduate and graduate computer science students share their experiences.  Faculty members also gave the audience more administrative information regarding our program (e.g., what type of courses students will take during their first year…etc.).  Lori and I were fortunate enough to get the chance to speak at the Open House.  Originally, Diane asked me to speak about how excited I am about PEY, considering how I will be starting this May.  However, during our presentation run-through, we realized that I wasn’t able to cover my PEY position and experience in much detail since I haven’t started yet.  So we decided that it would be a better idea if I spoke about the projects that I’ve completed as an undergraduate student thus far, and what I did for Google Summer of Code last year.  I was pretty nervous giving the talk yesterday (I’m not sure if I spoke a little too fast), but I still hope the students benefitted from the content in my presentation.

At the Open House reception, I got a chance to speak to a few graduate students that also spoke at the Open House.  They were telling me how cool grad school is.  I’m not sure why, but ever since last fall, it seems as if I’ve been constantly told how awesome it is to be in grad school.  People keep telling me about how you can pursue in your specific area of interest even further (while being funded), and how it’s something they really like and couldn’t find in the job they were doing before.  I never considered grad school, but I might start thinking about it now.  But as far as I’m concerned right now, I really just want to finish this term and head out to the workforce to get more practical experience.

Yesterday certainly was a busy day! After all the talking throughout the day, I left the reception with a sore throat.  I guess I’m not really used to speaking so much at once!

I think I’ll end this post with an update on the school visits that James and I have been arranging.  Up until know, we have 1 school visit scheduled!  We will be visiting Bayview Secondary School on April 16th!  Definitely looking forward to that!

By the way, I’d like to thank James, Brian, and Veronica for all their help in helping me put yesterday’s talk together!