Distractions, reflections

One activity that has become regular for me is the annual meeting of the ISSS. Not only do I reconnect with many old colleagues from the systems community, but since the conference moves every year, I get to meet new people.

At the ISSS meeting in Crete in 2003, Apostolos was one the authors in sessions I ran. He was then a student in Greece, and we had some conversations on career direction. We’ve kept in touch over e-mail over the years. He went on to study in the International Master’s Program in Bioinformatics at Chalmers University of Technology in Goteborg, Sweden. This led to an opportunity to visit here at the University of Toronto, in the Department of Medical Genetics and Microbiology. Apostolos lives on our side of town, so for Sunday brunch, we decided he would meet the whole family for dim sum.

 Read more... (254 words, 2 images, estimated 1:01 mins reading time)

Eric has to pick his Grade 12 classes tomorrow, and was asking about various courses. (I’m really not a fan of business, economics and law classes, because they’re content that universities typically build from the ground up). Eric was planning on taking 8 classes and dropping two. The presumed minimum is English and one math class, then electives.

Just to make sure, I thought I’d check the admission requirements at U. of Toronto. Eric isn’t exactly sure what he’ll study, but he isn’t a math guy. He could end up in international relations, or economics or something along those lines. For the U. of T. faculty of arts and science, we found …

Minimum Admission Requirements

• Ontario Secondary School Diploma
• Six Grade 12 U/M courses, one of which must be English 4U
• Grade 12 U/M courses for specific program of interest

…

Humanities and Social Sciences (including Economics)  Read more... (266 words, estimated 1:04 mins reading time)

• Six Grade 12 U/M courses must include English 4U. Students applying to the Economics program must have Advanced Functions and Introductory Calculus, as well as either Geometry and Discrete Mathematics or Mathematics of Data Management.

David hits the stacks at the university, in the evening when it’s not busy.

(by David):  I have an alumnus library card for U. of Toronto, but access to journal articles requires full-time enrolment. The university library has a few public access terminals up in the stacks, so I can read the full selection of journals if I go to the university in person.

It’s a bit annoying that the university changes protocols every fall, so it takes a bit to find out the new ways. When I was at the university a few weeks ago, I couldn’t find the public access terminals amongst the two dozen that are immediately in front of the elevators on the 11th floor (where the business and economics books are). This time, I decided to try to find the terminals on the 9th floor. They turned out to not be outside the elevators, but hidden away in the stacks, near the books. The PCs have all been replaced, so the screens are a lot sharper than they used to be.

Between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. on a Wednesday night, it was relatively quiet. Students living on campus should be able to access library resources with their IDs, so they wouldn’t physically have to be in the Robarts building.  Read more... (282 words, estimated 1:08 mins reading time)

Another used book sale. The University College book sale is sometimes better and sometimes not as good as the Victoria College book sale. It’s usually got less philosophy, but a better selection of business books.

(by David): The UC book sale opens at noon on the Friday, so when I got there for 5 p.m., there wasn’t any line up

The treasure find of this trip was:

• Chris Argyris and Donald A. Schon, Organizational Learning, A Theory of Action Perspective, Addison Wesley, 1978. It’s a trade paperback for $2. This is one of the most cited books in the management literature, and totally out of print. I think that Argyris doesn’t want it republished because he has newer publications, although they weren’t co-authored with Schon.

I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, but here’s a list of what I found  Read more... (614 words, estimated 2:27 mins reading time)

• Smelser, Theory of Collective Behavior. I hadn’t heard of this book, but Smelser is one of the editors of The Handbook of Economic Sociology. Then the next day, I saw an article referencing this book.
• Mumford, The Culture of Cities. I’ve seen this cited in urban planning books when I read Jane Jacobs, but I can’t remember whether in a positive or negative light!