Upgrades, and education quality
WordPress, the free software that I use to manage this site, just released a new version. After all these months, I still feel bad that I’ve never bothered to customize the design, considering I’ve been building websites since 1999. Oh well, at this moment in time, I’d rather focus on more important pursuits.
My most recent online work has been some reconstruction of the Economics Department website here at TRU. It’s not exciting, and I was restricted to the ancient templates provided, but at least I could make the site just a tad more accessible, clean up the code, and give you, the user, control over text-size. In a few months, UCC will become Thompson Rivers University and they will launch a redesigned site. It is supposed to use a content management system that will allow departments to make changes to their site without having to learn code, or use any special software. I have some ideas for the redesign, but I need to wait until my life settles down before I bite into more than I can chew. My guess is that the current site was designed around 2001, and the school has grown a lot since. All in all, this is a great school and it’s too bad that the website does not entirely reflect a modern, growing university. It’ll all come in time.
I’ve been at university for six months and I absolutly love it. Anyone who labels it a ‘lesser’ school, because it’s new, or not in a ‘major’ city centre, is really missing out. TRU’s size means it may not have the breadth of programs offered at a school like SFU or UBC, but the programs it does offer are great. Anyone I’ve ever spoken to about other, more established, universities have said they really appreciate the personal attention you can get from your instructors. While some professors at other schools try to offload their work on teachers assistants, the TRU teachers are very accessible to us; my math teacher has even complained that not enough students drop by her office for extra help. Even those students worried about student loans will benefit from the lower tuition than other BC schools, and the lower cost of living in Kamloops — bottom line, is that you can graduate with less debt… and who can complain about that? I haven’t decided whether I will finish my degree here, but I assure anyone considering this school that my decision will be based on factors unrelated to the quality of education.
February 20th, 2005 at 12:15 am
Hey man! Completely agree with your opinion. Who cares how big the university is if we students can’t even get enough access to the faculty. We will obviously will learn more under the guidance of accessible and dedicated teachers. So, TRU is the BEST!!!
February 25th, 2005 at 10:47 am
Having attended one of the “big” Canadian universities out east, I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of education at UCC/TRU. Not what I expected at all, and I’m glad for it. (Although, I never had any trouble with access to faculty at UW … in fact, in some respects it was easier there. I’ve yet to go to a pub with a TRU science prof, but that was certainly done at UW)
The one complaint that I have about TRU is directly solely at the student body. With few notable exceptions, the students at TRU behave as though they’re still in high school, as opposed to university. There is very little student participation in the day-to-day running of the university. During the last student society elections, less than 10% of the student body turned out to vote. Regardless, this was hailed as a great success because it was up from 6% the previous year.
I studied at the University of Waterloo, and there the student body was very active on campus. In addition to a number of student-run organizations that actively promoted themselves on campus, students also managed the on-campus pubs, a used bookstore (we could definitely use one of those!), and even ran student C&Ds (coffee & doughnut shops) that gave the campus Tim Hortons a definite run for its money.
Rather than complain, I’d like to actually do something. The problem is, I’m just not sure what I can do to generate student interest.