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NFL Fantasy Football
a, Football, Sports

Fantasy Football: Week 2 takeaways

by Josh Blatt on

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Week 2 was highlighted by a flurry of scoring and an onslaught of injuries. Seven teams broke the 30-point threshold on the back of huge games from several fantasy studs. Nevertheless, many owners will be crying themselves to sleep after key performers such as Tony Romo, Lamar Miller, Eddie Lacy, Jordan Cameron, and Jay Cutler were knocked out of games, reminding owners everywhere why depth is crucial in fantasy football.

The Cincinnati Bengals’ backfield is a soon-to-be murky situation

When fantasy owners dished out a high pick for the talented Jeremy Hill, they were hoping for a repeat of the sophomore tailback’s 1124-yard, nine-touchdown 2014 campaign. After scoring two touchdowns  in Week 1, Hill promptly had an eventful Sunday that included a brief injury exit, two fumbles, and a benching. Hill’s back-up Giovani Bernard has already amassed an astonishing 37 touches and 227 yards. With numbers like those, the Bengals are going to have a hard time taking Bernard off the field. It may be the right time to buy low on Bernard, but be warned, a timeshare is looming—one that is sure to provide owners with weekly headaches.

A disastrous day in Dallas

As the brilliant Ron Burgundy once said, “Boy, that escalated quickly.” Only one week ago things were looking just fine for the Dallas Cowboys. With Romo under centre and wide receiver Dez Bryant primed to tear up the league, this team appeared poised to build on last season’s 12-4 record, but no such luck. Bryant is out for six-plus weeks with a broken foot bone and now—to Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones’ delight—the franchise quarterback has been diagnosed with a fractured left clavicle. Oh, and tight end Jason Witten supposedly suffered injuries to both his ankles and a knee to add injury to injury. The rest of the Cowboys’ season may be difficult to watch as they will have to rely on a mediocre run game to hide the abysmal quarterback play of Brandon Weeden.

The Steelers are a force to be reckoned with

Things are heating up in Steel city after Pittsburgh  dismantled the San Francisco 49ers 43-18. Big Ben was sharp as usual, putting up 369 yards and three touchdowns, along with a herculean 195-yard effort by Antonio Brown. Backup halfback DeAngelo Williams also managed to score three touchdowns. With Brown quickly cementing himself as the league’s most consistent receiver, and the impending returns of all-purpose superstar Le’Veon Bell in Week 3 and up-and-coming wideout Martavis Bryant in Week 5, the Steelers offence is going to be a wrecking ball. Invest heavily in this team if given the opportunity—it is sure to be a fantasy goldmine.

The implosion of the Eagles

Upon receiving the go-ahead to rebuild his squad this off-season, Philadelphia Head Coach Chip Kelly did not hesitate to make some pretty drastic moves. In only a few months, the football community watched as star wide receiver Jeremy Maclin relinquished his Eagles uniform and veterans LeSean McCoy and Nick Foles were shipped out and replaced with Demarco Murray, Ryan Mathews, Kiko Alonso, and Sam Bradford. The result was an unwatchable Week 2 performance. The fiasco of a game included a blocked punt returned for a touchdown, picks, fumbles, and an Eagles run game that finished with a measly seven total yards. Until Kelly fixes the offensive line, the offence as a whole will continue to suffer.

Julio Jones and Matt Ryan: The best tandem in football

Hot off a two-touchdown, 141-yard torching of the Eagles in Week 1, wide receiver Julio Jones once again put up an awe-inspiring performance this week against the New York Giants. He reeled in a franchise-record 13 catches for 135 yards and a touchdown in the win. Julio’s speed, pass catching ability, and overall athleticism make him a mismatch for nearly every corner in the game. As long as quarterback Matt Ryan maintains his elite performance, Jones will be a threat to break 100 yards and find the end zone every Sunday.

Quarterback play at its finest

Derek Carr, Tyrod Taylor, Colin Kaepernick, Carson Palmer, Andy Dalton. What do these men have in common this week? Surprisingly, they find themselves in the top-10 quarterback fantasy performers of Week 2, ahead of superstars like Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson. Although these signal-callers aren’t the most attractive names to have in bye-week or two-quarterback lineups, they have proven that the NFL does have quarterback depth, and that they can pay dividends from time to time if you’re willing to take the risk. To grieving Romo owners looking to swing a big name replacement in a trade, consider streaming some of the aforementioned names based on weekly matchups. Solid picks this week include Taylor against the Dolphins and Carr versus the lowly Browns.

McGill Lower Field
a, McGill, News

The dirt on Lower Field: Budget cuts prevent maintenance

by Laura Hanrahan on

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The Lower West Field of McGill’s Downtown campus— commonly known as Lower Field among students— has, over the past two years, developed a large area of the field that is barren of grass. 

McGill Grounds and Vehicle Maintenance Supervisor Franco Nardi explained the origins of the damage. 

“The Lower West Field has been, for many years, the preferred location for the McGill community to hold memorable events and activities including […] Convocation ceremonies,” he said. “These great events have a devastating effect on the lawn due to the massive size of the tent, which covers the area we now see as barren.”

While these practices have been ongoing for quite some time, Nardi explained that the past few years have seen an especially detrimental effect on the field.

“In previous years the damaged area was revived with new grass after the Convocation ceremonies ended,” he said. “It has now been over two years since the last efforts were made.”

According to Nardi, overall funding cuts have contributed to the the lack of maintenance on Lower Field.

“The funding was stopped due to the fact that the practice was no longer sustainable and also coincided with budget cuts announced during that same period,” he said. 

In December 2012, due budget cuts within the Quebec government, McGill announced sudden and severe university funding cuts. According to a Senate presentation given by Provost Anthony C. Masi this past April, the university is currently tackling an estimated $1 billion-plus in deferred maintenance needs.

Nardi explained the Grounds department’s future plans to minimize further damage to the field. 

“We have been working on more sustainable solutions and scenarios, which include better management of field activities with the implementation of restricted and alternate play areas during the summer months and the use of rainwater recuperation systems,” he said. “We are presently replacing and planting 15 to 20 new trees as a better and sustainable option, and also as an ongoing practice for the time being.”

Senior Campus Planner for the Office of Campus and Space Planning Brian Karasick echoed Nardi’s sentiments. 

“The level of outdoor activity within the lower campus, especially for large events, has been steadily increasing,” Karasick said. “As noted, we have experimented with many ground cover options and ground preparations over the years, but none has managed to stand up to the intensity of use and to endure beyond a single season. We clearly need to find a more permanent and sustainable solution, but this will involve some careful consideration of the various activities and their respective impacts [and] needs. This initiative is currently underway.”

Karasick explained that all plans for the initiative are still in a preliminary stage and have yet to be solidified.

“This involves a number of McGill departments, and we’re still in the data gathering stage, so it’s too early to speculate on potential solutions,” he said. “Safety, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability will certainly be key determinants.”

Ben Ger, U2 Environment, agreed that the practice of maintaining Lower Field is not sustainable. 

“To some extent, front lawns in general are not completely sustainable,” he said. “Though there [are both] costs and benefits to it, at the end of the day, plain grass lawns, especially massive ones like McGill’s, do waste water.”

Ger suggested other potential uses for Lower Field that might make the land more sustainable and effective.

“Alternative uses for those spaces [include] interactive green spaces on Lower Field— specifically greenhouses to study in like Concordia’s— or expanding Campus Crops […] potentially onto Lower Field,” he said. “[Providing] places for community building [has] shown to have significant positive effects on productivity, and can be beneficial to mental health for many people.”

Ger, however, did acknowledge the complicated intricacies that come with making changes to McGill’s green spaces.

“Green spaces are complex issues that encompass mental health, spaces on campus, environmental cost and benefits, and fiscal feasibility. So I hope somebody who in a position of power on campus is paying attention.”

a, Private, Science & Technology

Ten-billion-year-old galaxy cluster discovered

by Daniel Galef on

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This week, NASA announced the discovery of a galaxy cluster found billions of light years from Earth. The finding, published in The Astrophysical Journal, identified a unique property of the cluster, named SpARCS1049+56. It hosts what physicists call a wet merger, which is a unique type of galactic joining in the presence of hydrogen gas. In the cluster, two component galaxies at the center are joining and creating new stars. Galaxy clusters, which can consist of anywhere from fifty to a thousand galaxies, are the largest things in the universe that are bound together by gravity.

Galaxy mergers are far from rare. SpARCS1049+56, which has been nicknamed Sparky, is special because its wet merger occurred in the center of a galaxy cluster, where it was thought that there would be no gas for new stars to form. As a galaxy drifts through a large cluster to settle at the center over immense periods of time, the raw stellar material is generally stripped away, creating a too old and too resource-poor galaxy that cannot form stars.

“Usually, the stars at the centers of galaxy clusters are old and dead, essentially fossils,” explains McGill physics Professor Tracy Webb.

The cluster was discovered primarily using the Spitzer Space Telescope. This telescope scans in the infrared (IR) spectrum, enabling it to detect the radiation emitted by bright starbursts created by the galaxy merger, far above the distortion created by Earth’s atmosphere. More information about the cluster’s properties was derived from data collected by the Canada France Hawaii (CFHT) Telescope and the Keck Telescope (amongst the largest terrestrial telescopes in use) as well as scans done by the Hubble Space Telescope.

SpARCS1049+56 is unique in more than one way. Not only is it undergoing this extremely unlikely type of rebirth—creating new stars—as a result of the wet merger, but it’s doing it at an incredible rate. The merger is thought to produce well over eight hundred new stars per year. In comparison, our own galaxy, the Milky Way, only births one or two stars per year.

A tell-tale sign of new star formation is the formation of gas pockets. This phenomenon, described as by astronomers as ‘beads on a string,’ was observed by the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes.

“With Spitzer's infrared camera, we can actually see the ferocious heat from all these hot young stars,” stated Jason Surace, Senior Research Astronomer at Caltech, another coauthor of the paper.

SpARCS1049+56 is 9.8 billion light-years from Earth. To put this into perspective, if Pluto were 7 μm away from the Earth (the width of a single red blood cell), the cluster would still be 133,000 km away.

SpARCS1049+56 is 9.8 billion light-years from earth. To put this into perspective, if Pluto were 7 μm away from the Earth (the width of a single red blood cell), the cluster would still be 133,000 km away (more than the diameter of Saturn).

But even though SpARCS1049+56 is extremely far away and very old. Also, any information we know about it ten billion years out of date, because that’s how long it’s taken light to travel the distance separating us from the galaxy cluster. However, astronomers believe that the cluster is still around today. Unlike other celestial bodies like stars and nebulae, whose expiration dates are astronomical but existent, galaxy clusters are essentially endless.

According to Webb, the fascinating galaxy wet merger that makes SpARCS1049+56 so special is by now long over, having lasted about a billion years. However, the object, now wholly merged into one gargantuan galaxy of mature stars, still very much exists and is probably one of the largest things in the universe.

“Today Sparky is probably a very massive galaxy but not one that has much going on,” said Webb.

 

a, Opinion

Commentary: What austerity means for the children of Quebec

by Albert Park on

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Every week, I go to Ecole FACE to volunteer at an after school program, taking the students around Montreal to explore the community. As I arrived for my shift last week, I was surprised to find myself greeted by gloomy expressions from the children, shades different from their usual chipper smiles. Cautiously, I asked them what was wrong. As it turned out, they were worried that their annual camping trip could be cancelled due to the teacher’s strike.

The provincial government has proposed a massive $360 million budget cut to the education system. In order to accomplish this, the Quebec Education Department intends to increase class sizes by up to nine additional students, eliminate funding towards school programs for special-needs children, and impose a salary freeze on teachers. Needless to say, these are tough demands to make to a system that has already lost over $800 million in funding over the past five years. As a result, the teachers have banded together and agreed not to work beyond their paid 32 hours per week. This means no more after-school activities, school clubs, or field trips for the students.

Surprisingly, none of the students at Ecole FACE expressed any blame or contempt towards their teachers. It was apparent that the children understood the reason behind the strike, and knew what was at stake for themselves as well. While the strike may harm the students, it is easy to understand that the government’s demands must be challenged to protect their education and benefit Quebec in the long run.

Simply put, the demands imposed by the government will hurt students’ education. The high teacher-to-student ratios will mean that some classrooms will end up having up to 40 students. On top of the elimination of funding for special needs students, it is highly unlikely that Quebec’s children will have access to a satisfactory standard of education if these changes go through.

Many make the mistake of thinking that the strike is about teachers’ salaries. While this is far from the truth, it is still reasonable to consider the Quebec teachers’ demands regarding their wages. Quebec teachers have amongst the lowest salaries in Canada. While sacrifices may have to be made somewhere, when it comes to education, these sacrifices must be spared.

While the budget cuts may save money now, it comes at the risk of future generations that are less prepared for higher education and the job market.

In the future, these students will be the ones that will be responsible for restoring Quebec’s economy and making decisions regarding austerity. It goes without saying that in order for these students to be successful, they need the best education possible. While the budget cuts may save money now, it comes at the risk of future generations that are less prepared for higher education and the job market.

It is hard to shake the concern that the strike will not accomplish its goal, however, talking to the students at Ecole FACE, I realized that there is more to the issue than just demands and negotiations. The younger students of Quebec care about social and political issues—I often hear them mention things like the “orange people” (NDP) during their playground chats, as well as constantly questioning the high rates of homeless people in the city. Teachers must lead by example. This is a perfect opportunity for educators to teach their students a valuable lesson about austerity. Whether cognizant of the government’s policies or not, this experience will encourage the children and teens of Quebec to think critically about the government’s policy of cutting public spending.

In order to create a better Quebec, teachers, parents, and students alike must all rally in support of the strike and challenge the government’s cuts to education funding.

Professor Allan Downey McGill University
a, Features

Visible Changes

by Jenna Stanwood on

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Walking through the Roddick Gates, one of the first things to draw the attention of passersby is the statue of a wind-blown James McGill clutching his hat and walking stick. Few students know that before reaching this statue, they’ve passed another monument honouring a completely different side of the university’s history. In fact, lying beneath a line of trees facing Rue Sherbrooke is the Hochelaga Rock. A large stone, with a metal plate drilled to its front, is placed in a patch of dirt facing a bench. A tiny description inscribed on the plate explains that the rock is a memorial to an Iroquois village that once stood on the land now spotted with McGill’s classrooms and libraries, all built on territory that was never ceded to the university to begin with.

“[The rock] really is symbolic of the way that the indigenous community is treated on a lot of campuses,” Allan Downey, a professor in the Department of History and Classical Studies, said. “Sure, it’s here, but it’s pushed into a corner and most people don’t know it exists.”

This summer, after working for a year as an academic associate, Downey accepted a tenure-track position in the Department of History and Classical Studies. Upon accepting the job, Downey, who is Dakelh, a member of the Nak’azdli First Nation, located near Fort St. James, British Columbia, became the only tenure-track indigenous professor currently employed at McGill; a fact that was very publicly celebrated by the university.

Downey’s road to the front of the classroom was somewhat serendipitous. Growing up in Waterloo, Ontario, he travelled on the pow wow circuit, helping with his mother’s native arts and crafts business.

“When I was younger going through the educational system […] I didn’t see myself, or my family, or my history, in the books I was reading,” Downey said. “As an indigenous person, you’re almost [always] confronted with different versions of racism or just ignorance.”

a, Baseball, Behind the Bench, Sports

Behind The Bench: A September to remember for Marcus Stroman

by Eyal Wilk on

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The last time the Toronto Blue Jays were atop the AL East this late in the regular season, the European Union did not exist, Billboard’s No. 1 song was Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” and Liam Neeson was nominated for an Academy Award. Since the transcendent 1993 World Series team, injury, sub-par play, and disappointment have afflicted the Jays franchise and numbed Toronto fans to the point of near apathy.

At first, the 2015 season seemed no different. Just two weeks after the Blue Jays’ first team spring training workout, the team’s 5’8”  ace Marcus Stroman tore his ACL and was believed to be out for the season. Stroman’s rookie season was one of the few bright spots in a mediocre 2014 Jays’ pitching staff; he posted a 3.65 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, and 111 strikeouts in 130.2 innings pitched. The team believed he could be their number one starter in 2015.

With Stroman’s season-ending injury, it was tough to find hope in a rotation that featured two unproven rookies (Daniel Norris, Aaron Sanchez), two veterans nearing the end of their careers (Robert Dickey, Mark Buehrle), and the frustrating Drew Hutchison. Stroman, however, refused to give up on the season, and aimed to make a late-season return.

“Right when I tore my ACL, I kind of mapped [my comeback] out in my head,” Stroman told Robert MacLeod of the Globe and Mail. 

He returned to Duke University to finish his Sociology degree and endured a gruelling rehab regimen. From his more than frequent Instagram and Twitter updates, It was clear he was putting in work, but the idea of a miraculous Stroman resurrection in September seemed unnecessary. The Blue Jays would be sitting at their usual .500 record down the stretch—why rush Stroman back for a handful of meaningless starts? 

An ACL tear usually requires anywhere from six to 12 months of rehab to fully heal. Stroman was running, and throwing 80 feet across the diamond in four months. Five months after his surgery, Stroman completed his rehab at Duke.

Something strange started to happen after the All-Star break, however. Alex Anthopoulos, the patron saint of Jays fans, pulled off a set of miraculous deadline-day deals that brought in David Price, Troy Tulowitzki, Ben Revere and some key depth pieces to the bullpen. With a revamped squad, the Blue Jays were transformed into a big, blue winning machine.

In the month of August, the team went 21-6 to overcome a 7.5 game deficit and take the division lead from the Yankees. The lineup instilled fear in the hearts of the grown men trying (and failing) to pitch to them as they averaged 6.3 runs a game and outscored their opponents by 87 runs. The rotation, led by Price, has posted the lowest WHIP (1.06) and third lowest ERA (2.83) in the entire MLB. Jays fans everywhere rejoiced as their team broke further and further into uncharted territory. When Stroman’s first rehab start was announced, Jays  fans couldn’t push thoughts of ’92 and ’93 out of their minds. 

An ACL tear usually requires anywhere from six to 12 months of rehab to fully heal. Stroman was running, and throwing 80 feet across the diamond in four months. Five months after his surgery, Stroman completed his rehab at Duke. On Sept. 2, he threw 4.2 innings of shutout ball in his first rehab start with the Jays’ Single-A affiliate. After a quick tune-up in Triple-A, the unthinkable was announced: Stroman would make his season debut against the Yankees on Sept. 12. 

Any visiting pitcher will tell you that Yankee Stadium, with its short left-field porch, is the last place you would want to make your first start after returning from a serious injury. Stroman wasn’t bothered. He went five innings, giving up three runs on four hits to record an emotional win. He was electrifying in his next start against the Red Sox. Pitching in front of a sold-out crowd at the Rogers Centre, Stroman fired seven innings of one run ball, giving up six hits and striking out three in his homecoming. 

As the Jays chase the Royals for the best record in the AL and home-field advantage in the playoffs, Stroman’s unlikely return gives the team a whole lot of pitching options that they did not have a few months ago. It allows the Jays to put a struggling Hutchison in the bullpen with the option of pulling him back into the rotation if the aging Mark Buehrle needs to be rested. If Stroman can return to his top form for the post-season, the Jays will have an infusion of talent and a top-of-the-rotation starter that will gear them up for a deep playoff run. As the team reunites with their star pitcher, you get the sense that nothing can go wrong for the Jays.

Stroman has the Jays singing: “This is going to be our year.” 

a, Editorial, Opinion

Editorial: Indigenous issues must become part of campus discourse

by The McGill Tribune Editorial Board on

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Indigenous Awareness Week is now in its fifth year at McGill University. The week showcases local indigenous culture through a series of events, beginning with the Pow Wow on Sept. 18, and concluding on Sept. 25 with a symposium titled Resisting Gendered and State Violence: Indigenous Women’s Activism. The focal points of the week are the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and Indigenous women’s issues.

Indigenous Awareness Week promotes the visibility of indigenous culture on campus and raises awareness about the issues facing indigenous peoples, but in order to break down the barriers to inclusion faced by indigenous peoples at McGill, indigenous issues must hold greater weight. Currently, indigenous issues are mostly absent from mainstream conversation. The marginalization of indigenous peoples is embedded in McGill’s institutional history—the land that McGill is built on was never ceded to the university; a series of missteps by the administration and the Government of Canada snowballed to last week’s notice of seizure sent by Kahentinetha of the Bear Clan, a kahtihon’tia:kwenio (women titleholder), of the Kahnawake Mohawk community. It stands to reason that any student of McGill should be educated in both sides of the history of indigenous-settler relations in Canada, particularly as those relations relate to McGill and local Aboriginal Peoples.

Awareness of indigenous culture and of the obstacles faced by Aboriginals must be coupled with caution to avoid entrenching stereotypes.

The First People’s House, KANATA journal, and Indigenous Awareness Week, as well as the introduction of an Indigenous Studies Program, should be commended for raising awareness of indigenous issues and creating spaces for indigenous representation and expression on campus. Student associations, including the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), the Post-Graduate Students’ Society (PGSS), and the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS) should also be given credit for territorial acknowledgements at meetings.

But such steps only go part of the way to bringing indigenous issues to the forefront. The scope of their progress must be extended into the consciousness of all students at McGill. This conversation could begin in residences where new students can be encouraged to think critically about Canada’s colonial legacy by their floor fellows.

Awareness of indigenous culture and of the obstacles faced by Aboriginals must be coupled with caution to avoid entrenching stereotypes. Breaking the barriers between indigenous students and their peers will take time, and efforts to do so must be given sustained attention by students, professors, and administrators. While raising awareness is not a solution to the systemic inequalities faced by indigenous, and in particular indigenous who pursue a post-secondary education, it is a step in the right direction. Attitudes can only evolve when time has been devoted to ensuring that everyone has a stake in changing their own attitudes.

Insofar as McGill works diligently to ensure a commitment to social justice and inclusion, it remains behind other Canadian universities in terms of indigenous rights and representation on campus. McGill has hired its first tenure-track indigenous professor, but such progress seems limited when compared to the University of British Columbia, which has numerous indigenous professors across various faculties. Though the recommendations laid out by the TRC in order to narrow the inequalities between indigenous and non-indigenous students apply mainly to the federal government, McGill can do more to improve the representation of indigenous peoples. A partnership with local indigenous communities in developing those goals and the steps to achieve them must be prioritized.

As progress is made by the administration, students can spark a grassroots conversation. There are less than 200 aboriginal students in undergraduate studies at McGill, and those students face microaggressions daily, according to a study released on Jan. 2 2014 by the Social Equity and Diversity Education (SEDE) Office. By not opening up spaces for indigenous awareness, the campus participates in the silencing of a culture that has been fighting for its existence for centuries. Students at McGill must decide whether they will continue that history of silence by continuing to marginalize indigenous issues and rights, or if it is possible for our campus to become a leader in the conversation.

a, Know Your Athlete, Men's Varsity, Sports

Know Your Athlete: Paul Rakoczy

by Ellie Solloway on

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Paul Rakoczy is in a nostalgic mood as he prepares for his last season on the team. As his team gears up for the Baggataway Cup National Championship in November, the defenceman and co-captain is looking to the past for inspiration.

“It’s bittersweet, for sure,’” Rakoczy said. “I love this lacrosse team. It’s something special.”

In his four years with the Redmen, Rakoczy helped the team win their first-ever CUFLA Championship in 2012 and reach two other finals. As this year’s squad takes aim at a pennant, his knowledge and experience will prove invaluable in boosting his teammates confidence.

“We’ve got 10 guys that were on that 2012 team,” Rakoczy explained. “[They] know what it takes to win, and I think that’s huge when it comes to showing some of the younger guys how to get there.”

The past two years, however, have seen the team twice come up short in the finals. In 2013, McGill was stunned at home 14-11 by the Guelph Gryphons. A year later, the Redmen—undefeated in the regular season—lost again to the Gryphons 15-12, despite scoring seven unanswered goals in a frantic final eight minutes.   

These losses, while painful, are important to Rakoczy and the team as they plan the 2015 season. 

“We know that we can score a lot of goals very quickly,” Rakoczy said. “In the coming games, we know we need to come out faster and harder earlier in the game as opposed to letting other teams get ahead.”

The team is currently undefeated, and has outscored opponents 85-31 through its first five games. On defence, Rakoczy and his teammates have not skipped a beat after leading the league in goals against average last season.

Rakoczy has seen both sides of a championship in his playing career: Glorious victory and crushing defeat. But beyond the final score, Rakoczy is passionate about the communities he’s a part of in Montreal. He chose McGill for it’s superior education, impressive campus, and the proximity to his home in Burlington, Ontario despite receiving multiple offers from NCAA Division 1 lacrosse schools in the U.S.

 “Most Division 1 schools in the states could beat us,” Rakoczy, an Earth and Planetary Sciences major, acknowledged. “But McGill offers a nice balance for lacrosse where it doesn’t become a full-time job.” 

Rakoczy has cherished his McGill education, highlighting his experiences doing fieldwork for his department in far-flung locations such as Arizona, California, and Peru. He finds his workload pretty manageable, though balancing his work with the team often leads to “late nights.” 

Being a part of a National Championship team is definitely a perk of attending McGill compared to other schools, and after winning it all in 2012, there’s nothing that motivates Rakoczy more than the thought of sharing the taste of success with his teammates this season. Rakoczy is keeping his options open for after graduation, although he has no interest in going pro.  

“I actually kind of want to open a brewery,” Rakoczy conceded with a laugh. 

Career paths aside, when Rakoczy reflects on his four years at McGill, there’s no doubt he’ll have left behind an impressive legacy.

McGill Tribune (MT): Most used emoji?

Paul Rakoczy (PR): Sunglasses smiley. 

(MT): Favorite ‘lax bro’ lingo?

(PR): ‘Savage’ is thrown around a lot on the team these days.

(MT): Latest Netflix-binge watch?

(PR): I just finished Narcos two days ago. Fan-tastic.

(MT): Favorite team to play an away game against? 

(PR): Probably Bishops, because their crowd hates us. 

(MT): Fundraiser Samosa or Dispatch toast?

(PR): Samosa, for sure.

(MT): Finish this sentence: Donald Trump’s hair looks most like ______?

(PR): A dust bunny.

a, Student Life

Preparing for life after McGill

by Julie Vanderperre on

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Although graduation may seem far away, it is never too early to begin making plans for a career or continuing education after McGill. It is normal for students to feel anxious about postgraduate plans, and it can be daunting to not know where or when to start. Here’s a comprehensive to-do list to quell common worries and leave McGill students feeling prepared to face life beyond the Roddick Gates.

Request copies of your transcript from Service Point

This is one of the most commonly overlooked steps of applying for jobs or grad school, and it is also one of the simplest. You can easily order your transcript on Minerva or in person, and they will mail the copies to your address, or you can pick them up at Service Point. Doing this early will ensure that you don’t need to stress about the processing time (which can be up to a week during peak periods) that it takes for your transcript to arrive. You can also avoid the $15 fee that is charged for urgent transcript requests.

Attend career development workshops hosted by CaPS

CaPS hosts a series of different workshops and info sessions to help students plan for careers and graduate school. These seminars start in September, and are held throughout first semester into November. Presentations include everything from “Discover the Hidden Job Market” to “Time Management for Busy Students.” These events are also great opportunities to speak to other students who are also experiencing the same trepidation, and share advice.

Browse job listings

McGill provides several comprehensive databases of companies and organizations to check out. myFuture is the CaPS job and internship search tool that is only available to McGill students, and has a long list of reputable employers. You can apply for jobs directly through myFuture, which can help to ease access to employers who normally would be more difficult to contact. You can also tailor your job search by industry, location, and type using different job search engines listed on the CaPS website.

Attend career and/or graduate school fairs

CaPS hosts several of these, in cooperation with various faculties and student groups. The fairs take place throughout September, October, and November, and they provide plenty of valuable information on different opportunities to explore, and are a great place to begin networking.

Create a LinkedIn account

Although some people view LinkedIn’s form of cyber-networking as superfluous, it is a useful tool to research different companies and to explore the interests and connections of your contemporaries. If you already have a LinkedIn account, now is the time to update your profile with any relevant experience that you gained over the summer. Don’t forget to join groups like McGill University Alumni and your faculty’s group on LinkedIn to stay up to date on networking and employment opportunities. CaPS also has a LinkedIn peer advising service coming soon.

Draft your CV and go to CaPS’s Daily Drop-In to have it reviewed

Registration for drop-in visits opens at 9 a.m., and you must go in person to the CaPS office to register for a meeting the same day. Your CV can make or break a job opportunity, so it is imperative that it is formatted and edited to perfection.

Ask your professors for recommendations

Most employers and graduate schools will require at least one recommendation from a professor. Instructors therefore get inundated each semester with requests from students to write them shining, thoughtful, and personalized letters. Ask your professors as early as possible to write you a recommendation to avoid the rush that usually happens closer to when job applications are due. It is courteous to give professors at least one month to complete the letter. When asking a professor to write you a letter, be polite in your request and make them understand why you value their perspective. Don’t forget to bring along supplemental materials like your resume, personal statement, and any information pertaining to the job or graduate program to which you are applying.

Prep for interviews

The more you practice, the less nervous you will be for your important interviews. You can schedule an appointment for a mock interview with a career advisor, or even just practice what you plan to say with a friend. CaPS also provides a comprehensive how-to guide for preparing for interviews and making sure that you ace each one.

a, Science & Technology

Understanding the world of hiero-gifics

by Clare Lyle on

More in a:

As platforms like Short Message Service (SMS), Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp grow in popularity, the amount of time people spend interacting face-to-face decreases. To make up for this, tech enthusiasts and artists have teamed up to develop novel ways to convey emotion over text. Ranging from the humble smiley to the more complex cat GIF, these seemingly innocuous images have had a huge impact on the way we communicate today. 

Emoticons have been used for decades to eliminate ambiguity in the tone of a text-based message. Take, for instance: ‘You’re late ;P’ vs. ‘You’re late.’ The two messages inspire very different reactions in the reader, yet contain the same words in the same order. Studies have shown that humans react to emoticons in the same way that they respond to real facial expressions. In a study published in Social Neuroscience, scientists found that the same structures in the brain that are activated when people see faces are activated when they see emoticons. A 2014 study in The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication found that emoticons serve the same role in text-based communication as facial expressions and other non-verbal cues do in face-to-face interaction. According to the researchers, emoticons aren’t limited to just expressing happy and sad emotions.

“When following expressive speech acts, such as thanks [and] greetings, [emojis] function as strengtheners,” the paper stated. “When following directives (such as requests, corrections, etc.) they function as softeners.”

Emoticon usage follows rules that allow the user to express politeness and respect—in addition to smiley faces.

Another report, written by the keyboard app SwiftKey, presented statistics on emoji-use by country. The French used the heart emoticon more than any other nationality, while Canadians stood out for their use of the pizza emoji. Interestingly, the type of emoticon used to express the same feeling—happiness, sadness, fear—varied depending on which country the sender was from. For example, to express happiness, 🙂 is the most popular emoticon used in North America, but in East Asian countries ^,^ is preferred. 

Emoticon usage has also been found to vary between social groups. According to a study published in the Journal of CyberPsychology and Behaviour, women tend to use more emoticons than men in internet communications, although this difference in emoticon usage becomes less pronounced when people are in mixed-gender settings. 

 

THE HISTORY: 

1982: 

The first officially accepted use of an emoticon took place on September 19, 1982 when Carnegie Mellon professor Scott Fahlman posted the now-iconic 🙂 on an electronic bulletin board.

1987: 

The GIF file format is created by Steve Wilhite of the company Compuserve in June 1987 to improve on black and white image transfers without slowing down modems. The GIF introduced 256 colours to the image.

1992: 

Les Horribles Cernettes’—a parody music group created at CERN—album cover becomes the first image file uploaded onto the internet. 

1999: 

The emoji was first created in Japan in 1999 by DoKoMo i-mode—a mobile phone provider in Japan—to allow their users to add pictures in their text messages.  

2011: 

Apple incorporates emojis into its iPhone keyboard with the release of iOS 5.

2013: 

Facebook enables users to add stickers to their messenger conversations.

2015: 

In May, Facebook messenger incorporates Giphy, an app which let users send GIFs to each other in comments and private messages.

 

THE LINGO:

ASCII: 

The American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) is a way for computers to encode characters through text. It is limited to the Latin alphabet and assigns each character (i.e., letter or punctuation mark) to an integer value, which the computer then stores and uses.

Character encoding: 

Used to represent characters by a set system of symbols or patterns—examples include Morse code and braille.

Unicode: 

A computing industry standard used to handle character sets for almost any language.

Emoticon:

A series of ASCII characters that represent a facial expression.

Emoji: 

An icon that conveys meaning by resembling the physical object. This could be, for example, showing a smiling face to convey happiness.

Bitmap: 

A way that computers represent image data as a matrix of dots.

GIF: 

The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) is a bitmap image format that also supports animations.

Giphy: 

App that lets you send GIF files through a messaging service.

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