Posts By: Karl Low

Karl Low

Born and (mostly) raised in Calgary, Karl has been taking courses on and off at AU since 1999. At one point, he changed his major from Computing Science to Computing Science because the new program requirements fit what he’d already taken better. Since then, he switched to English and graduated (w/Great Distinction he likes to add) proving along the way that it is entirely possible to complete an entire AU course within a three week period. If only he had done this at the beginning of the course instead of in the last extension.

This is not something he advises unless you are desperate, masochistic, or, ideally, both.

He is currently the managing editor of The Voice Magazine, where he tries to put his education to use helping other students as they provide content for The Voice

FED WATCH!

Alberta Government Makes Hay over Hay The Alberta Government is very proud to announce its assistance (SEE: http://www.gov.ab.ca/acn/200208/12980.html ) to the tune of $200,000 to get surplus hay from Eastern Canada shipped over here to Alberta so that our farmers have something to feed their cattle. Of course, this assistance will not cover the full… Read more »

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FOIP follies The University of Calgary has been found to be in breach of an employee’s privacy. In the case details (SEE: http://www.gov.ab.ca/acn/200208/12942.html) an employee had called the university’s campus security with respect to an incident regarding an employee, the employee’s spouse, and other staff and the employee’s supervisor. The employee and spouse were removed… Read more »

FED WATCH!

Aboriginal Students Getting Boost The British Columbia government is earmarking 1.27 million dollars to help aboriginal students obtain post-secondary educations.(SEE:http://os8150.pb.gov.bc.ca/4dcgi/nritem?5506) Unfortunately, the bulk of this money, over a million dollars of it is going to short term funding to develop new programs for aboriginals to take. Less than 20% of it will actually be going… Read more »

FED WATCH!

Summer Jobs Even though Athabasca University has a non-traditional school year, the government programs for student jobs still fall mostly around the summer. While many Athabasca University students are already working full time, for those of you that aren’t, there is always the possibility of getting a job in the federal government. If this strikes… Read more »

FED WATCH!

Biosciences Growing in Ottawa The Government of Ottawa is investing thirty million dollars [SEE: http://www.premier.gov.on.ca/english/news/Ottawa071602.htm] in building space for 1,500 more students at the University of Ottawa. This means that these seats will cost approximately $20,000 per student, actually, the cost is somewhat less as some of that money will be going into the renewal… Read more »

Fed watch!

Students Need More, Government Pays Less The Government of Canada has released an Actuarial Report (http://www.osfi-bsif.gc.ca/eng/office/actuarialreports/index.asp?) on the Canada Student Loans Program. This report is designed to predict what the Student Loan program will cost up to the year 2025 and what kind of effects it will have on students. The results are not pretty…. Read more »

Fedwatch!

You’re a Thief At least, that’s what the music industry believes. They’ve organized into a group calling themselves the CPCC, or Canadian Private Copying Collective (http://www.cpcc.ca/English/english.html), and have already successfully lobbied the government to change the Copyright Act so that they can claim fees on blank cassette tapes, CD-R/RWs, and removable hard drives. Now they’re… Read more »

Fed Watch!

Costs of Kyoto The Alberta Government has released a study (http://www.gov.ab.ca/acn/200202/11952.html) showing that the cost of Kyoto could be as high as $40 billion dollars, with the Alberta economy suffering as much as 5.5 billion dollars per year. Reading through the press release though, it quickly becomes apparent that this damage also includes estimates of… Read more »

Fed Watch!

BC’s Hike Beats Alberta’s Another province is starting to address the supply side of the health-care difficulties that Canada is going through. British Columbia has announced (http://os8150.pb.gov.bc.ca/4dcgi/nritem?5027) a program which will almost double the number of doctors that they graduate each year. The government is chipping in the $134 million that it will cost to… Read more »

Fed Watch!

Canada Taking Steps against Third World Debt The Honourable Minister of Finance, Paul Martin, has announced that Canada is cancelling the debt owed to it by Tanzania. One of the poorest countries in the world, Tanzania owed Canada approximately 83 million dollars. This debt cancellation means that Tanzania can now use the interest that would… Read more »