Meet an Undergraduate Student
Padena Rasouli-Baghban
January 27, 2023
Hi everybody, I’m Padena!
I’m a software engineering student, and I'm currently in my 2B term!
What has been your favourite thing about your program so far?
The cohort system would have to be the best thing about Software Engineering. It is great to have the chance to connect with so many bright people in my program. It is also very helpful that in the cohort system, we have all our classes together because we can always help each other out.
Your favourite co-op experience?
My most recent co-op experience was really fun!
I worked at TD Bank as a Software Developer Intern, and I was able to quickly familiarize myself with new frameworks, improve my development skills and contribute to multiple projects. I also had the chance to participate in a lot of fun events with my co-workers including watching my first baseball game in one of TD's suites!
Advice for first year/incoming students?
My advice would be to avoid comparing yourself to other students. Personally, I was always comparing my grades to my classmates, and it was a very unhealthy habit. Now, I realize that every person has their own strengths, and it is best to focus on self-growth rather than comparison.
SE student project at Lunar and Planetary Science Conference
SE2024 student Ryan Dancy will present at the Lunary and Planetary Science Conference in Texas next month, based on his project from EE-584 Spacecraft Design and System Engineering, taken while on exchange at EPFL in Switzerland. This project applies the decision-oriented approach to systems architecture to design a mission concept for an explorer probe to Europa.
Europa is a moon of Jupiter that was discovered by Galileo in 1610, and is known to have water and ice. NASA has existing plans to send a probe to Europa, and this project considered a different point in the design space.
Ryan has also had three co-op internships in the aerospace field. In summer 2022 he worked on AR/VR applications for lunar rovers at the European Space Agency's European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany. He is currently on his second co-op internship at Mission Control in Ottawa, which is on track to be the first company to ever demonstrate deep learning AI software on the moon.
Waterloo Takes First Place in ICPC Regionals
Waterloo Black, including SE's own Wesley Leung, won first at the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) regional competition for East Central North America, competing against 67 teams from Carnegie Mellon, Purdue, University of Toronto, Ohio State, and University of Michigan, along with other universities across Ontario, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. Congratulations!
SE Student Wins ACM/ICSE Research Award
SE2023 student Vikram Subramanian won first place in the ACM undergraduate student research competition at ICSE 2020 for his work titled An empirical study of first-time open source contributors on Github, which was supervised by Prof Mei Naggapan. Great work!