First trimester, autumn... a season for a trimester? The four seasons don't fit together in three-thirds of a year, you might say. Not for Quebecois, because here, there are autumn, winter and summer trimesters. The snow melts around May, leaving just one month before summer. Spring is merely a transition between two seasons.
L'Escale, cafeteria in front of the UQAC bus station
University life at UQAC
UQAC is an institute with a diversity of programs, offering a wide range of courses for all three cycles, from the pure sciences to the arts, management sciences, education and engineering. The university also has a number of commitments to the First Nations community (study and research programs, aboriginal student services, cultural recognition, awareness and training).
Student life is active, and in the first trimester there were a number of integration parties, including a Quebec concert with free poutine, and a volleyball competition at the bar. There were also forums to discover the campus and the city (associations, student offers, discovery of local products and information about the city). These activities offered me opportunities to make connections and integrate into the university community.
Academically, the quality varies from course to course, but overall the experience is positive. Some teachers are very pedagogical. They've even taught us some Quebecois expressions. Remote courses are also a part of the program, allowing us to learn from international professionals.
Sunset - a street in downtown Chicoutimi
My course selections
For each trimester, I was able to choose four courses from a total of fifteen, ranging from artificial intelligence, video games and project management to cybersecurity. Each course lasts 2 hours 45 minutes. For every 3 hours of class, there is an average of 6 hours of personal work. Although the organization is different, I found that the workload was about the same as in France. Here are the courses I chose for this first term:
📊Distributed databases, presented by Professor Nakouri Haïfa
A course introducing distributed databases and big data. On the program, theory on rational models, normalization and linear algebra, then practice in SQL (fragmentation, query processing and optimization), then I finished the term by seeing several big data tools. This course is indispensable for big data students, unlike cybersecurity students.
💻Programming on parallel architectures, presented by Professor and DIM Director François Lemieux
A course that requires investment and rigor, the beginning of the trimester is complicated, but the difficulty diminishes with time. A pleasant course to follow with a responsive teacher. The program includes theory on parallel operating systems and parallel algorithms (a bit of math with algorithm complexity and theorems). Then some practical work with multithreaded programming (MPI and OpenCL). I've also made a little tutorial for installing OpenCL on VSCode, since I couldn't find one on the Internet.
🔐Computer security, presented by Professor Kamel Adi
A more research-oriented course, with a lot of remote courses as the teacher works from Ottaouais. The program included an overview of the fields of cybersecurity: cryptology, cryptographic protocols, network security, software security and malware, access control and risk analysis. This course gave me a refresher and enabled me to go into greater depth on topics I'd seen in my internship, but never studied at ISEN.
With the help of my classmates Charles and Théo, I had the opportunity to write my first scientific paper, "The advantages and disadvantages of using AI in cybersecurity", for which I mainly worked on the intrusion detection systems (IDS) part.
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