Strainu onLine

Remember Stagii pe Bune? It appears that with some help from Monica, the message has finally reached them. You can read their comments (and my answers) on the previous post.

Today I wanted to talk about a newcomer on this market, a program called START (the website is not functional), launched by the Government. In 2008, the project will only be available to Bucharest students, unlike Stagii pe Bune, which is also available in Timisoara, Iasi and Cluj.

I asked Vlad Posea, one of the guys behind Stagii pe Bune for an opinion. He said that his team wishes the best of lucks to START, but was pessimistic about the chances of the new project. Considering the kind of brains it takes to launch a program for students without a website, I have to agree with him.

Versiunea română aici.

Transport
Map

It’s not really worth it to go to Versailles by car from Paris (or from anywhere in Ile-de-France for that matter). The roads are always full and parking spaces near the castle are hard to find.

Your best bet is to leave your car at home/the hotel and take the RER (suburban train) C to Versailles. There are 3 railway stations in the city, but any of them will do, as they’re pretty close to each other. Just choose the one closer to your location.

The RER trains are not renowned for their safety, especially in the evening, so you should try to finish your visit before the night falls.

[rating:4.5/5]

Food

The restaurants from the Versailles domain (there are two of them I believe) are quite expensive. If you don’t want to leave the domain, you should pack some snacks or buy them from the cafeteria.

Outside the Court, like everywhere in France, you can find numerous small restaurants with excellent food and wine. If you are on a budget, you can order the „Menu du jour” (Menu of the day), which can cost you from 9 to 20 Euros (depending on the location). Service is usually included, but if you were particularly impressed, you can leave a 5-10% tip.

[rating:3.5/5]

Sightseeing

Well, that’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? After all, why would you go to Versailles if not to see the Versailles Castle and gardens? And if you’re wondering how much it will cost you, I can tell you that in march 2008, the prices were 13,5 euros for the main palace, 5 euros for the Trianon castle and gardens. The main gardens were free except in the evenings when there are water shows. Of course, there are reductions for kids and combined tickets (16 euros). Be ready for a 1 to 2 hours of queuing (in the low season).

The main castle is impressive at least. You go through the king’s, the queen’s and the children’s apartments, plus the world famous „Galerie des Glaces” („The Hall of Mirrors”). Once a day, there is a special visit to see the „Royal suite”. In plus, there are many temporary exhibitions, but you have to buy a separate ticket for those. The order of the rooms is clear, there is no chance of getting lost. However, the constant crowding created by the groups is quite annoying.

In order to truly appreciate the gardens, you should visit them between April and September, while they’re still green. It’s still interesting in winter, but the earth and sand trails combined with rain are not fabulous for your shoes.

[rating:5/5]

Alternatives

The only alternative I can think about is the Louvre Museum. If you don’t have the time or the disposition, try any of the Paris Museums + a walk in the city.

[rating:overall]

Links

• http://www.transport-idf.com/frontal Plan your trip in Ile-de-France
• http://www.chateauversailles.fr

Versiunea română aici.

Transport
Map
The road from Paris to Tours is quite good. The downside there are many route changes and the itinerary has some toll portions. It will probably take you about 2 hours to get there.

We have chosen to get there by TGV. The trip takes little over an hour from Paris Montparnasse and 59 minutes from Massy. Unfortunately there are only a few trains that go in the Tours main station. Most of them stop in a small station on the outskirts of the city, and from there you have to take a regional train. Besides, the trains are a little old. It’s not particularly pleasant to hear the outer shell strongly vibrate at 300km/h.

Be careful, in the weekends the city transport sucks (the Sunday mornings no bus works).

[rating:4/5]

Food
Like everywhere in France, you can find numerous small restaurants with excellent food and wine. If you are on a budget, you can order the „Menu du jour” (Menu of the day), which can cost you from 9 to 20 Euros (depending on the location). Service is included in most restaurants.

Do keep in mind that on weekends most of them will be closed. In fact, like in all small French cities, most of the shops will be closed on Sunday. We found a small „Brasserie” in Place de la Victoire which had a fabulous service and reasonable food.

[rating:4/5]

Sightseeing
There is not much to see in Tours. Although the city is on the world famous Loire Valley, it’s castle is pretty much disappointing. It’s currently a sort of modern art museum, opened from 2 P.M.

The cathedral is very big (compared with other similar constructions), very well lit and overall quite impressive. It reminded me of the cathedral of Bruges rather than a french cathedral.

Other tourist attractions include the Loire River, the Art Museum and the City Zoo.

[rating:2.5/5]

Alternatives

Other cities within an hour of TGV from Paris are: Lens, Le Mans, Dunkerque, Dijon, Valenciennes and even Bruxelles.

[rating:overall]

Links

Sorry, no links available. Use google. 🙂

I’m currently living for 4 months in a small town near Paris. The main reason I’m here is to make my diploma project, but I couldn’t miss the chance to visit some of the wonderful places that France has to offer. So the „Weekend trips from Bucharest” category has become „Weekend trips” and there is a new sub-category called „From Paris”, were I will post about my trips in Europe.

I will also start a new type of article: „Extended Weekend” (3 days or more). Enjoy!

This is my final post in the CS Review Series. I’ll talk about the changes the I consider useful for this faculty. I am aware that I will shock many people, especially teachers and/or TAs, but this is the way I see things.

In the previous parts I have already noted some ideas:

• the final mark could be expressed out of 100 points instead of 10 points.
• consider changing the language used in the first programming courses
• use the mony to by computers for the students, not for the auxiliary personnel or for LCD TVs

What else could be done? Well, an idea would be to publish the budget (with more details than here). Another one would be to externalize the cleaning of the school. It would cost more, but if the contract would be well written, we would have a clear improvement in the quality of the services.

About the teaching itself, promoting young teachers and convincing graduates to remain in the faculty is essential. This can only be accomplished by offering more places in master courses while updating the master courses. On the longer term, more interesting PhD subjects and research programs could help rebuild a normal group of teachers (the current ones are either very old or very young).

There should be promotional campaigns in the high schools to attract the best students to CS. A very good argument would be the fact that here you can learn the basics of many interesting technologies and you can interact with people interested in the same domain.

In order to sustain this campaign, the school should have a coherent image, like all important universities – with guidelines on the look of the logo, templates for presentations and documents, and so on. I am aware that this would probably imply using a specialized company, which is probably difficult considering the budget limitations.

This concludes my old faculty’s review. I hope that some of the people who read this will find it useful.

The grading system is one of the main problems of Romanian universities. The rounding system is pretty clear: from 0,5 points you get the mark above, below 0,5p you get the lower mark. Unfortunately, students would do pretty much anything to push that limit as low as possible. There are two very different pressure points: the top mark (10/10) and the lowest passage mark (5/10).

During my years at UPB I’ve seen students fight, beg and even cry in order to get a higher mark. I consider that kind of stuff simply disgusting. What’s worse, this kind of behavior is accepted and sometimes even encouraged by the teachers.

So what can be done?

• the first step should be eliminating the minimum number of points for partial tests and keep only the 5/10 limit for the final mark. This will make students calmer and more confident when they enter the final exam, which in turn can lead to better overall results;
• DON’T push the limit lower – it should be 5m not 4.5 and certainly NOT LOWER.
• the final mark could be expressed out of 100 points instead of 10 points. This would eliminate the need for rounding and will allow for a better classification of students – one with 84 points won’t feel the need to ask for a 9 just to show that he’s better than a student with 75 points.