Ubaid Abbasi: Enthusiasm and Experience
Thursday, January 9th, 2025
Computing Science Instructor, Ubaid Abbasi.
“Every morning, I’m excited to go to the classroom.”
Ubaid Abbasi loves his work, which is good news for the students in his Computer Science classes. He brings a world of experience to his classroom, along with a passion for his subject matter and the Northwestern Polytechnic community.
It’s been six years since Ubaid landed in Alberta and at NWP, drawn by the opportunity to teach computing courses that were relevant to his interests. It was intended to be a temporary stopping point, but it’s become home instead.
“It’s been an amazing experience,” he says, listing the many positives that won him over. “The students and community are excellent. The department, my colleagues, the administration - all are really great people.”
Ubaid arrived as NWP was transforming into a degree-granting institute, with the introduction of both the Computing Science and Bachelor of Business Administration four-year degrees at the newly designated polytechnic. “It’s wonderful for students and faculty,” he says of the option. “Students don’t have to move to a larger centre to complete their schooling, and the polytechnic and community benefit from the brain gain of keeping these new graduates close to home.”
The four-year program allows Ubaid to teach advanced courses that align with his interests, such as User Interface Design and Introduction to Computer Graphics - but he has equal enthusiasm for teaching programming and coding. He relishes the challenge of designing courses that reach every student, whether they come to NWP from down the road or around the globe.
“You have to explain in a way that’s understandable for everyone,” he notes. With students from all over the world in his classes, Ubaid gets excited about the different perspectives his students bring. “It’s such an amazing experience to learn from them,” he says, noting that different education systems and backgrounds make for an interesting and engaging classroom. “I really enjoy the diverse feedback I get.”
Speaking of feedback, Ubaid hears good things about his modifications to the Introduction to Computer Graphics course. He’s fine-tuned it over the years to make it more practical and industry-oriented, tying it to real-world career streams like animation, graphics and gaming. Students understand that they can carry that knowledge out of the classroom into their futures.
Ubaid’s ongoing research ties back to real-world computing as well. A summary of his work includes terms like non-orthogonal multiple access and cognitive radio networks, but Ubaid is happy to summarize it as being related to delay and latency issues in media streaming on 5G networks. Or in layman’s terms, making your mobile media viewing experiences smoother and less laggy. A recent sabbatical saw him continuing that research at the University of Windsor, as well as co-supervising master’s students.
With a personal geography that includes teaching in France, Saudi Arabia, Quebec and New Brunswick, Ubaid didn’t know what to expect when he first arrived in Alberta in 2018. He’s been delighted with the community he’s found at NWP.
“Summer is so wonderful here,” he says, noting that he enjoys camping and travelling throughout the province with his family, as well as swimming and skating with his two young children. Conferences mean more chances to travel; he’s recently back from Atlanta and hopes to visit Italy in the near future.
Ubaid’s first years at NWP have flown by and the reason is easy to spot. “It’s been an amazing experience,” he says. “When you love what you do, time passes quickly.”
