Welcome to the lab

Welcome to the Fisheries Management Lab. We’re happy you’ve chosen to join and hope your experience here will be exciting, productive and instructive.

This page provides some recommendations for skills you may want to develop, or courses we found to be helpful

Before you come

Learning R

R is a statistical programming language, and one of the key programming tools we use in the lab. If you have previous experience with R, great! Here are some resources to get you up to speed:

  • R Programming Software:

    • Statistics tend to be run through the programming software R (download link: Link), or R Studio (download link: Link). It is a good idea to have these downloaded in order to dive into the statistics needed for your Graduate Studies.

    • We recommend you take some courses to get yourself competent and comfortable in R. Some are offered through SFU Library, but there are other (hopefully free) options available online as well.

    • We are also supported by DataCamp, the most intuitive learning platform for data science and analytics. DataCamp offers 350+ courses by expert instructors on topics such as importing data, data visualization, and machine learning. We strongly recommend you take introductory courses to build or enhance your basic understanding, then expanding to courses on dplyr, tidyverse, and ggplot. You might also benefit from courses on using Chat GPT for coding.

    • “ggplot” is a package used to create plots and other types of graphics and is a great place to start to become familiar with the R language and get used to coding. A great YouTube video can be found here and you can follow along to practice using it.

    • Once you have became a bit familiar with R, this is an old R worksheet on base-R to work through and practice. Note that you do NOT need to be an expert on R when you enter grad school, but having some familiarity with it and with coding will be very helpful to save you from having to learn a new program/coding language from the very beginning at the same time as you’re learning course material. R worksheet.

  • Statistical Rethinking

    • this is a series of videos to complement the book of the same name. The videos are probably all you need - watch, code, and think about the first 5 videos. If you can get through more, great!

    • Chapters 1-4 deliver an excellent foundation to Bayesian statistics, with Chapter 5 being a good follow-up. These chapters correspond to YouTube lectures 1-4 (Link)

Things to know and prepare

Housing

USEFUL RESOURCES FOR FINDING HOUSING

  • If you are not planning on using the campus housing, there are lots of other places to check! Most students have found where they live using:

    • Craigslist

    • Facebook Marketplace

  • Please note: if you are not from the city, and want to learn about the ‘safer’ parts of town, please don’t hesitate to reach out to a fellow lab-mate to inquire more!

  • Vanessa Cowley, or graduate advisor, is always happy to help and provide advice. We strongly recommend getting in touch with her early especially if you are coming from out-of-country.

Tuition

WHEN TO PAY;

  • Tuition is due every semester, and is the same regardless of whether or not you take courses. Tuition tends to be around $2,500/semester, and includes other fees such as the use of the campus recreation center, your U-Pass (universal bus pass), etc.

Courses

MRM (Masters in Resource Management): The courses that you will need to take will depend on what “stream” you are in - Project or Thesis. Should some required courses be redundant for you, given your previous course history, there may be an opportunity for you to “waiver” those courses, so you don’t have to take it, and can instead, choose another course to attend. The courses that will be available for you may change depending on the year you enter your degree, but the current students may be able to help you select the more exciting courses that will be available to you during your time in the lab!

  • Project

    • The Project stream has more courses than the Thesis stream (courses listed here: Link), and involves completing a project alongside your coursework. This project is intended to be smaller than that of a Thesis, but the intricacies of your project will depend on what you and your P.I decide. When you finish your project, you present it to your supervisor, a reader (another SFU faculty member) and audience. There is no external referee.

  • Thesis

    • The Thesis stream has less courses than the Project stream (courses listed here: Link), so you typically complete your classwork within the first year of your degree. Once completed, your time is spent on formalizing, analyzing and writing your Thesis, which is intended to be a larger dedication of work than that of the Project stream. When you finish your thesis, you defend your work to your supervisory committee and an external referee.

What to expect when you get here

REM Workshop (REM 698) course

One of REM’s coolest courses - the Field Resource Management Workshop (REM 698)!

This course is like no other, as it gives you the chance to get your hands dirty and apply what you've learned in the real world. You'll get a peek at local resource management projects with like-minded students. During the course, you'll learn all about the ins and outs of natural resource management, including the social, economic, and environmental factors that come into play when making decisions in this field. And the best part? You'll get to work with stakeholders and community members to develop solutions to real-world resource management challenges!

The Field Resource Management Workshop is a truly valuable and rewarding experience. It's an opportunity to collaborate with other passionate students, gain practical experience, and prepare yourself for a career in resource management.

Your first day

Congrats on starting the Master of Resource Management (MRM) program at SFU! The first day can be nerve-wracking, but don't worry - it's going to be a blast!

On the first day, you'll get to meet your new buddies and the fantastic faculty members who will guide you through the program. You'll learn all about the ins and outs of the MRM program, including the curriculum and the resources available to you. Plus, you'll get an insight into the program's core values, which are all about sustainable resource management practices, critical thinking, and working together as a team.

You'll also get the chance to chat with expert faculty members who specialize in different areas of resource management, like environmental policy, conservation biology, and natural resource economics. How cool is that?!

The first day of the MRM program is all about setting you up for success, and the faculty and staff are dedicated to making sure you feel welcome and supported. It's a great opportunity to start your journey toward becoming a knowledgeable and skilled professional in the field of resource management. So, get ready to have some fun and learn a ton!

Your first month

How does your first month shape up? How do things get easier? What are unexpected challenges that you wish you had avoided?

  • How does the first month shape up?

    • The first month, you can expect to be taking 3 courses with your cohort members (that tend to be 2-hours in length each week). First year students tend to take the same courses together, so you will get very familiar with the people in your lab, as well as others. These courses tend to have group-project components, and there tend to be quite a few projects involved, so get ready!

    • You will be invited to attend at least one lab meeting a week. The structure tends to vary, but we attempt to use this time to allow for presentations on people’s projects/theses, paper discussions, and lab socials.

    • You will have meetings with your P.I to discuss the work you will be doing. Don’t worry if your Project/Thesis is not fully flushed out yet! The first couple semesters is when you start ironing out the details for your Project/Thesis, and the focus is really meant to be on getting the hang of grad-school.

  • How do things get easier?

    • For Thesis stream students, coursework will eventually end after the first year, and you will have more time to focus on your actual Thesis.

    • For folks taking courses/ Project stream students, you will eventually get used to the structure of courses again, and because you are not the only one taking those courses, there is often time for you and your classmates/labmates to work through the coursework together (ie. work on assignments, discuss readings, etc.)

  • What are unexpected challenges that you wish you had avoided?

    • I knew you could “waiver” certain courses that were similar to ones I had taken in my undergraduate degree, but thought it might be a fun idea to just take the course instead. I wish I had, as it would have given me a free slot to either fill with another course, or just take some time off.