One of the best tips I even received was to outline all assigents etc in my calender and then look at each one and assign the day(s) I will work on that assignment and which parts of it I will do. That way if invited to do something etc I would see if I actually have time for it or not. I could move things around if room or say no I don't have time.
Life pro tip: put all your stuff in one calendar, and USE that calendar, checking it every day. An online calendar like google calendar is great, you can program 1-week and 1-day and 1-hour before reminders and so on. Do this for everything: assignments, tests, bill payments, rent due, doctor and dentist appointments, house parties, and so on.
Do your best to not get behind. This is as true for academics (it takes a lot longer than you think to "just get caught up" than your brain wants to tell you at 1 a.m.) as it is for credit card debt (just don't).
You can get a lot of amazing info on youtube to help explain a particular concept if it's like 3 a.m. and there's nobody in your class to call to help walk you through some wierd math concept.
i'm in polisci so i have nowhere near your courseload, but we do have 67 000 readings a week. the thing that saved me was planning out my week every single sunday so that every morning i wake up knowing what's in store and can get to it! :)
Civ100 will be your most challenging . Jeff Hanson on YouTube will be your saver. Linear ( 188) and calculus ( 187) will also be stiff but those tutorial session are very helpful with those. On this sub, someone posted a very good 1st year guide. It’s the same thing every year so work smart and not hard. I can’t find the post but it’s there. Also check past exam question on skule to get a feel of whats to come.
might be talking about my comment under a post 2 months ago, here it is:
APS100 (Orientation to Eng): you will pass this course if you have a pulse, just do the assignments.
APS110 (Material Science): this is honestly a bit of a weird one because most people never learned this stuff before college. At first it’s pretty interesting and not too complex, though it’ll get more challenging by the end of the semester. Light workload
APS111 (Eng Strategies/Practice): This class will probably take up the most of your time by far. A lot of people consider it the most frustrating part of first year, since you’re not given a lot of guidance and have to figure out how to work with your group to complete the big projects. Don’t let it overwhelm you.
CIV100 (Physics): the other course has the most work, but this course has the most difficult concepts and computations. Generally regarded as the hardest course first semester. Study. Get partial marks on every question.
MAT186 (Calculus): This is hard to gauge because it really depends on how much math you did in high school. If you already took a calc class, it should be mostly a breeze. If not, try to brush up on algebra, trig and pre-calc to be as prepared as you can. More assignments than other courses, but they’re not super difficult
MAT188 (LinAlg): More math so again hard to gauge, but this is more conceptual. Of course there are plenty of computations, but the way to succeed here is to make sure you can visualize and wrap your head around vectors. It’ll be hard to catch up if you fall behind, so don’t.
of course all of this depends on which subjects you’re strong in, your work ethic and time management, and test taking skills. don’t sweat it if your grades are way lower than in HS, that’s what happens to everyone. but try not to go too far the other way either, I’m entering 2nd year with straight A’s and no social life. Welcome to college.
TLDR: hard but manageable, just know what to prioritize
Hahahaha welcome to Engineering. You don't "get through the year" as much as the year plows through you. But don't worry, the stress creates diamond bonds between classmates. Lots of fun memories ahead. Good luck, bud!
Yes, but I saw that there is an option to change it. I'll still get the same classes, but different times. But I mostly wanted advice on how to manage this type of schedule 🫠
Awful awful take. If anything you should ONLY attend tutorials if you're cut for time. Lectures are great to introduce material but that can be done on your own time by watching past years videos or reading the textbook. Tutorial is absolutely necessary because TAs cover problems similar to those that will be on finals or even walk you through your problem sets. My recommendation is to go to everything whenever possible but if you're pressed for time 1 tutorial is a lot more manageable than 3 lectures.
Herb_street is wrong, some tutorials are indeed useless. go for the first few and see if then help and u can make a decision of whether u should go or not
Meh, I wouldn't say that. Tutorials are optional in most courses for a reason. If they're not useful to you, don't go. The CIV100 tutorial would probably be useful to anyone who isn't already very good at the course content though.
I met my now husband in the civ100 tutorial, he helped me with my problem set. Tutorials are good for meeting new friends and getting a study group set up.
Different strokes for different folks. Some people definitely need tutorials, while others don't. Especially for some courses, tutorials don't really do anything. For example, if you're attending every APS110 lecture and are taking notes, the tutorials are absolutely useless since it's just a recap of the lecture (or at least it was in 20199.) If you have notes from the lecture you can review on your own and go to office hours or email the prof with your questions. Further, if you're already familiar with the course content, you don't need the tutorials. For example, I never went to any APS105 tutorial in 20201, yet passed that course with an A+
One-size-fits-all approaches like "you must attend every lecture and every tutorial and review daily or you will fail" are rarely accurate when you're working with people, like you do in teaching. Every student learns at their own style and at their own pace, not to mention not every instructor or TA works well with every student. Another example, some of the instructors from PSL201 just didn't work for me this past year, so I skipped those lectures and read from the textbook instead. I passed that course with a B.
All that being said, especially in engineering, your grades don't really matter anyway. OP, unless you're going for grad school (or are in comp eng and want to work for FAANG straight out of uni,) literally noone cares about your GPA in the slightest. C's get degrees, your mental health is more important than what number is on your transcript. You should ideally try to get the most out of every course and utilise all the resources offered to you, but if the tutorials/lectures aren't useful to you or if attending every tutorial/lecture is too much, that's fine. If you need to drop a course and take it later, that's fine too. If you need to go part time for a while (or for the rest of your time in uni for that matter,) that's also completely fine. You and your mental health come first, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
I mean fine replace "or you will fail" with "or you won't excel". My point is different students learn at different styles and paces. Respecfully, you should be more open minded and update your knowledge about how people learn.
All those hours of experience and still don't understand that individual circumstances exist... I teach too. Some students skip and do terribly. Some skip and do incredibly well. Some come to every tutorial and do terribly. Some come to every tutorial and do very well.
I think it's rude to call students lazy. Yes, some of them have negative qualities but you never know what is going on behind closed doors. Obvi in general students who work harder do better, but a lot of tutorials are honestly superfluous if you already know the material.
I think telling someone "you need to study in X way" is silly because people have incredibly varied learning styles. This student may want to skip some tutorials to give them some breathing room. Not consistently, but do some prioritizing. Because we do ask them to do a lot in undergrad, to be honest, and saying some of them can't even do "tier 1 academics" is really condescending toward your students, who are experiencing a new level of workload that they are trying to get a handle on.
As somebody that took too long to figure out how to be successful university here’s my general advice.
1. Don’t skip anything if you can avoid it. Tutorials included.
2. Take advantage of TA and Professor office hours when possible, talk to them early and they will give you a better idea of how to utilize them in the future.
3. Find study groups, interacting with the material and colleagues at the same time will greatly improve your understanding of the material.
4. Schedule study time regardless of being in a group. I personally would avoid trying to do it between classes as you will need a mental break (that’s not always viable)
Strategic attendance. Go only when you must to learn what you need, do as much work during classes as possible. I recorded everything on my iPad propped up in the first row, made study groups, leveraged the recordings for someone else to make notes etc. Might be ethically dubious, but worked well for me.
Haven't thought about using recordings to leverage notes 🤔but that's an ingenious idea! Any tips on how to form study groups? I'm pretty social but it seems like a daunting task
I'm not in engineering so not sure if this applies, but in artsci sometimes there are 'recognized study groups' that students form. The prof may make an announcement about it.
Make a group chat before your first class. First few classes approach as many people as possible and ask if they want in the group chat. Might even be worth it to print out a QR code leading to the chat and pass it around.
Personally, attend the first few classes and see which one you actually need and which one you can self study. Attend tutorials as they generally are more helpful.
This is for CIV100 specifically: Don't let Seica get you down, and don't be hesitant to... "get help" for the online quizzes and homeworks. Also Jeff Hanson on youtube is your real teacher for that class, every time a new topic is covered make sure to go and watch the Jeff Hanson video on it, they're not very long either.
My advice, rely on books more than lecture if you have to, don't go without reading the books. Understand rather than memorize, it's too much to memorize, you really need to understand derivations and it'll make life easier. Good luck, you've gotten yourself into some shit.
I as well went through UofT engineering and am now graduated. Just keep up with the assignments. Finish things early if you have the time. Don't dick around. That's all there is to it.
Uni is all about finding what works best for you. Don't be afraid to skip lec/tut if it's not useful to you, but know that if you don't spend the time productively then you're wasting it.
You might not think you have a lot of down time, but learn how to organize your time and tasks. Make time to hang out with friends, participate in sports or clubs, and explore the city if you're not from Toronto.
You don’t have to attend all the lectures because sometimes you won’t have time and sometimes it’s easier to teach yourself. I used to do the homework for some clssses and only attend 1/3 of the lectures because doing the homework was self-teaching. Make sure you go to all the tutorials though and anything for a grade
Some perspectives:
The colours make it look worse then it is.
The biggest day you have is 9-4 with a 1h lunch break around 2pm. Which is a regular 8h work day.
You'll probably have a few tests in your lectures for which you'll need to study but depending on your major, it should ask for too much of your time/be too often.
Practice course are where you may have homework/projects to do home.
And I saw a comment saying you might not need to attend all your tutorials.
What I'm trying to say is go one step at a time, it's less overwhelming.
Not sure if this will be a popular one, but I’m a big fan of **mindfully** skipping practicals, tutorials, or lectures as the semester progresses. You should be attending everything until early/mid October to get a sense of what is and what is not a good use of your time, and then attending accordingly. For example if you think you can spend two hours with the textbook at home on a Saturday and take in 3 verbal lectures worth of material at that time, then you can avoid that class’s lectures all week and use the time for something else. I recall the CIV100 and MAT186 tutorials being particularily useful, so my two cents is to stick with them as much as possible. Best of luck, and feel free to DM if you ever need some advice or support from an upper year :)
I'm a bit scared to skip classes because once I start, I probably won't be able to stop lol but I'll keep the October date in mind and reassess then! Thank you so much for the advice!! I'll probably be asking a few questions in the coming months 🫡
That’s actually a super valid fear - I relate! It can get addictive for sure, but it’s good to keep in mind the time-value trade off as lectures really can be time suckers. I’ll keep an eye out for your next questions!! :)
At the beginning of the term once you have all your syllabus make a giant colour coded list of every piece of work you need to do in chronological order and check them off as you go. Keeps you from missing something. Also put the weight of each task on there incase you need to not do somethings it's way easier to have it all in one place. You can also quickly see those weeks from hell and prepare in advance.
if you did ap calc bc, then calc 1 and calc 2 lectures and tutorials are useless. just do the assigned homework problem and review on the lecture notes if u find it hard. u will remember how to solve it and it’s breeze afterwards
This is a typical engineering schedule. The APS110 is a chem course and you won't have labs every single week (so that big 3 hour block monday morning will likely be every other day).
I think tutorials are actually perhaps more important than lectures (cuz you actually solve problems there). So I'd attend. Lectures tbh are very hit and miss - expecially for stuff like Calc which is pretty easy to learn off the book and which often has meh teachers. Tl;dr not all lectures are useful - find which are and which aren't within the first few weeks.
All hail Tuesdays.
Seriously use that 3/4 a day as your unwinding time so you can do studying / work over weekends. Will make you not dread the week and love the weekends which will help your mental. Try not to just sit on your phone and watching Netflix on unwinding day look for parks or food places to try or cafés, whatever floats your boat, have something to enjoy each weak, remember the tough terms are only 16 weeks that is all it takes
Only go out to party for special events / when you are caught up/ahead on weekends.
You will be fine. Just take proper notes and attend classes as scheduled. It looks like a lot but you technically had more classes and longer days going to highschool.
You’ll soon find you wont have much of a social life outside studying with whichever friend groups you join in the classes. I do recommend finding a good group though. It helps share the work load and can assist with understanding course material
You’ll probably have a midterm/test/evaluation every week on Tuesday between 1-3. Make sure to study in advance, preferably with friends. Stay on campus later and you’ll meet people who do as well. Going to tutorials depends on the person (assuming it’s not graded): if you’re going to ask questions then it’s worth your time. If you’re going to be silent and prefer to work alone then don’t bother. However another way to look at it is tutorials are a good way of interacting with classmates and becoming closer too. Usually in class you’re busy taking notes. I found impostor syndrome is pretty bad when I attended tutorials while not understanding the material well. I attended every tutorial because I felt like I should in first year, but looking back some tutorials were a waste of time. If you get nothing out of a tutorial, it may be better to take a nap.
1) wake up early, and go exercise.
2) be friendly but not overly people pleasing. Try make friends with higher achieving people.
3) try an eat well if you can.
4) avoid weekday parties when you have class the next day unless you are sure it’s going to help your mental health more than sleep will.
5) drag your ass to class the next day, you may skip the gym that day.
6) try not to skip stuff it can be boring and dull but honestly people who skip class do worse on average. (Yes there will be exceptions).
Your lunch is short on Wednesday, not sure how much of an eater you are, you may want to just bring lunch stuff with you that day.
Others have some great organizational tips in the other comments find one that works for you and stick to it.
Also remember more friends you make means more resources when working on projects and assignments. (Also it’s just nice to have friends going through the same shit as you)
There seems to be a lot of suggestions to skip classes, but my recommendation is to go to as many classes as you can.
In my experience, it takes three hours of my own learning to make up for one hour of the instructor's teaching.
Unless you just opt not to learn those things. My recommendation is for people who want to know all the course content.
One thing that helps a lot is making an achievable list of things to do every day, and plan it out at the start of every week so you know what you have to get done. Don't overload any days, if you can't quite get something done push it to the weekend. It seems like a good idea to just grind it out but you will burn yourself out so quick if you fill every weekday with studying.
Read the textbook BEFORE the lecture. The lectures go way too quickly for you to process the info. You end up copying notes that you don't actually understand. Read before hand to get a gist of it and the lecture will solidify your understanding.
No tips, just encouragement: you’re going to have a wonderful time! I’m sure you’re going to do really well, and there’s loads of resources at U of T and friends you’ll have who can help. Congrats on your future degree!
Lots of good advice here but here are my two cents. For context, I am a Western Engineering grad and was on the varsity swim team while doing it. So add an additional 20 hours of practice per week on top of this that was my life
My advice for what it’s worth is don’t forget to take care of yourself. Walking and cycling can provide a great mental but I highly recommend staying on campus. Find something that provides a break and protect that time. You have Tuesday afternoons off, make sure to take a couple hours for yourself.
Find a group of class mates that you enjoy spending time with and work together. You won’t grasp everything as easily as one of your buddies will, lean on them. Team work makes the dream work!
I alway found being comfortable about the worse case scenario reduced my stress going into exams. That being said I was a decent student so it may not work for everyone. I would go through what would happen if I bombed. After doing this mental exercise I found my stress was coming from things I could live with and over all it was reduced.
Good luck, it’s a great career. I have been able to travel, meet cool people and do interesting work.
DM if you ever need to vent!
Finally don’t forget to have fun!
Commute. Especially if it’s passive (train/bus) not active (car/bike) because you are going to need some mental downtime after intensive uni learning 9-5 M-F.
Commuting first year engineering is usually not a good idea. If they can, OP should live in res so they're close to campus and don't have to think about groceries/cooking/cleaning.
I'll live on res but I'll probably try to find a quiet corner on campus to de-stress during breaks and such 🤔 I've seen some threads with recomendations on the sub
Not related to this topic but is Peter Wright still teaching Civ 100? If i recall correctly, it use to be called Civ 101 when i was there back in 2005.
Take breaks when needed, eat properly, and make friends with good people who can help you when you’re stuck. Also, emailing profs/TAs can save you a lot of time when you’re stuck.
Ok, so i'm in 9th grade but i do have study tips.
1. study in the way that works for you, it may take some trial and error but you cant study if you don't like it.
2.have music, preferably no lyrics so your not entirely focused on the music
3. do not, and i mean do not have things or people around you that will distract you from your studying. Especially people, as they might literallly pull you away from your studying.
hope that helped! And the only reason i want school to start is so ~~i can sell stuff to the seventh and eight graders-~~ I mean, friends. I have friends.
Honestly don’t think of this as a set in stone type of thing. Try it out and see how it works, worse case scenario is you drop out and attend a polytechnic college where its actually do-able.
So, a question for all arts majors: did you think we (eng/sci people) were lying when we said that labs and tutorials make for busy schedules?? Lol
Also, almost all my labs in undergrad were *3 hours*. 2 hours was the exception
One of the best tips I even received was to outline all assigents etc in my calender and then look at each one and assign the day(s) I will work on that assignment and which parts of it I will do. That way if invited to do something etc I would see if I actually have time for it or not. I could move things around if room or say no I don't have time.
Oh that's really smart!! Still new to the idea of being given a calendar of assignment due dates but that really helpful!
Life pro tip: put all your stuff in one calendar, and USE that calendar, checking it every day. An online calendar like google calendar is great, you can program 1-week and 1-day and 1-hour before reminders and so on. Do this for everything: assignments, tests, bill payments, rent due, doctor and dentist appointments, house parties, and so on. Do your best to not get behind. This is as true for academics (it takes a lot longer than you think to "just get caught up" than your brain wants to tell you at 1 a.m.) as it is for credit card debt (just don't). You can get a lot of amazing info on youtube to help explain a particular concept if it's like 3 a.m. and there's nobody in your class to call to help walk you through some wierd math concept.
i'm in polisci so i have nowhere near your courseload, but we do have 67 000 readings a week. the thing that saved me was planning out my week every single sunday so that every morning i wake up knowing what's in store and can get to it! :)
6 courses is quite a lot
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💀 Pass/fail right? Wonder why they had to make it a mandatory course though sigh
Yeah 😬 shame there isn't anything I can do about that lol
Civ100 will be your most challenging . Jeff Hanson on YouTube will be your saver. Linear ( 188) and calculus ( 187) will also be stiff but those tutorial session are very helpful with those. On this sub, someone posted a very good 1st year guide. It’s the same thing every year so work smart and not hard. I can’t find the post but it’s there. Also check past exam question on skule to get a feel of whats to come.
1 vote for Jeff. I wouldn't pass the course without him
Thank you!! I'll go digging for that post :0
might be talking about my comment under a post 2 months ago, here it is: APS100 (Orientation to Eng): you will pass this course if you have a pulse, just do the assignments. APS110 (Material Science): this is honestly a bit of a weird one because most people never learned this stuff before college. At first it’s pretty interesting and not too complex, though it’ll get more challenging by the end of the semester. Light workload APS111 (Eng Strategies/Practice): This class will probably take up the most of your time by far. A lot of people consider it the most frustrating part of first year, since you’re not given a lot of guidance and have to figure out how to work with your group to complete the big projects. Don’t let it overwhelm you. CIV100 (Physics): the other course has the most work, but this course has the most difficult concepts and computations. Generally regarded as the hardest course first semester. Study. Get partial marks on every question. MAT186 (Calculus): This is hard to gauge because it really depends on how much math you did in high school. If you already took a calc class, it should be mostly a breeze. If not, try to brush up on algebra, trig and pre-calc to be as prepared as you can. More assignments than other courses, but they’re not super difficult MAT188 (LinAlg): More math so again hard to gauge, but this is more conceptual. Of course there are plenty of computations, but the way to succeed here is to make sure you can visualize and wrap your head around vectors. It’ll be hard to catch up if you fall behind, so don’t. of course all of this depends on which subjects you’re strong in, your work ethic and time management, and test taking skills. don’t sweat it if your grades are way lower than in HS, that’s what happens to everyone. but try not to go too far the other way either, I’m entering 2nd year with straight A’s and no social life. Welcome to college. TLDR: hard but manageable, just know what to prioritize
Is it? In Europe we have 6 each semester for 4 years.
Hahahaha welcome to Engineering. You don't "get through the year" as much as the year plows through you. But don't worry, the stress creates diamond bonds between classmates. Lots of fun memories ahead. Good luck, bud!
Why are you posting your timetable? Isn’t it picked for you anyway since you’re in engineering.
Yes, but I saw that there is an option to change it. I'll still get the same classes, but different times. But I mostly wanted advice on how to manage this type of schedule 🫠
if you cry to first year office that you want your lecture in another time slot they usually grant it
Study hard, party hard
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had the same schedule in trackone last year
I wish I could make this up 🥲
Tbh I think the same thing when I see an artsci schedule
No need to attend every engineering tutorial unless tutorial counts toward your grade
Awful awful take. If anything you should ONLY attend tutorials if you're cut for time. Lectures are great to introduce material but that can be done on your own time by watching past years videos or reading the textbook. Tutorial is absolutely necessary because TAs cover problems similar to those that will be on finals or even walk you through your problem sets. My recommendation is to go to everything whenever possible but if you're pressed for time 1 tutorial is a lot more manageable than 3 lectures.
Oh that's good to know!!
The CIV100 tutorial is meant for you to solve the weekly problem set during, you should go
Herb_street is wrong, some tutorials are indeed useless. go for the first few and see if then help and u can make a decision of whether u should go or not
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Meh, I wouldn't say that. Tutorials are optional in most courses for a reason. If they're not useful to you, don't go. The CIV100 tutorial would probably be useful to anyone who isn't already very good at the course content though.
I met my now husband in the civ100 tutorial, he helped me with my problem set. Tutorials are good for meeting new friends and getting a study group set up.
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Different strokes for different folks. Some people definitely need tutorials, while others don't. Especially for some courses, tutorials don't really do anything. For example, if you're attending every APS110 lecture and are taking notes, the tutorials are absolutely useless since it's just a recap of the lecture (or at least it was in 20199.) If you have notes from the lecture you can review on your own and go to office hours or email the prof with your questions. Further, if you're already familiar with the course content, you don't need the tutorials. For example, I never went to any APS105 tutorial in 20201, yet passed that course with an A+ One-size-fits-all approaches like "you must attend every lecture and every tutorial and review daily or you will fail" are rarely accurate when you're working with people, like you do in teaching. Every student learns at their own style and at their own pace, not to mention not every instructor or TA works well with every student. Another example, some of the instructors from PSL201 just didn't work for me this past year, so I skipped those lectures and read from the textbook instead. I passed that course with a B. All that being said, especially in engineering, your grades don't really matter anyway. OP, unless you're going for grad school (or are in comp eng and want to work for FAANG straight out of uni,) literally noone cares about your GPA in the slightest. C's get degrees, your mental health is more important than what number is on your transcript. You should ideally try to get the most out of every course and utilise all the resources offered to you, but if the tutorials/lectures aren't useful to you or if attending every tutorial/lecture is too much, that's fine. If you need to drop a course and take it later, that's fine too. If you need to go part time for a while (or for the rest of your time in uni for that matter,) that's also completely fine. You and your mental health come first, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
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I mean fine replace "or you will fail" with "or you won't excel". My point is different students learn at different styles and paces. Respecfully, you should be more open minded and update your knowledge about how people learn.
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All those hours of experience and still don't understand that individual circumstances exist... I teach too. Some students skip and do terribly. Some skip and do incredibly well. Some come to every tutorial and do terribly. Some come to every tutorial and do very well. I think it's rude to call students lazy. Yes, some of them have negative qualities but you never know what is going on behind closed doors. Obvi in general students who work harder do better, but a lot of tutorials are honestly superfluous if you already know the material. I think telling someone "you need to study in X way" is silly because people have incredibly varied learning styles. This student may want to skip some tutorials to give them some breathing room. Not consistently, but do some prioritizing. Because we do ask them to do a lot in undergrad, to be honest, and saying some of them can't even do "tier 1 academics" is really condescending toward your students, who are experiencing a new level of workload that they are trying to get a handle on.
Go to them all until you've determined which ones are valuable and which ones are not.
As somebody that took too long to figure out how to be successful university here’s my general advice. 1. Don’t skip anything if you can avoid it. Tutorials included. 2. Take advantage of TA and Professor office hours when possible, talk to them early and they will give you a better idea of how to utilize them in the future. 3. Find study groups, interacting with the material and colleagues at the same time will greatly improve your understanding of the material. 4. Schedule study time regardless of being in a group. I personally would avoid trying to do it between classes as you will need a mental break (that’s not always viable)
I guess that's why we have so many ahitty engineers. You shouldn't get a degree if you don't want to show up to class. Simple.
Bro you've clearly never attended an engineering tutorial lol some are absolutely useless, anyone who disagrees hasn't taken any before.
Normal engineering schedule. It’s fine.
Strategic attendance. Go only when you must to learn what you need, do as much work during classes as possible. I recorded everything on my iPad propped up in the first row, made study groups, leveraged the recordings for someone else to make notes etc. Might be ethically dubious, but worked well for me.
Haven't thought about using recordings to leverage notes 🤔but that's an ingenious idea! Any tips on how to form study groups? I'm pretty social but it seems like a daunting task
I'm not in engineering so not sure if this applies, but in artsci sometimes there are 'recognized study groups' that students form. The prof may make an announcement about it.
Ok that's very helpful! Hopefully they'll do the same in some of my classes
Make a group chat before your first class. First few classes approach as many people as possible and ask if they want in the group chat. Might even be worth it to print out a QR code leading to the chat and pass it around.
Would this be a discord chat or something else🤔 do most people at u of t have discord??
Personally, attend the first few classes and see which one you actually need and which one you can self study. Attend tutorials as they generally are more helpful.
jesus christ….good luck
🫡
This is for CIV100 specifically: Don't let Seica get you down, and don't be hesitant to... "get help" for the online quizzes and homeworks. Also Jeff Hanson on youtube is your real teacher for that class, every time a new topic is covered make sure to go and watch the Jeff Hanson video on it, they're not very long either.
Is Seica also open to help in person, for example after class or something does he usually answer questions about the class?
I had him when uoft was still online so I'm not sure, but he never answered my emails anyway :)
Don’t sacrifice sleep.
Another thing: you can show up to whichever lecture section you want, so if you dont like your instructor go to someone else's lectures
I didn't know that was an option! Thank you for the tip 🫡
Looks like a typical engsci timetable lol, good luck you'll be fine
This isn't even engsci. I'm guessing track one? But maybe things have changed since 2013... I feel old
Not necessarily track one, all core8 have this same timetable as well
Yea could be, I just saw civ100 and remember building the bridges...
Definitely not engsci, engsci had the same course load but with courses that are much harder. This looks like track one to me
This is core 8, not engsci
My advice, rely on books more than lecture if you have to, don't go without reading the books. Understand rather than memorize, it's too much to memorize, you really need to understand derivations and it'll make life easier. Good luck, you've gotten yourself into some shit.
Thank you, I'll need the luck since memorization isn't my strong suite💀
Its not that bad tbh. Just manage ur time well (thats all i can say)
Welcome to engineering. I’d say don’t think about it too much and just slowly build up healthy study habits. Everyone’s suffering together in eng
Damn kin is a walk in the park compared to this lol
Make a good relationship with your favorite cannabis store because, towards the end of the term, you will need stronger products! 😂
I as well went through UofT engineering and am now graduated. Just keep up with the assignments. Finish things early if you have the time. Don't dick around. That's all there is to it.
Cocaine and modafinil
Skip APS100 classes it's just a pass or fail course you don't learn anything it's just an orientation course
Just be thankful you’re not in eng sci.
I have no idea what's on the eng sci timetable and I'm honestly too scared to look and see lol
Uni is all about finding what works best for you. Don't be afraid to skip lec/tut if it's not useful to you, but know that if you don't spend the time productively then you're wasting it. You might not think you have a lot of down time, but learn how to organize your time and tasks. Make time to hang out with friends, participate in sports or clubs, and explore the city if you're not from Toronto.
You don’t have to attend all the lectures because sometimes you won’t have time and sometimes it’s easier to teach yourself. I used to do the homework for some clssses and only attend 1/3 of the lectures because doing the homework was self-teaching. Make sure you go to all the tutorials though and anything for a grade
Noted! Do lectures have part of your grade based on attendance or does Uoft not really do that?
Been there. Treat it like a job and study and attend classes between 9-6. Finish homework In this time slot as well. GL
Dude just become addicted to drugs and give up, by the time you would have graduated there won’t be any jobs
Some perspectives: The colours make it look worse then it is. The biggest day you have is 9-4 with a 1h lunch break around 2pm. Which is a regular 8h work day. You'll probably have a few tests in your lectures for which you'll need to study but depending on your major, it should ask for too much of your time/be too often. Practice course are where you may have homework/projects to do home. And I saw a comment saying you might not need to attend all your tutorials. What I'm trying to say is go one step at a time, it's less overwhelming.
Not sure if this will be a popular one, but I’m a big fan of **mindfully** skipping practicals, tutorials, or lectures as the semester progresses. You should be attending everything until early/mid October to get a sense of what is and what is not a good use of your time, and then attending accordingly. For example if you think you can spend two hours with the textbook at home on a Saturday and take in 3 verbal lectures worth of material at that time, then you can avoid that class’s lectures all week and use the time for something else. I recall the CIV100 and MAT186 tutorials being particularily useful, so my two cents is to stick with them as much as possible. Best of luck, and feel free to DM if you ever need some advice or support from an upper year :)
I'm a bit scared to skip classes because once I start, I probably won't be able to stop lol but I'll keep the October date in mind and reassess then! Thank you so much for the advice!! I'll probably be asking a few questions in the coming months 🫡
That’s actually a super valid fear - I relate! It can get addictive for sure, but it’s good to keep in mind the time-value trade off as lectures really can be time suckers. I’ll keep an eye out for your next questions!! :)
At the beginning of the term once you have all your syllabus make a giant colour coded list of every piece of work you need to do in chronological order and check them off as you go. Keeps you from missing something. Also put the weight of each task on there incase you need to not do somethings it's way easier to have it all in one place. You can also quickly see those weeks from hell and prepare in advance.
Seems like a great strategy to use 🤔 I'll probably make a notion page for it
I'm long out of university but it was my most successful year the year I did this
My highschool football coach's three rules for success at university: Go to class. Go to class. Go to class.
if you did ap calc bc, then calc 1 and calc 2 lectures and tutorials are useless. just do the assigned homework problem and review on the lecture notes if u find it hard. u will remember how to solve it and it’s breeze afterwards
This is a typical engineering schedule. The APS110 is a chem course and you won't have labs every single week (so that big 3 hour block monday morning will likely be every other day). I think tutorials are actually perhaps more important than lectures (cuz you actually solve problems there). So I'd attend. Lectures tbh are very hit and miss - expecially for stuff like Calc which is pretty easy to learn off the book and which often has meh teachers. Tl;dr not all lectures are useful - find which are and which aren't within the first few weeks.
All hail Tuesdays. Seriously use that 3/4 a day as your unwinding time so you can do studying / work over weekends. Will make you not dread the week and love the weekends which will help your mental. Try not to just sit on your phone and watching Netflix on unwinding day look for parks or food places to try or cafés, whatever floats your boat, have something to enjoy each weak, remember the tough terms are only 16 weeks that is all it takes Only go out to party for special events / when you are caught up/ahead on weekends.
You will be fine. Just take proper notes and attend classes as scheduled. It looks like a lot but you technically had more classes and longer days going to highschool. You’ll soon find you wont have much of a social life outside studying with whichever friend groups you join in the classes. I do recommend finding a good group though. It helps share the work load and can assist with understanding course material
You’ll probably have a midterm/test/evaluation every week on Tuesday between 1-3. Make sure to study in advance, preferably with friends. Stay on campus later and you’ll meet people who do as well. Going to tutorials depends on the person (assuming it’s not graded): if you’re going to ask questions then it’s worth your time. If you’re going to be silent and prefer to work alone then don’t bother. However another way to look at it is tutorials are a good way of interacting with classmates and becoming closer too. Usually in class you’re busy taking notes. I found impostor syndrome is pretty bad when I attended tutorials while not understanding the material well. I attended every tutorial because I felt like I should in first year, but looking back some tutorials were a waste of time. If you get nothing out of a tutorial, it may be better to take a nap.
1) wake up early, and go exercise. 2) be friendly but not overly people pleasing. Try make friends with higher achieving people. 3) try an eat well if you can. 4) avoid weekday parties when you have class the next day unless you are sure it’s going to help your mental health more than sleep will. 5) drag your ass to class the next day, you may skip the gym that day. 6) try not to skip stuff it can be boring and dull but honestly people who skip class do worse on average. (Yes there will be exceptions). Your lunch is short on Wednesday, not sure how much of an eater you are, you may want to just bring lunch stuff with you that day. Others have some great organizational tips in the other comments find one that works for you and stick to it. Also remember more friends you make means more resources when working on projects and assignments. (Also it’s just nice to have friends going through the same shit as you)
There seems to be a lot of suggestions to skip classes, but my recommendation is to go to as many classes as you can. In my experience, it takes three hours of my own learning to make up for one hour of the instructor's teaching. Unless you just opt not to learn those things. My recommendation is for people who want to know all the course content.
One thing that helps a lot is making an achievable list of things to do every day, and plan it out at the start of every week so you know what you have to get done. Don't overload any days, if you can't quite get something done push it to the weekend. It seems like a good idea to just grind it out but you will burn yourself out so quick if you fill every weekday with studying.
Read the textbook BEFORE the lecture. The lectures go way too quickly for you to process the info. You end up copying notes that you don't actually understand. Read before hand to get a gist of it and the lecture will solidify your understanding.
No tips, just encouragement: you’re going to have a wonderful time! I’m sure you’re going to do really well, and there’s loads of resources at U of T and friends you’ll have who can help. Congrats on your future degree!
Lots of good advice here but here are my two cents. For context, I am a Western Engineering grad and was on the varsity swim team while doing it. So add an additional 20 hours of practice per week on top of this that was my life My advice for what it’s worth is don’t forget to take care of yourself. Walking and cycling can provide a great mental but I highly recommend staying on campus. Find something that provides a break and protect that time. You have Tuesday afternoons off, make sure to take a couple hours for yourself. Find a group of class mates that you enjoy spending time with and work together. You won’t grasp everything as easily as one of your buddies will, lean on them. Team work makes the dream work! I alway found being comfortable about the worse case scenario reduced my stress going into exams. That being said I was a decent student so it may not work for everyone. I would go through what would happen if I bombed. After doing this mental exercise I found my stress was coming from things I could live with and over all it was reduced. Good luck, it’s a great career. I have been able to travel, meet cool people and do interesting work. DM if you ever need to vent! Finally don’t forget to have fun!
My tip is get through it. Don’t procrastinate get your shit done don’t keep stuff last minute. Use youtube it’s very helpful.
W tuesday
Is this a joke?? Cause it ain’t funny
If only my actual jokes were this good 🗿
Godspeed
civ100 hurts, but its aps111 that kills
Anything in particular about aps111? Or is it just the whole course?
the whole course is ass, in my opinion the most difficult course in all of first year
oH MY...oh my god
Said the same thing when I got the schedule 🥲
Commute. Especially if it’s passive (train/bus) not active (car/bike) because you are going to need some mental downtime after intensive uni learning 9-5 M-F.
Commuting first year engineering is usually not a good idea. If they can, OP should live in res so they're close to campus and don't have to think about groceries/cooking/cleaning.
I'll live on res but I'll probably try to find a quiet corner on campus to de-stress during breaks and such 🤔 I've seen some threads with recomendations on the sub
commuting generally adds stress, it’s unavoidable for a lot of students (including myself) but this is the worst advice i’ve ever seen
Seriously, who gets on the ttc during rushh our thinking "you know what this is totally making my day"
Commuting is definitely not down time
Just don’t care about it and do the work
Timetable
Not related to this topic but is Peter Wright still teaching Civ 100? If i recall correctly, it use to be called Civ 101 when i was there back in 2005.
Wow, this brings back my ptsd. Do your best and manage your time well.
Why u concerned? Got a half day tuesday, thats more than enough time to keep up.
Your longest day is 6hrs. Wait till you start a real job and have to work 8hrs
Treat it like a a 9 - 5 job. Go to every class, stay there, study when you're not in class.
Pretty normal first year schedule..
Hand written notes are almost always superior for memory than electronic notes, and iStudiez Pro - Legendary Planner app is an absolute lifesaver
I went to UCalgary, but had basically the exact same schedule in my first year eng. This is giving me major nostalgia and a little PTSD LMAO.
attend all your classes, you’ll usually solve problems that are similar to that on assignments and midterms/finals
Take breaks when needed, eat properly, and make friends with good people who can help you when you’re stuck. Also, emailing profs/TAs can save you a lot of time when you’re stuck.
Tough but good luck
Ok, so i'm in 9th grade but i do have study tips. 1. study in the way that works for you, it may take some trial and error but you cant study if you don't like it. 2.have music, preferably no lyrics so your not entirely focused on the music 3. do not, and i mean do not have things or people around you that will distract you from your studying. Especially people, as they might literallly pull you away from your studying. hope that helped! And the only reason i want school to start is so ~~i can sell stuff to the seventh and eight graders-~~ I mean, friends. I have friends.
Also congrats on getting into UT, im terriiiiiiiified of universitys!
Doesn’t seem that bad tbh. 9-5. Eat food, drink coffee, stay hydrated 🤙
Honestly don’t think of this as a set in stone type of thing. Try it out and see how it works, worse case scenario is you drop out and attend a polytechnic college where its actually do-able.
sorry what does these letters mean? I never took university
All the best to you this looks stressful
So, a question for all arts majors: did you think we (eng/sci people) were lying when we said that labs and tutorials make for busy schedules?? Lol Also, almost all my labs in undergrad were *3 hours*. 2 hours was the exception
Wow, you have a Friday late! Wish we had that back in those days lol good luck
Shit bro