In a Nutshell: My 1A CS Term at the University of Waterloo
I remember when I opened my final acceptance letter — the CS program at the University of Waterloo. Being my top choice, the relief that I felt when I got in was indescribable.
“This is it,” I thought. No more hours trying to memorize every little detail so that my overall average could be 0.5% higher for admissions. No more nights trying to figure out the best combination of words to fit the specified character count on the AIF. The best part? Finally having enough free time to do whatever I want.
I couldn’t be more wrong.
I often heard — and was confused — about the fact that university students had absolutely no free time. Most university students, especially in the industry that I intended to pursue, don’t even go to graduate school. This means that all you have to do is pass so that you can get your diploma. Simple enough, right?
What I didn’t know was that university was high school thrown into the deepest ocean imaginable. From taking four courses over five months to five courses over three months with only one reading week in between, I was stressed beyond belief. In university, between having only 1–2 weeks to prepare for exams about content that you’ve only learned a week ago and overthinking about the weekly quizzes that were worth 2% each, this was not the university life that I thought I was getting myself into.
This leads to why I’m writing this article: as someone who came into university completely blind-sighted, I want to share my experiences regarding my first term as a Computer Science student at the University of Waterloo living at home with my parents. I guarantee that your experiences will not be the same as mine, but hopefully reading this article will help you feel a bit less nervous going into university, as the feelings that you will be going through are universal.
Table of Contents
Orientation
Classes (Types of Classes, Taking Notes, What to Bring)
Studying
Transportation
Food
Friends
Final Thoughts
Orientation
Orientation is usually one’s first taste of what university is like. Although it costs $120, I would say paying for it is extremely worth it as you’re able to meet a lot of different people, get accustomed to the campus, learn more about making the most of your time in university and have fun (the most important part). 🙂
The large majority of orientation events are faculty dependent. In fact, during the first day of orientation, you get a wristband with the colour of your faculty that you had to wear the whole week to gain access to all of the activities that you’re eligible for. There were also specific events for international students, students living on/off campus, and parents. However, you don’t have to attend all of the orientation events, which usually go from early in the morning to late at night. I remember a lot of people who didn’t participate in any of the morning events and others who only spontaneously popped in during events that they were interested in as attendance wasn’t taken during the whole week.
As the large majority of incoming students aren’t from Waterloo, it wasn’t unusual for strangers to approach you and introduce themselves, followed by endless exchanges of social media accounts. In that regard, my biggest tip is to be as friendly as possible, and ask questions about other people to get to know them better (e.g. ask them about their program, schedules, hobbies, where they’re from, etc.). I’ll be honest — you will most likely not talk to a large majority of people that you have met after orientation, but it is nice to meet as many individuals as possible to increase the chances of finding someone who you get along with.
Side Tip: Use the QR code scanner on your Instagram account instead of passing your phone to 100 other people just so they can type in their username — it’s a lot more efficient.
Side Tip #2: Try to befriend individuals even if they’re in a different co-op sequence than you are; many people I know end up switching sequences in their first year/future years anyways so knowing people from many sequences will benefit you in the long run :)
In addition, there was also a lot of free food, but the lineups would get extremely long at times. As a result, I recommend finding where each place is serving food ahead of time so that you don’t have to wait in line. 🙂
Overall, I would say that orientation was extremely enjoyable, and I still have very vivid memories of all of the different events I went to, the people that I talked to, and much more. Orientation is what you make of it, but it is a nice chance for you to relax and not worry too much about the challenges that are going to be thrown at you in the weeks to come.
Classes
In my first term as a Computer Science student, there were three types of classes that I experienced:
Lectures
These are usually your mandatory courses, which consist of big classes (approx. 60–120 people) where a lecturer will teach the class as if were a typical class in high school. The big difference is that attendance isn’t taken during these lectures, so unless you have a specific course (like CS 135) where you have to attend your assigned classes to get participation marks, you can go to any lecture you want for your specific classes, even if they are not assigned to you on your schedule.
Some people barely go to the lectures at all and learn the content on their own time. If you choose to do this, make sure that you are keeping up as the term goes by extremely fast.
Another difference between lectures and high school classes is that in high school, you will usually have 75-minute classes from Monday to Friday. In university, you will most likely have 50-minute classes three times a week or 75-minute classes two times a week. Don’t think that you will have more free time as there is less time in class — you will most likely spend a large portion of the time outside of class learning and processing the content on your own, which usually takes longer than the time spent in class.
Small Classes
These are usually for electives, such as public speaking (SPCOM 223). These classes are probably the most similar to your classes in high school, with around 30 people per class and more time spent in class per week compared to lectures. Unlike lectures, with fewer people in the class, participation is usually counted for marks and your instructor will most likely know you by name. You will also have a better chance of getting to know most of your class, which can be useful when trying to make friends. Finally, although most electives are reserved for people in your year and faculty, you might also meet upper years or people from different faculties, which is a great chance to meet more people from different backgrounds.
Tutorials
These are usually conducted once a week by a TA/ISA and are optional. Most people stop going to these after a few weeks if they have a solid grasp of the content, but going to them is beneficial if you aren’t as confident with a concept as you would like to be, as the class will cover a lot more examples and you will have the opportunity to ask more questions as well.
Note: Beware that for some courses (e.g. math courses) time slots that are marked as a tutorial on your schedule on Quest are sometimes assessment slots (e.g. the time that you will be writing a weekly quiz) and cannot be skipped.
Side Tips: Before each term starts, make sure to go to all of your classes to find out where they are so you don’t waste time finding your class.
In addition, arriving 10 minutes before each class starts is recommended, as the good seats fill up fast.
Taking Notes
When going to any of these classes, you should take notes in whatever method you prefer. As I took a lot of math-heavy courses, I find that handwriting my notes was a lot more efficient than typing them up, but there were also people who typed their notes using LaTeX instead. I would also recommend figuring out/asking your instructor whether or not they will be posting the slides after each class if they do use them, as you don’t have to copy everything they say on the slides word-for-word, and just focus on what the instructor is saying outside of the slides.
If you find that taking notes is preventing you from understanding the content and the slides will be provided afterwards/you have a textbook available, I would say that it is probably better that you focus on listening and understanding the content, and then take notes afterwards. You don’t have to do what everyone else around you is doing! 🙂
I also recommend having an organization system for your notes, as well as making a weekly summary of the content taught for each week at the end of each week so that studying for assessments will be easier. Using this Notion template by Janice Studies is a great way to get started.
What to Bring
Unlike high school, there is no locker for you to put your stuff in and most people just carry their backpacks around wherever they go, so you must pack light so that you don’t become tired walking from one class to the other, which can take upwards of 10 minutes to do so. Here are the things that I recommend bringing (in no particular order):
- Laptop, tablet (optional), phone and chargers for all of them.
- A power bank (optional, but handy if you like to study in places with no outlets)
- A pencil case + a small binder (if you like to take notes on paper)
- Hand sanitizer
- Wallet
- Water bottle
- Umbrella/raincoat
- Snacks
- Masks
- Tissue paper
- Calculator
- Headphones/earplugs
Studying
This is probably the most important section of this entire article, and the biggest change that I found heading into university.
In high school, teachers tend to provide a bunch of examples of a certain topic in classes, give you even more practice problems to do, and then pull questions that are very similar to those problems/examples during assessments.
In university, instructors will most likely only give you 2–3 examples per topic, maybe give you a set of 10–30 practice problems based on content that was covered each week, and then ask questions that take the concepts covered in those examples/problems in a new way that wasn’t shown before. This is where people, including myself, struggle. Having a limited amount of time to think of a solution to a problem that you’ve never seen before is terrifying. What’s even more terrifying is the fact that you don’t get a lot of time to study and practice each concept thoroughly before assessments are thrown at you. Thus, having good study/time management skills is key to being successful in university.
Although I’ve only completed one term so far and have a lot to learn, here are some tips/tricks I’ve learned that will hopefully be beneficial:
- Start everything early. I can’t stress this enough. At the beginning of the semester, I used to do weekly assignments/prepare for weekly quizzes (which are each worth a very small portion of your final mark as most of your grade comes from midterms/exams) 1–3 days before they were due, which often left me stressed and produce work that wasn’t up to the standard that I wanted it to be. I also realized I quickly fell behind in my classes, where I had to learn content from the week before at the same time as new content was being taught. In the second half of the term, I started doing everything a week ahead and it saved me a lot of time and allowed me to feel more confident when preparing for assessments.
- Memorize the strategies behind each problem. With every example, assignment/quiz question or practice problem, make sure to take note of the techniques used for each problem rather than memorizing it line by line. There will never be a question on a final exam that is exactly like those problems, but knowing strategies from previous problems will allow you to piece everything together a lot more quickly and efficiently.
- Practice. I know practicing is super hard with the lack of time given, but try your best to practice as many problems as possible, especially leading up to midterms/exams. Try and find past midterm/exam questions and do a lot of those, as I noticed that a lot of their questions were very similar to the ones on actual midterms/exams.
- Make summary sheets! I like to make a weekly summary for each course, which contains all of the definitions and theorems, common problems and strategies for each problem, as well as areas where I’ve made mistakes while doing practice problems. You will thank yourself later when you won’t have to sift through hundreds of notes trying to study for midterms/final exams 🙂
- Take breaks! Don’t forget to take brief breaks during long study sessions. It will make you more productive and might allow you to suddenly acquire a breakthrough on questions that you’ve been stuck on for the past three hours.
Transportation
When paying for your tuition each term, you have to pay for the UPass ($113), which gives you unlimited rides on the GRT buses and light rails with a tap of your WATCard (your student identification card).
When boarding buses, you have to tap your card when you enter the bus. Thus, be sure to have your WATCard with you at all times as the bus drivers will not let you on the vehicle if you don’t have any form of payment.
On the other hand, when going on the light rail, there’s usually a spot at the station for you to tap your card before getting on. Although there might be an occasional security check, usually anyone can board with/without payment. This means that it will be unlikely that you will be faced with a fine if you forget your WATCard when boarding one time, but don’t do it consistently in case you do happen to be faced with the security check.
As someone who never used the GRT systems until this term (despite living in Waterloo my whole life), here are some of the tips/tricks that I have picked up this past term:
- If you have a pocket on your phone case, place your WATCard inside so that you can easily retrieve and tap it when/before boarding.
- Make sure that you are boarding the correct bus/light rail and know exactly what stop to get off of! I recommend downloading Citymapper, which also tells you the times that the next bus/light rail will be leaving so that you can plan your time accordingly and spend less time waiting at the stations.
- If you’re riding the bus and have to request a stop, be sure to do so the second that the bus driver passes the stop before your desired stop. If you’re unlucky enough and the bus driver drives past the stop that you requested (which happened to me twice this past term), make sure to inform the bus driver immediately to save yourself from walking more to get to your destination.
Food
As someone who isn’t on a meal plan, finding cheap and healthy food on campus has been a challenge. I ate lunch at home whenever I could, but if I had to be on campus over lunchtime, I tend to buy fridge food sushi and wraps (e.g. at Brubakers in the SLC, C&D at MC, DC Bytes, etc.) or buy something from Subway or Pita Pit at the SLC if it wasn’t rush hour (before 11:30 AM). My biggest tip is to make your food (if you live in a suite) or eat at home as much as possible, and only buy food occasionally as the costs do add up over time and the food on campus usually isn’t the healthiest.
Friends
Making friends in university is quite challenging because there are usually a lot of people on campus at once and many people have already formed friend groups within a few weeks.
As a result, it is important to reach out to as many different people as possible. Orientation is a nice place to start, and you can also meet new people during classes, in clubs or around campus in general. From what I’ve seen, most people are friendly and easy to talk to but are more hesitant to make the first move when talking to strangers. Thus, as someone who’s also a bit nervous when reaching out to new people in person, I like to reach out to people on social media first and then meet them in person after having a few conversations to make it a bit easier.
Meeting and acquiring a long list of contacts from hundreds of different people is one thing, but continuing to talk and become friends with them is another. Most people that you will meet will most likely find other friend groups or drift apart once final exams are done. To prevent that from happening, try planning weekly meetups on/outside of campus to study or do activities together, whether it’s online or in person. In addition, try not to make all of your conversations about school if you’re interested in maintaining a long-term relationship, as you won’t have many reasons to talk once classes are over.
I want to end this section by saying that I used to think you’re supposed to have as many friends as possible to have a social life at university, but I soon realized that having a small number of really good friends is better than having a large group of acquaintances that you only talk to once in a while. Also, you don’t have to be with people all the time, the time you spend alone can be just as valuable.
Final Thoughts
Transitioning into university was one of the toughest things I’ve gone through so far. If you’re struggling, remember that you are not alone. Many people are in the same boat as you are, even if it feels like you’re the only person who’s struggling. Be sure to reach out to family/friends when needed, and be nice to yourself as you will be going through one of the biggest developmental stages of your life.
Have fun, and enjoy the ride! 🙂
