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Rank: Frosh
Joined: 4/10/2012
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greygoose wrote:Voivode wrote:What is the Bioinformatics program like at Waterloo? Is it possible to do a Mathematical Physics/Bioinformatics double major?
(I know I've been asking a lot of questions, and I really appreciate that you've answered them all. It's just that in my home state of Virginia, the math programs at the flagship schools here (William & Mary, University of Virginia, Virginia Tech) seem pretty mediocre, and when I look at Waterloo's awesomely diverse major plans, I kinda drool in envy. I don't even know if I can afford to go to a Canadian school yet... But again, thanks.) I would say doubtful. The Bioinformatics program is already essentially a double CS/Biology degree. It's a pretty full program. You can see the required courses here: http://ugradcalendar.uwa...-Science-Bioinformatics
Just a note, my American friend... often international tuition in Canada is cheaper than domestic tuition in the States ;) International math tuition is about 10.5k per semester for regular, or 11.8k for co-op (see http://www.adm.uwaterloo...ees%20Spring%202012.pdf ). I know schools in the states that charge well over 30k per year for domestic students... eek. Do you think Waterloo would accept college credits from community colleges? (I don't know if these exist in Canada, ahaha.) I was considering taking Orgo I, Biochemistry, and Cell Biology there, which would along with the AP credits for Bio and Chem would (hopefully) knock out BIO 130/130L, BIO 239, and all of the chem courses. Also, while I know international tuition can be cheaper, I'm really jealous how residents of Canada can go to school so cheaply, ahaha.
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Rank: Student Body Vice-President
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Voivode wrote:Do you think Waterloo would accept college credits from community colleges? (I don't know if these exist in Canada, ahaha.) I was considering taking Orgo I, Biochemistry, and Cell Biology there, which would along with the AP credits for Bio and Chem would (hopefully) knock out BIO 130/130L, BIO 239, and all of the chem courses.
Also, while I know international tuition can be cheaper, I'm really jealous how residents of Canada can go to school so cheaply, ahaha. Though you need 10 non-math courses (5.0 credits) to graduate, UW math accepts up to 1.0 non-math transfer credits for first year entry level. That's only two courses. To get more credit, you'd have to apply as a transfer student, which would complicate matters significantly. I'm not sure they'd consider a significant amount of science transfer credit for a math program. You could contact admissions to get more info on this (myapplication@uwaterloo.ca).
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Rank: Frosh
Joined: 4/10/2012
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How would doing plans between two different Faculties work? Like, if I did the Bioinformatics B.S., and the Mathematical Physics B.Math., would I get 1.0 transfer credit, or 3.0?
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Rank: Student Body Vice-President
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That's a question for the admissions people. I don't really know. But Bioinformatics, even the BSc, is still a math program, so I'd imagine the same regulations would apply.
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Rank: Frosh
Joined: 4/10/2012
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If I do the B.Math for Math. Physics, will I have to do the lab portions too?
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Rank: Student Body Vice-President
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No labs required. The BSc Math/Phys degree requires them, but not the BMath degree. See http://ugradcalendar.uwa...ATH-Mathematical-Physics
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Rank: Frosh
Joined: 4/10/2012
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Earlier, you mentioned the statistics courses were terrible. What specifically is so awful about them?
What textbooks do you use for your classes (particularly the advanced classes)? Which books have been your favorites, and which books do you dislike?
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Rank: Student Body Vice-President
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Stats courses: No marked assignments, mark is fully based on final exam. Tedious, high school level content that's taught terribly. I've heard that mandatory stats is universally awful pretty much everywhere. In the advanced classes, so far my favorite textbook has been FIS (Linear Algebra by Friedberg, Insel and Spence), though I've heard that Hoffman and Kunze is also quite good. I have covered the entirety of that text by the end of my second year. For analysis, I have a copy of Wade's Introduction to Analysis, but I'm not crazy about it. I much prefer Spivak. Beyond that, I haven't had the chance to pick up any textbooks for my math courses. Everything else has been available in course notes form, which I usually purchase on principle.
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Rank: Frosh
Joined: 4/10/2012
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How much do the course notes cost, and where do you get them?
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Rank: Student Body Vice-President
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They typically cost $30 or less for mathematics courses (arts courses they can be much higher due to copyright costs). You can purchase them at the particular Campus Copy location they're printed at, usually the MC one for math courses, bookstore for arts courses, etc.
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Rank: Frosh
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For a program that includes both Math and CS, do you pay the Math tuition or the more expensive CS tuition?
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Rank: Student Body Vice-President
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That's a question that would require clarification... but I'll answer as best as I can. Basically, the gist of it is this: there are certain "major" CS courses (X4X-X9X course codes). If you want to take those, you're considered a CS major and pay CS tuition. Otherwise, you don't. For instance, these programs would all pay CS tuition: - Any double/joint major with CS - CFM (plus extra tuition for the finance program) You would *not* pay CS tuition in these programs: - Computational mathematics - Geomatics - Any program with a CS minor
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Rank: Frosh
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greygoose wrote:That's a question that would require clarification... but I'll answer as best as I can.
Basically, the gist of it is this: there are certain "major" CS courses (X4X-X9X course codes). If you want to take those, you're considered a CS major and pay CS tuition. Otherwise, you don't.
For instance, these programs would all pay CS tuition:
- Any double/joint major with CS
- CFM (plus extra tuition for the finance program)
You would *not* pay CS tuition in these programs:
- Computational mathematics
- Geomatics
- Any program with a CS minor Thanks. Also, what are the averages for the first year advanced level courses compared to regular courses? I am unsure of which one to take.
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youngmoney wrote:Thanks. Also, what are the averages for the first year advanced level courses compared to regular courses? I am unsure of which one to take. Significantly higher, though if grades are your main focus, the advanced courses may not be for you. The averages are high because the people are smart, not because the classes are easier to get higher grades in :P
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Rank: Frosh
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greygoose wrote:youngmoney wrote:Thanks. Also, what are the averages for the first year advanced level courses compared to regular courses? I am unsure of which one to take. Significantly higher, though if grades are your main focus, the advanced courses may not be for you. The averages are high because the people are smart, not because the classes are easier to get higher grades in :P So would the same person receive a higher mark in the advanced course rather than the normal course? I'm interested in the advanced courses, but I wouldn't want 90 in Math 145 if I could get 100 in Math 135.
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Rank: Student Body President  Joined: 12/19/2010 Posts: 1,595
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youngmoney wrote:greygoose wrote:youngmoney wrote:Thanks. Also, what are the averages for the first year advanced level courses compared to regular courses? I am unsure of which one to take. Significantly higher, though if grades are your main focus, the advanced courses may not be for you. The averages are high because the people are smart, not because the classes are easier to get higher grades in :P So would the same person receive a higher mark in the advanced course rather than the normal course? I'm interested in the advanced courses, but I wouldn't want 90 in Math 145 if I could get 100 in Math 135. I have a high 90 Math average. I would have barely passed 14x Math courses. I have a friend getting 90s in 14x Math courses but would be barely passing 13x courses cause it's too boring for him. It depends on the person. If you're the type who cares about his mark, you're probably not the type of person who would enjoy 14x Math courses.
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Some marks in the advanced classes will be higher than they would have been in the regular sections; others will be lower. There's almost no point in taking them if your only priority is grades (particularly if you think a 100 in MATH 13X is worth more than a 90 in MATH 14X).
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Then you'd probably be better off in the advanced classes, presuming you're not put off by the significantly higher standards.
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Rank: Frosh
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greygoose wrote:Stats courses: No marked assignments, mark is fully based on final exam. Tedious, high school level content that's taught terribly. I've heard that mandatory stats is universally awful pretty much everywhere.
Does the suckiness apply to the advanced stat courses as well? greygoose wrote:
Significantly higher, though if grades are your main focus, the advanced courses may not be for you. The averages are high because the people are smart, not because the classes are easier to get higher grades in :P
You are awfully wrong, no matter how smart they are in order to make a good grading for all the students it should be very hard to be a top student.If the average is high then top students have only to loose because they can't be separated form the average students. This is a problem all around the world and it is due only to the greediness of people. Everyone wants to be the best and nobody gives a sh*t about the "more approach to reality" style. And here I'm entirely objective because I don't care about grades.It's really hard to compare people's intelligence and even if u could compare it and be right at the same time you would need to prove that that would not change in an ever-shifting universe where, you might have problems. In other words I heard a lot of contradictory opinions about intelligence and I'm sure that, at their bottom of their souls, everyone believes that it is him/her who has a great potential. AhFu wrote:
There's an article by Terry Tao about the nature of math outside of contests. Traditionally, child prodigies excelling in math contests like putnam and the olympiads burn out / can't stand research ("real math"). It's quite unfortunate, really.
This intrigued me, I couldn't not find the article though. The "burn out / can't stand research" is really what drew my attention, I mean , sure you need to work a lot in order to be able to do some research work but what about the ability to understand? This surely is a huuuge factor , imo, I can talk from personal experience that when you truly understand a notion there's a small quantity of data you need to memorize or to work on. A so called rock-superstar-child-prodigy would need to have a high power of understanding/reasoning and this would help a lot in the research work and that would probably not end in a burn-out. There are also some other problems. How can you define the "child prodigy" notion when you cannot demonstrate 1+1=2 ? The fact that a famous mathematician had been bashed wouldn't surprise me. The "Terry Tao" or "Erik Demaine" typo are some very lucky fellows because in many countries math does not constitute more than 20% of the school curriculum in a math program. So set aside math u have other sh*t to do because u are obliged if u wanna "step" in a university. There's no home school option in many countries. Another problem is that famous is not always the same with genius/skillful .
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Rank: Senior Student
Joined: 3/11/2012
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xtremepi wrote:greygoose wrote:Stats courses: No marked assignments, mark is fully based on final exam. Tedious, high school level content that's taught terribly. I've heard that mandatory stats is universally awful pretty much everywhere.
Does the suckiness apply to the advanced stat courses as well? greygoose wrote:
Significantly higher, though if grades are your main focus, the advanced courses may not be for you. The averages are high because the people are smart, not because the classes are easier to get higher grades in :P
You are awfully wrong, no matter how smart they are in order to make a good grading for all the students it should be very hard to be a top student.If the average is high then top students have only to loose because they can't be separated form the average students. This is a problem all around the world and it is due only to the greediness of people. Everyone wants to be the best and nobody gives a sh*t about the "more approach to reality" style. And here I'm entirely objective because I don't care about grades.It's really hard to compare people's intelligence and even if u could compare it and be right at the same time you would need to prove that that would not change in an ever-shifting universe where, you might have problems. In other words I heard a lot of contradictory opinions about intelligence and I'm sure that, at their bottom of their souls, everyone believes that it is him/her who has a great potential. AhFu wrote:
There's an article by Terry Tao about the nature of math outside of contests. Traditionally, child prodigies excelling in math contests like putnam and the olympiads burn out / can't stand research ("real math"). It's quite unfortunate, really.
This intrigued me, I couldn't not find the article though. The "burn out / can't stand research" is really what drew my attention, I mean , sure you need to work a lot in order to be able to do some research work but what about the ability to understand? This surely is a huuuge factor , imo, I can talk from personal experience that when you truly understand a notion there's a small quantity of data you need to memorize or to work on. A so called rock-superstar-child-prodigy would need to have a high power of understanding/reasoning and this would help a lot in the research work and that would probably not end in a burn-out. There are also some other problems. How can you define the "child prodigy" notion when you cannot demonstrate 1+1=2 ? The fact that a famous mathematician had been bashed wouldn't surprise me. The "Terry Tao" or "Erik Demaine" typo are some very lucky fellows because in many countries math does not constitute more than 20% of the school curriculum in a math program. So set aside math u have other sh*t to do because u are obliged if u wanna "step" in a university. There's no home school option in many countries. Another problem is that famous is not always the same with genius/skillful . ...celebrating 420 on studentawards?
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