All math majors must take 10 non-math courses (or an assortment of labs and courses that sums to 5.0 credits).

Additionally, CS has breadth and depth requirements that you must satisfy to graduate. These currently include four arts courses and two science courses, with particular depth requirements.

So yes, you do have space to take some other science courses for your own interest. In fact, you need to in order to graduate. The double major of pure math and CS requires 45 courses total. (I got transfer credit to exempt me from two non-math of that.)

I am "anti-co-op" in the sense that I think that the co-op fee doesn't provide enough value for one's money and the requirements for co-op (work reports, PD) are really stupid and rather bullcrapty.

I think that co-op is good for a certain group of people, and that group makes up about 70-80% of campus. There are people that I've told GOD NO PLEASE STAY IN CO-OP IT'S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD and people who I've told to gtfo. It should always be a personal decision.



Ah, yes. So co-op helps a lot with certain kinds of jobs, and not really with others.

Research positions are almost NEVER determined through Jobmine. There are a few, but they usually have lots of outside applicants, etc. The way to get research positions is to talk to profs, find one that has some research to do, impress them and get them to submit an NSERC research proposal.

You're in luck--applied math has a lot of research positions. And they get a good amount of money. So you have a good chance, there! Make sure you get to know your profs and things should play out well for you.

The reason co-op is not a good option is for a few reasons.

- One, because if you're emphasizing academia over work, co-op scheduling sucks a lot and requires you to jump through a lot of hoops.
- Two, because if you apply for other jobs on Jobmine, the Jobmine rankings take priority over any outside work you're looking for, so you could be forced to take crapty job XYZ instead of awesome research positition ABC if ABC doesn't offer fast enough. I mean, you could decline XYZ and take ABC, but the university would mark you as having failed your work term, and CECS would be furious with you.
- And three, because a lot of the co-op requirements just flat out don't apply. If you've already written a paper for your work term, why would you need to write a work report? The 80s-style soft skills "training" PD offers does not apply to academia at all. It's useless. Perhaps even objectively useless.



You can do both of these things! It's trickier to do research with a prof elsewhere though, because you'd have to move (unless it was like, at Laurier), you'd have a harder time getting to know the prof, etc.



It depends. You could make the same amount of money... you could make more. I'm probably going to make about the same amount of money, but I'm taking the opportunity to do industry jobs, which pays much better than academic things.

TAing during your fulltime terms pays about $600-800 for your part-time work (tutoring or marking). Research positions usually will pay about 10k for four months, unless your prof has some insane grant money or you're doing front of the line work. Full-time tutoring positions in CS pay about the same, maybe a little less. And you can also do part-time research during academic terms which pays about as much as a TA position.

Academic work doesn't pay very much, but it's very enjoyable. You could probably make around 50-70k over six work terms plus part time work, and so if your living costs are low enough, it's still a decent sum.

Working in industry pays much more. If you're good, you can make like 20k for four months of work by the time you're senior! Depending on how my next three work terms go, I could end up making more than the above number in only five full-time terms.



If you accept the co-op offer, which I don't think you can decline, they will require you to do your first work term before they allow you to drop out of co-op, usually. So you'll have to pay that $1200. However, you will be much more likely to find a job if you can't find a research job through the co-op system, which is good, and you can just ignore PD with the knowledge that you're dropping co-op, which I'm sure would be relieving. :P

Finding your first and second job can be very challenging, so it is good to have that co-op support net.



You are required to take at least two CS courses (CS 1[134]5/1[134]6). You can take a few CS major courses beyond that (CS 245/246/37[01]/487), but most of the courses block on the second year core. 246 is normally a pretty terrible course (I had one of two excellent offerings of it in the course's history), and 245 is a mathish course.

If you want to do a CS minor, you'll have to declare a double major for a bit, take the courses, the redeclare a CS minor. The tuition for CS courses is much higher than it is for the regular math program.

It's possible for almost every program in math to double major with any other program in math. AMATH/CS is totally doable, and would probably have a computational math spin, which is very useful for the field.



Well, I sure hope you get accepted! Good luck with your application, and perhaps I'll see you around.

@greygoose

Whoa! Thanks a lot man!! :D

All of that doesn't sound quite difficult, although the getting to know teachers thing seems tricky, but I guess I'll manage with that. I'll look into the details of the courses though.. thanks again! :D

One more question. What do you suggest, residence or outside housing? on the basis of cost, living, meals, connectivity etc etc.. I have got a friend in Brampton who might go to Waterloo for CS, so maybe we could live outside the campus and take up a residence.. I don't know..

I suggest residence, with the caveat that it does cost a lot more than living off-campus. Most people live in rez in their first year and move off campus in their second year, and you can meet a lot of people in residence. It's also very close to campus, and in that respect provides a bit more of a safety net.

Here, I'll do a pros-cons comparison for each category.

COST
Winner: Off-campus

Living off-campus in your first year will save you anywhere between $2,000-4,000. That's not very much money in the long run, though, especially if you have parental support.

LIVING
Winner: On-campus

Laundry is easier, distance is much, much shorter to classes, guaranteed to be clean(-ish) and no problems with landlords. That last one can be a *real* kicker, particularly if things are broken or there are, say, mold problems.

MEALS
Winner: On-campus, Suite-style or Off-campus

The meal plans suck. They're overpriced. There are a few places on campus worth eating, but not many. Best to cook on your own, which you can do in either suite-style residences or off-campus.

(INTERNET?) CONNECTIVITY
Winner: On-campus

I assumed you meant internet. ResNet is *fast*. Especially if you're stuck with Bell or Rogers off-campus, you're not going to get nearly the quality of internet you're getting in res.

SOCIAL
Winner: On-campus

It's far easier to meet people on-campus than it is off-campus, especially if you're far away. Distance can be a huge barrier, especially if you don't live on a good bus line. It sucks feeling isolated off-campus.

Yes, usually undergrads can take graduate-level courses if they demonstrate aptitude for and interest in the material.

The following undergrad courses cover cryptography:

MATH 1[34]5 (there is a part of the course dedicated to Diffie-Hellman key exchange and RSA encryption)
CO 485 (a mathematically rigorous course in private-public key cryptography)
CO 487 (a survey course, covers many, many cryptographic topics in some detail)

You may also be interested in taking any of the number theory courses offered by the pure math department, since much of cryptography is an application of number theory.

If you're a CS student, you may also be interested in CS 458, Computer Security and Privacy.

Remember that grad courses tend to have limited space for enrollment and are not regularly offered, so if you want to take them, you have to be on the lookout. You'll have to talk to the profs to enroll, but taking a grad course is pretty much identical to taking an undergrad course, except perhaps for the course's expectations.

Thank you for doing this - I also want to do a CS/Pmath double major, and I was just wishing I had someone to ask about the requirements. I think I get it, but all of the special cases and restrictions spread across various pages have left me a bit uncertain.

So it's 45 courses for a pmath/cs double major (thanks, I was about to count that); would it be more if I did a minor in physics instead of the breadth and depth requirements? If a minor is 10, and you need 10 non-math... That would be pretty much ideal for me - I'd like to do some physics anyway. A physics minor seems to need an extra 0.5 units, 4.5 lecture and 1.0 lab total, but that would be completely worth it (even if I'm not particularly looking forward to the labs, though I don't know what they're like in university I guess).

I'm currently deciding what AP exams to take - my school offers french and biology. French fits one of the arts groups, so that would be a definite win if I can't do the minor, and since I'm in immersion it would be pretty easy. Biology probably not, since I'm perfectly happy to do a few science courses, and I don't think I'll be so overloaded I'll need the slight course load reduction. If I don't care about the bio AP, I'll probably drop the regular bio course (my school only has AP as a 'club'), since I don't think I'm terribly likely to get above 95 so it won't be in my admission average anyway.

Are you planning on taking the degree in 5 years if you're doing unofficial work terms? Are you just taking a few 6 course semesters to get in the extra 3 courses for the double major? I'd like to avoid an extra semester's worth of costs if possible.

I've been accepted to co-op, and I was planning on doing that, but due to the points raised here now I'm not so sure - I might switch out after the first work term and find my own jobs. Do you think co-op has an impact on your chances of getting the most competitive jobs (e.g. Google)?

Thanks again :)

(Also, is it normal that a full quarter of your courses must be outside your faculty? That seems like a lot.)

Not a problem! The requirements are pretty complex, so it takes time to get familiar with all these things.



So actually, I miscounted slightly--it is 43 courses because the two fourth year math courses you need for a pure math major can be filled by 4XX CS courses (duh).

If you did a physics minor, that would cover all your non-math courses, plus a little bit extra, and it would satisfy the CS elective requirements. But I'll warn you--physics here at the University of Waterloo is pretty bad... :( AMATH is much better, but of course, it's math which doesn't help you.



You can only take up to 1.0 units of transfer credit anyhow. I took credit for CHEM 123 and 123L, and PHY 111L. Taking the lab credit was probably foolish--I probably should have taken either CHEM 121 and 123, CHEM 123 and BIOL 139 (I think it was), or my ENGL 1XX and HIST 1XX credits.

It doesn't really matter what you take transfer credit for, but English, French, History, etc. will cover your humanities requirements, sciences will cover your science requirements, and micro/macroeconomics will cover your social science requirements.



I am taking 10 full time semesters (and one or maybe two part-time semesters), with 3-5 course and 7-4 course semesters. This is what works best for me. It costs a few thousand dollars more, maybe, but it is almost certainly worth it for the stress reduction. In total, I have room to take up to 44 courses. This gives me lots of flexibility and room for electives.



Co-op makes it significantly easier to get your first job. It is also practically impossible to get a job in the KW-area if you are not in co-op. Anywhere else, once you have work experience, simply being in co-op doesn't provide any competitive advantage. It is easier to switch out than switch in, so I'd certainly start there.

I did get an interview for Google, if that interests you. (I could only work in Waterloo [which is a very competitive location] for the summer, and they didn't have any space left for junior interns, but hey, that's a start :P)



Math is a significantly more narrow field than science or the arts. It is good to require some breadth of study. Other than in engineering where everyone is extremely specialized, it is not really normal to take all or 90% of your courses in a particular area.

Hello
first of all, i think this is very generous of you to answer all the questions
I have sent my 1st mid term transcript and ever since mid term, my marks dropped a lot.
The university asked me to send the marks for the courses I am taking on the 2nd term, so I just sent those marks only signed by my school teachers and counsellors. Did i do the right thing?

I sent my transcript like early jan, and my mark got down because of diploma
they asked me for marks for current grades, so I only sent them what they asked
I am retaking diploma on june, and send the marks that will be better
what do you think?

okkk thanks
I just gotta pray God for a good news and hope everyone does same thing