Any recommendations for first-year electives in Honours CS Co-op?

I understand that, and I told you why. Since you did not take the Euclid or CCC, there is no automatic option to enroll in the advanced courses, and there is no way to get around that for now. You will be able to enroll in these courses once you've arrived at Waterloo.



UW is a great school, especially for mathematics. There's a lot of opportunities you'll get here that you won't get anywhere else. This is why we have so many international students.

I came here from across the country--from 3500km away. That's farther than moving across the Atlantic to Europe. But I assure you, it's worth it :P



In research, your skills are almost all that matters, though you need to find someone to work with in order to *do* the research. (If no one's willing to fund you or set up a project for you, you're out of luck.)

In the job market, it's a real mix. Highly technical positions require you to have a very strong skillset. But really competitive positions won't even look at your resume half the time--it pays to know people to get in. I'm pretty good at the whole "networking" thing, and it got me an interview at Google this semester, offers from two startups, and a job at RIM. But don't think that doesn't mean I don't know what I'm doing--I have a very strong technical skillbase.

For jobs that don't require the technical skills, connections matter more. Business and that kind of thing.

I would seriously recommend doing some upper year English or history courses. If that seems like a little too much work for you, the introductory language courses are all really great.

The second year chem courses and beyond I've heard are pretty good (in particular, CHEM 212). I hated the physics courses I took.

ECON 101 and 102 with Larry Smith are always a hit.

Just out of curiosity, what was so distasteful about PHYS 234?

Also, would CO 255 and/or AMATH 251 be alright to try and override into? For reference, by the time I graduate high school, I will have taken Multivariable Calculus, Linear Algebra, and Differential Equations, though I really want to take the (presumably) proof-based advanced level versions of them.

Also, how hard is PMATH 351? Or PMATH 360? What about CS 475?

Greygoose, as a PMATH-CS joint major, do you think taking reduced number of PMATH courses would decrease the chance of getting into prestigeous postgraduate schools? Or taking the courses of research interest would just be fine? (For instance, one does not need to know substantially about logic if his/her research interests are analysis, but the 300-level core PMATH courses would be enough?)

Now a more trivial question, which LaTeX do you prefer to use? I personally like Texmaker.

I imagine AMATH 251 would be worth taking. AMATH 250 was complete crap, but the new advanced version I'm hoping will be worthwhile?

CO 255 you need a good understanding of lin alg 2/calc 3 material, so I don't see any reason to override into it. That seems silly. Besides, its offerings are designed such that you take it in your 2B semester, after those two courses.

PMATH 351 - Dunno, am taking it next semester. Pretty hard, but I've heard the difficulty varies. It's one of the weeder classes for people doing direct entry to PMATH (e.g. without advanced math courses).

PMATH 360 - Is that the geometry course? Don't know.

CS 475 - Absolutely no idea.

Well, you're asking for opinions explicitly, so prepare yourself....

- ENGL 119 Communications in Mathematics & Computer Science

Waste of time.

- SPCOM 223 Public Speaking

Probably silly, another waste of time.

- BIO239 Genetics

I think this is a biology major course, so it might be really neat.

- SCI206 The Physics of How Things Work

A hilarious bird course. Very worth taking if you need easy science credit.

- AFM101 Introduction to Financial Accounting

Complete waste of time. Unless you're interested in accounting. In which case, do your designation after your undergrad.


As for "good BUS/AFM" courses, I will assert that none exist. Good ECON courses? I don't think UW has any of those either at the undergrad level, but as I mentioned above, Larry Smith's ECON 101/102 are pretty worthwhile.

You see, I have actually noticed that, MATH 247 has a completely different course description in comparison to MATH 237. This usually does not happen with the advanced core math courses, instead, they usually say "MATH X4X is an advanced-level version of MATH X3X"; also, MATH 237 and 247 are not explicitly stated as antirequisites of each other, where as other X4X courses are always the antirequisites of X3X versions. So, another question would be: do they deviate MATH 145/147 from 135/137 a little, then a bit more by the time you get to 146/148 in comparison to 136/138, and then completely change what you learn in 245/247/249 in comparison to 235/237/239? Why do 247 and 237 differ so much?

The IQ level on this thread is OVER 9000!!! It's good to see people asking questions about courses. When I was doing undergrad I just enrolled in wtv course had space left.

Oh, I mean, joint PMATH majors need to take 7 or 8 PMATH courses while PMATH majors are required to take at least 9 PMATH courses, four of which must be at 400 level.

Hmm it seems like those CO courses are pretty damn good. Gotta try'em.

The MATHSOC looks like a very cool organisation. How do join? :)