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Should I do a Double Major? and other questions.
Lurk
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Sorry for all the University related-questions. I'm going there soon and you are all educated folks.
1. I am going into Computer Science at the University of Toronto. Do I have to get a bachelor with an honors for CS? They don't seem to mention the option of that. If not, is there a huge benefit to graduating with one? I have an option of getting a specialist, a double major or a major with two minors. I am kind of overwhelmed with the choices I have... I also have an option of not getting a specific specialist and just get more CS courses to get an honors.
2. Can I get as many courses as I want in a year? Is there a cost to take more then X courses a semester?
3. What would be good electives to take in a CS program? I have a humanities, english, science and social studies requirement to fulfill. What courses would be good to occupy those areas?
University in its vastness is scaring the shit out of me. *sigh*
1. I am going into Computer Science at the University of Toronto. Do I have to get a bachelor with an honors for CS? They don't seem to mention the option of that. If not, is there a huge benefit to graduating with one? I have an option of getting a specialist, a double major or a major with two minors. I am kind of overwhelmed with the choices I have... I also have an option of not getting a specific specialist and just get more CS courses to get an honors.
2. Can I get as many courses as I want in a year? Is there a cost to take more then X courses a semester?
3. What would be good electives to take in a CS program? I have a humanities, english, science and social studies requirement to fulfill. What courses would be good to occupy those areas?
University in its vastness is scaring the shit out of me. *sigh*
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For question 2. I believe the norm is still 15 hours of class a week meaning somewhere around the range of 4-5 3 hour classes (these are your big classes that go toward your major or your pre-resq) then 1-2 electives which are 1 hour.(your physical activity classes and bullshit classes).
Most schools I think require you to have 12hrs to be a full time student and let you have up to 18hrs. Anything over that (for my school at least) required a meeting with your adviser to make sure you could handle it.
Question 1. Double majors arent really that scary. I got a minor in English without even trying and I was only 9hrs away from getting a major in it as well. BUT, I was also in school for 5 years. If you want to get in and out in 4 years, you will be at 18hrs for 4 years which can for sure be a strain.
Question 3. Look through your course catalog and find things that sound interesting. You can usually go to the first week of class to see if you like it, then drop it for something else if it doesnt look interesting (be warned, most schools wont refund all of your money for the class if you wait to long to drop it).
Your electives are there for a reason. They make you take a wide array of varied courses to broaden you out a bit, and solidify you in choosing a major. At my school we applied for a program, got accepted, and then we were told we could take a maximum of 1.0 credit towards that major in first year. That's 2 of 10 classes. They do this because you may start thinking you will absolutely love a subject, then find out you hate it, and want to switch. When it is structured this way, if you decide to switch, you are on even ground with just about everyone at the end of first year. Just choose classes you think sound interesting - and try em on for a week. If you don't like em, switch. You generally have a 3 week buffer at the start of a semester to shuffle classes and whatnot. This gives you a chance to attend lectures, get a look at the reading list, and get a feel for the class. DO NOT GET THE READING LIST AHEAD OF TIME AND GO BUY ALL THE BOOKS FOR YOUR ELECTIVES. This is a mistake all the keen first year kids made (myself included), and will cost you a fortune. Attend classes for a week or 2 before you break down and start buying books. If you decide to stick with then class, then by all means.
Take a deep breath and relax. I was scared shitless at the start of Uni as well. Almost had myself a panic attack the day we moved into res. Within 24 hours I started to like it, and within 3 week I had a ton of new friends, women out the wazoo, and more stories of drunken debauchery than I had accrued in 4 years of high school.
Oh, and attend any O-Week/Frosh week that your school puts on. This is where I was taught how things worked, and met a lot of the friends I still hang out with now.
Good luck.
In terms of picking up a second major, or a major and two minors. Be careful with how your university judges partial credit and how shared courses between your major(s) and minor(s) will be assigned. Often times it will be hard to meet the required additional credits for majors or minors without really bearing down on consecutive heavy semesters.
And for the love of all that is holy, make your electives enjoyable. I understand your desire to have your electives support your intended major, but often times the best courses are ones you take out of joy or interest. A class you like will reap more rewards for you in the long run than a class that could maybe sorta be useful to supporting your major. Your major course work should provide all the background you need to carry out the tasks of your major. How you go about applying that can often be determined by your non-major courses. An example would be bio-informatics, if you take biology based classes to understand the fundamentals you'd be a shoe-in to help biologists compare DNA and RNA by bringing the technical know-how of Computer Science, but yet know the lingo and basic gist of the biology in question.
May I suggest that you start out by just focusing on one intended major and worry about adding minors or other majors as you progress. There is nothing worse than start college/university with a horrible GPA and a feeling of being overworked trying to juggle excessive academics as a first year student. As you become more confidant in your major then begin to branch out with your electives to find a suitable and enjoyable additional major or minor. It is much better to build a strong GPA in the early years of college that you can bank on when you hit those higher level major courses that may give you nightmares and nervous ticks.
Best of luck and don't try not to fret too much about it.
If your university doesn't require it already for CS, technical writing would be a good one. Being able to write well is an uncommon ability in the programming field and being able to bridge the gap between the programmers and the rest of the company has gotten me employment in the past.
Aside from that, it all depends on what actually interests you and where in the computer field you might actually want to work. For now, you should just knock out your general requirements (the non-CS/math courses you need) after you sign up for your CS stuff. If anything in one of those classes piques your interest, then make further classes in those subjects your electives.
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Take an operating systems class. You're going to be running every line of code you write on top of an OS, so you'd better know how they work.
Take one AI class. It's cool and the probabilistic models are applicable to lots of different things.
I went to UofT. Graduated with the software engineering specialist. I really enjoyed my courses (some not so much during, but afterwards appreciated). I see it as specialist > double major > major and two minors. Since you probably want to graduate and go to work in comp sci, specialist is what you're after. Unless you want to work on software in a specific field like economics, then go for the double major. But if you don't have a field that you definately have a passion for, then go specialist.
Take a look through their book and see the different specialists available to you, see what interests you. Software engineering was a popular one, and I think information systems was another one that had interesting potential. But do what interests you the most. The career will fall into place and you'll enjoy it more doing what you love. And don't sweat it too much right now. I think you can get started with your first year and figure out your specialist and such later.
It's been a few years since I was in university, so don't take me on my word on any of this, and verify what I say here yourself with the University. Even if memory serves me right, they may have changed things.
You're gonna have to get a bachelor with honours with CS. You'll definately have to do 4 years of school, and that makes it bachelor with honours I believe.
You can do more than 5 courses a semester if you want, but trust me, it's hard enough that 5 is plenty. It will cost you more to do more courses. Each course has a cost so doing less courses will cost you less too (but will take you longer to graduate).
As for fulfilling your elective requirements, there was a page in the courses book that had some good courses listed as recommendations for your requirements. Take a look through that, that's where I picked most of mine. Also pick electives in areas that interest you, so they're fun and you don't mind doing them. Or, pick electives that are ridiculously easy. You'll need some that are a break from the CS studying/problem sets/projects that eat up a lot of time. A couple electives that come to mind are Philosophy - The meaning of Life and Death and a Film studies class on Sci Fi. Astronomy was fun too.
Again, take a look at that recommended list of courses for fulfilling your elective requirements. They have some courses there that can only be taken first year to fulfil a requirement. That philosophy course was one of them and was a great experience. Very interesting, and met some cool people that are from all different kinds of studies. You'll relish this, since most of your time will be spent with CS people who very much are alike in comparison.
Drop by the CSSU (computer science student union) and get to know the crowd. They have an office in Bahen, where you can get cheap snacks and redbull, and all proceeds go towards pub nights at Einsteins (pub on College) with free beer. Go to these. And I hear they have gaming nights, essentially huge lan parties with xboxs hooked up to projectors, wish they had those when I was there.
I remember university vastness scaring the shit outta me in highschool too. I made some mistakes going in cause things just aren't explained well to people not familiar with it. Those mistakes were fixed after spending some time there, nothing was irreparable. But if there's one thing to take from all this it's this:
Go to your CSSU office and ask for help. They're there to help you, and know what you're going though.
Good luck, have fun! University was awesome and as hard as it was, I'd do it all again in a heart beat. Though, I'd try to get out to more parties and get laid more often. You only go through university once, and after you're through it's time for the real world