i have a question about waterloo

[Vlad]

Hi, i am a student currently in grade 11, but i wanna plan ahead. I'm thinking of applying to waterloo in computer science, but i something has been bothering me. I dont understand how the elective thing works. Like what kind of minors can i get there and what other options are there for elective courses, because i don't know what else to choose other than compsci or math. Any suggestions would be highly appreciated, thank you.

[HeavenAgain]

o_o why is everyone going to waterloo.....
waterloo waterloo..... oh boy...

[CodeMonkey2000]

I plan to go to Waterloo. But competition seems stiff.

[Tony]

Vlad @ Mon Oct 08, 2007 7:17 pm wrote:

i don't know what else to choose other than compsci or math.

Vlad - check the undergraduate calendar. Besides MATH and CS, you will actually be required to take electives out of certain groups

Quote:

The 5.0 non-math units must either be used to satisfy requirements for a minor or a joint honours plan outside the Faculty of Mathematics, or must satisfy the following elective breadth and depth requirements. (Alternate plans must be approved by a CS advisor).

Elective breadth requirements
1.0 units from Arts Group A or from EASIA, HUMSC, ITALST, JS, NATST, PACS, SPD, WS
1.0 units from Arts Group B or from AFM, BUS, HRM, INTTS, ISS, LS, MSCI, SMF, SOCWK, STV
0.5 units from the Faculty of Science
0.5 units from the Faculties of Science, Applied Health Sciences, or Environmental Studies
Note: No course can be used to satisfy more than one of the above requirements.

Elective depth requirements
1.5 units at third-year level or higher with the same prefix
or
1.5 units with the same prefix forming a prerequisite chain of length three

Note that each course is usually 0.5 units, meaning you'll need to take 10 non-math classes.

Some of the elective courses that I took so far are: Economics, Philosophy, Psychology, and Law.

[Cervantes]

Electives I've taken: Physics (though it's really less of an elective for me), Chemistry (and I regret it -- it was a waste of time), Economics, and Music and Popular Culture (which is a history of rock and roll).

Electives I'm looking at taking: Hist200: History and Film, Drama392: American Film, Clas100: Introduction to Classical Studies (greek and roman history, literature, philosophy, myth and religion, art and architecture, and classical archaelogy), Fine352: The Cinema of Science Fiction, Music240: Introduction to Jazz.

[ae]

Quote:

Like what kind of minors can i get there and what other options are there for elective courses, because i don't know what else to choose other than compsci or math.

The elective system works somewhat like the high school system, where you have to take so many courses of a certain type to get your credits in the appropriate "groups"--it's not so bad. The CS department has a checklist that may help in plotting out your electives and your course schedule. And they also have a lovely chart that details what sort of faculties have courses that meet which categories, and a bit more of an explanation as to the depth requirement.

You can take a minor in pretty much anything you can study at Waterloo--I'd suggest browsing the course calendar to find subject you're interested in, and seeing if they fit to the elective requirements listed earlier by Tony. If you find something cool you'd prefer to minor in, declaring a minor to my understanding (from discussions with counselors) overrules the elective requirements, so if you have a warm fuzzy spot in your heart for something that you'd like to minor in, go for it. Or if you develop a strange obsession with one of your electives and keep taking more and decide to turn it into a minor, that's great too.

Personally I took that route--majored in CS and minored in English Rhetoric and Professional Writing; I know someone who declared a minor in Sociology after taking a sociology course on a whim and being fascinated by the subject. Be aware though that if you declare a minor you may want to make yourself friendly with the department that is responsible for said minor; as you may need to get signed into upper-year courses if you run out of courses that qualify for a minor during first year (some programs only allow two of their available first year courses to count towards a minor, etc.). Either way, their advisers will be able to help you sort things out if you're worried about it, so don't be afraid to seek them out or send them an e-mail for advice, possibly even during or before course selection time--it's what they're there for, they don't bite.

Overall, shop around, and study what you like to see if there's anything that interests you, and take those courses.

[CodeMonkey2000]

The SMF cource looks interesting . University sounds like fun. You take mostly math and CS related courses, plus a few fun courses on the side.

Anyway, what is this honors thesis all about?

[haskell]

Honours Thesis is the whole reason of going Honours... It means you get to compile your own independent research(with a Supervisor) and then present and defend it. Its a really big deal, with like a 60-page write-up and such with more proof, diagrams, figures, etc.. than you can shake a stick at. Then once all is well, you get to present it(think Seminar, but not really).

[CodeMonkey2000]

That sound exciting (and a wee bit intimidating). Can it be on any topic (like philosophy), or does it have to be relevant to CS/math?

[Tony]

If it's for the CS honours, it would have to be about CS. Though you can obviously mix a bunch of philosophy in there if you'd like. For example, the field of Ethics falls under Philosophy, and it's a pretty big deal for the Software Engineering majors.

[haskell]

Yep. At Memorial University of Newfoundland(MUN), every thesis that is done has many copies of it created, and one is available to everyone at the Library. Maybe other universities do something similar? I'd definitely recommend checking it out. Its always great to see what has been done to get a general idea on how it works.