Deciding which university to pick

[monkey]

Hi,
I've gotten in to the computer science programs at UW and U of T. I am having trouble deciding which one to study at. I live close to Toronto, so going to U of T would prevent me from having to pay for residence. However, I keep hearing that the CS program at UW is better than U of T. To what extent is this true?

[Dan]

Define better, they are deffirent in some ways but i don't think you could say one is better then the other over all (unless you are a hard core waterloo student or facuatly member).

You should check out both campus, talk to some of the students there and to the facuatly members in thos deparments if you can and see whitch one you could sucueced and learn the best at.

Personaly i think every one should be in residence (or at least away from home) for the first year or more just to get life experice so if it was me i would go into residence dispeite witch univesrity you pick.

Also U of T and U of W do co-op a bit diffrently so you should look in to both and see what style you like more if you are doing a co-op program.

[[Gandalf]]

This is how I would choose: visit both campuses, walk around, check the residences (if applicable), check the lecture halls, talk to current students and/or professors. That is the only way you'll get a "feel" for the campus when otherwise you consider them more or less equal.

[Prabhakar Ragde]

Congratulations, you have a good choice and no real way to go wrong, as both programs are excellent. They are different, though. The small details might tip you one way or another. Different co-op, different first year, different options for electives/add-ons. Feel free to ask specific questions here.

[NiveouS]

Sorry... don't want to be hijacking any topic here.

But bringing up the topic of first year... what is the difference? Specially at UofT (since it is my first choice atm) UofT teaches in Python I believe during intro programming classes, correct?

Can't really visit any campus, which would be awesome. Living overseas.

[Prabhakar Ragde]

UT uses Python and UW uses Scheme and C in the first year. But the differences go beyond that.

UT has a conventional CS1/CS2 sequence, a first course in programming with a second course in elementary data structures. It was that way when I taught at UT in the late '80s, and we did it that way at UW (using Java) until recently. You can skip the first course if you've done enough OO programming. Java is introduced in second year.

We found that students with prior exposure to programming were bored in the first course, and students with little exposure or the wrong kind of exposure were overwhelmed. Too high a number of students who skipped the first course were flaming out in the second course, and too many students in general arrived at second year unprepared.

We replaced the usual CS1/CS2 in a high-level imperative/OO language with the same topics (plus a number of topics not normally touched on in first year) covered in a different order, using a high-level functional language (Scheme) and a low-level imperative language (C). OO, using C++, is introduced in the second year. We have a one-term accelerated course for top students, but this is aimed at those with aptitude, not at those with just experience.

At UT, the first two years are designed and taught by lecturers. Research faculty teach upper-year and grad courses. At UW, we have a mix of research faculty and lecturers teaching in the first two years, with all courses designed and coordinated by research faculty.

Above that, the CS content of the programs grows more similar, though there are still differences. UT has a required automata theory and computational complexity course, representing their research interests and historical design. We moved ours to optional, and we have a core course which introduces these topics in the practical context of building a small compiler. UT has lower math requirements and CS teaches their own discrete math course. Since CS at UW is in the Faculty of Mathematics, we can take advantage of top-notch math instruction, and our math requirements are higher. It is also easier to combine CS with a concentration or even double major in Math at UW, and we require that a quarter of your courses be taken outside the Faculty to gain breadth and depth in application areas.[/b]

[BigBear]

It seems U of T gives Waterloo a run for it's money

[Tony]

It might be useful to point out that when Prabhakar Ragde says "we", he means "University of Waterloo". In case that wasn't obvious.

[Prabhakar Ragde]

Tony @ Sat Mar 28, 2009 1:49 pm wrote:

It might be useful to point out that when Prabhakar Ragde says "we", he means "University of Waterloo". In case that wasn't obvious.

If anyone can't figure that out from the content of my post, I don't want them applying to UW. --PR

[nike52]

aw crap...