u Toronto vs u Waterloo?

[waitatshu]

Hi people,

hmm I'm a Canadian citizen currently studying in the States, and I'm just wondering...
which undergrad school has a better comp sci program? Toronto or Waterloo?

Thank you!

[JamesKim414]

My older brother is in Computer Engineering in UW right now and he said that UW is harder than UFT. So I would say UW has a better Comp Sci Program

[Tony]

"Similar enough", "depends on what you are looking for", etc., etc.... it's a popular question, discussed in detail on the forums already.

@JamesKim414 -- "of" in "University of Toronto" does not get capitalized to F. It's typically referred to as UofT.

[hallowon]

JamesKim414 @ Mon Dec 07, 2009 10:59 am wrote:

My older brother is in Computer Engineering in UW right now and he said that UW is harder than UFT. So I would say UW has a better Comp Sci Program

how does he know if if it IS harder. For stuff like this it is best to just explain your experience in that university to the OP, and have op formulate his/her decision based on other's experience

[waitatshu]

thanks for the input!
so i suppose UW has more prestige? and you work harder in UW?

[ecookman]

in the summer I took a programming camp and my instructor said that he hated the CS at UoT, that he much preferred Ryreson (i think that's how its spelled)

he also said that he did not have formal teachers it was mostly people who were in higher year teaching the classes, and that in the classes that he was taking there was no point of going to class, because the work and lessons were online.

The way that he explained it to me, UoT sucks.

[jbking]

waitatshu @ Thu Dec 10, 2009 2:54 am wrote:

thanks for the input!
so i suppose UW has more prestige? and you work harder in UW?

In some circles, yes UW has more prestige and name recognition, but I remember some of my classmates wanting to do their graduate degree at UofT.

I'm not sure one could easily compare the schools in terms of difficulty as there may be electives that could be hard or easy depending on what one takes in each case.

[Dan]

ecookman @ 10th December 2009, 4:23 pm wrote:

he also said that he did not have formal teachers it was mostly people who were in higher year teaching the classes, and that in the classes that he was taking there was no point of going to class, because the work and lessons were online.

Admitly i don't go to U of T, but that does not sound accurite at all to me. Almost all universites (at least in ontario) these days have most of the CS lectures tought by proffesors. Labs might be run by TAs (who are noramly grad students) however.

waitatshu wrote:

thanks for the input!
so i suppose UW has more prestige? and you work harder in UW?

Prestige maybe, but thats rather subjective and not nessarly worth anything, but how hard you work is totaly up to you. Universites are not responesable for making you go to clases, do your home work or study. Your personal work ethic, a willingness to learn and how you aproache your studies will likey play a bigger factor on your education then the univesrity (assuming it's accredited).

[Tony]

It might be just me, but "some dude" who appears to have not gone to his classes, dropped out, and ended up working at a summer camp might not be a credible enough person to have their opinion cited on this matter.

Besides, "<whatever> sucks" is hardly insightful.

[ecookman]

[quote="Dan @ Thu Dec 10, 2009 4:43 pm"]

ecookman @ 10th December 2009, 4:23 pm wrote:

he also said that he did not have formal teachers it was mostly people who were in higher year teaching the classes, and that in the classes that he was taking there was no point of going to class, because the work and lessons were online.

Quote:

Admitly i don't go to U of T, but that does not sound accurite at all to me. Almost all universites (at least in ontario) these days have most of the CS lectures tought by proffesors. Labs might be run by TAs (who are noramly grad students) however.

apparentaly it was mostly TA's (sorry used the wrong wording the way you said it is the right way)

[Dan]

ecookman @ 10th December 2009, 4:46 pm wrote:

apparentaly it was mostly TA's (sorry used the wrong wording the way you said it is the right way)

Gradute students working as TAs will noramly mark everything, run labs (or help) and indvidualte exams and midterms. However it would be odd for them to teach the hole corse. There are some excpections however, there is a big diffrence between a upper year undergrad TA or masters TA and a doctoret canaidate working as a TA.

[Prabhakar Ragde]

U of T tends to have lecturers (rather than professors) and graduate students doing the bulk of the teaching in the first two years. UW has more research faculty involved in the first two years (with some lecturers and grad student sessionals). Since all categories of instructors just mentioned have good instructors and bad instructors in them, it is really the luck of the draw. The two programs start out differently but cover largely the same ground. Comparing them thus comes down to a host of minor differences and considerable differences among individual experiences with each program.

[Euphoracle]

Also, ecook (as you seem to lack the ability to criticize information [which is interesting because I wrote an essay on that this term]), keep in mind that 'hating' professors or TAs is subjective. I'll use my own experience as an example.

I am most grateful for the algebra prof I had this term. I quite enjoyed her teaching style and pace while others, unfortunately, did not. Some had trouble understanding her accent--I didn't--but others, unfortunately, did. The overwhelming majority of us got our asses handed to us on a platter on the first algebra midterm. On the second, my grade improved roughly 20% while others did not. I advocate that it was the change in how I approached the class and material which raised that grade. I studied more effectively, sought help when I thought it necessary, and tried rather hard to force the messy and sloppy way we learned how to do stuff in highschool out of my head, but others chose to blame their apparent misfortune on the prof's 'lack of teaching ability,' pace and 'but this is how we did it in highschool.'

In short, if you ask me about my algebra class, I'll tell you it was a challenging and refreshing change from highschool and although it's unfortunate that my grade wasn't extremely high, I enjoyed the class. If you ask someone else, perhaps one who retains the highschool mentality of "teachers will feed us everything," they'll tell you they hated it, they'll conjure whatever excuses they can to put the blame on the prof, and they'll leave it at that.

(Now of course, there are also those who do the same thing they did in highschool and do extremely well who can't really comment as they may still be riding their natural aptitude through first year. Similarly, AP/AB/BC etc students might be in a similar situation if they learned the material before. Also, there will be those of apathy who have no opinion other than "I did well" or "I did poorly")

tl;dr: Take prof reviews as you take movie reviews: everyone has their own tastes, some which are impeccable and some which you should take sparingly.

[ecookman]

well an opinion was asked, and I contributed.


Obviously, as we have just denounced, if TA's aren't your thing be weary of UoT.

[Dan]

ecookman @ 10th December 2009, 10:22 pm wrote:

Obviously, as we have just denounced, if TA's aren't your thing be weary of UoT.

If you realy don't want TAs teaching you (or even many lectures out side of the core faculity) you should check out smaller universites. At lakehead i have never had a singal class thought by a TA, including allmost all labs. You also get to know the facuality alot better as you will have them for serveral courses threw out your program (which can be both bad and good).