Waterloo CS students...is having a part-time job manageable given the workload? [Archive]

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civ@uw

Dec 12th, 2006, 01:39 PM

konfusion666

Dec 12th, 2006, 01:43 PM

if by part-time job you mean... working 5-6 hours a week at the Turnkey desk ... then I suppose you could pull it off. but if you are sacrificing more than 5-6 hours per week away from your coursework... you'll regret it.

winner2000

Dec 12th, 2006, 01:49 PM

Well you look like you're in first year, so you can probably manage about 10-15 hours per week.

As for competitiveness of on-campus jobs...it's pretty tight, so good luck.

civ@uw

Dec 12th, 2006, 02:30 PM

I was thinking maybe around 10 hours, so that would be around 2-3 hours a day. I have certain unproductive hours that I can't get through any homework, so maybe it would better to put that time towards a job instead.

What places on campus hire? I'm aware of Campus Rec, and Food Services. ANy others?

Nyte

Dec 12th, 2006, 02:34 PM

Well you look like you're in first year, so you can probably manage about 10-15 hours per week.

As for competitiveness of on-campus jobs...it's pretty tight, so good luck.
Actually, judging by his name, I would guess he transferred from civil engineering into computer science, or at least some program in the math faculty.

As for the actual question of whether you can pull off having a part time job, the short answer is definitely.

The longer answer is that is really depends on you. How good are you in math? How much time do you normally need to study to get the marks you do (or want)? How's your life outside of school, and how much time are you devoting to that?

Your "sparse" timetable is likely from an absence of labs, so you will have a lot less work in that sense. But you might find the material more difficult in the longer term; the courses you have listed aren't hard, except Math 135, depending on your background.

konfusion666

Dec 12th, 2006, 02:40 PM

The longer answer is that is really depends on you. How good are you in math? How much time do you normally need to study to get the marks you do (or want)? How's your life outside of school, and how much time are you devoting to that?

6-8 hours per week tops for the "average mathie", in my opinion, which means he is cutting out 6-8 hours of: TV watching, videogame playing, socializing with buddies, time spent at the Bomber or wherever you kids drink now ;), etc.

of course, for me, I spent far more than 6-8 hours doing the activities listed above in 1A and 1B but that's another story...

UrbanPoet

Dec 12th, 2006, 02:42 PM

it depends how good you can manage your time.....

danfromwaterloo

Dec 12th, 2006, 02:51 PM

By the time fourth year rolls around, the thread title will read:

"Waterloo CS students...is sleeping manageable given the workload?"

Nyte

Dec 12th, 2006, 02:51 PM

6-8 hours per week tops for the "average mathie", in my opinion, which means he is cutting out 6-8 hours of: TV watching, videogame playing, socializing with buddies, time spent at the Bomber or wherever you kids drink now ;), etc.

of course, for me, I spent far more than 6-8 hours doing the activities listed above in 1A and 1B but that's another story...

Actually, with the way my schedule is most terms, if I was to cut out all of those things listed (+other leisure activities), I wouldn't have much of a problem squeezing in a full time job with flexible hours (assuming I also stop slacking off). Though life would suck then of course.

drucillica

Dec 12th, 2006, 02:59 PM

I kind of need the money, but I don't want to sacrifice my marks too much. My timetable looks pretty sparse for the upcoming term, but I'm not sure if I'm being deceived into thinking I could pull it off. I have the following courses for the upcoming term:

Math 135
Math 239
Stat 230
Econ 102
CS 134
(I'm transferring from another faculty if you're wondering why my course selection is a bit unorthodox)

How much out of class time do those courses require? Also, how competitive is it to get an on-campus job?

well lets see, math 135 is pretty easy, but has weekly assignments, so you have to stay on top of it.

math 239 could be pretty hard to wrap your mind around if you have a bad prof. Again, weekly assignments.
stat230 - i think it has like 5 quizzes or something + final, although that might have changed.

econ102 should be a write-off. just study for midterm/final and you should be ok.. there wasn't any assignments when i took it

cs134 is not terribly difficult, but it does has its fair number of assignments. If you've had previous coding experience and know your data structures, it should be a fairly easy course.

I would suggest taking econ102 distance ed while you're on campus. That way you don't have to go to class and can study during your part time job when you have downtime (this is pretty tolerated with a on-campus job).

Good luck.

konfusion666

Dec 12th, 2006, 03:42 PM

Actually, with the way my schedule is most terms, if I was to cut out all of those things listed (+other leisure activities)

so did you also have a pitcher of beer before attending one of D'Alessio's calculus lectures? or was that just me? :D

Nyte

Dec 12th, 2006, 04:07 PM

so did you also have a pitcher of beer before attending one of D'Alessio's calculus lectures? or was that just me? :D

That was just you, hehe.

Dota

Dec 12th, 2006, 04:35 PM

are you smart?

civ@uw

Dec 12th, 2006, 07:01 PM

Actually I'm going to be in 2A in the upcoming term, so I've already learned from my first year mistakes

cs134 is not terribly difficult, but it does has its fair number of assignments. If you've had previous coding experience and know your data structures, it should be a fairly easy course.

Is 134 much of a step up in difficulty from 133? I didn't take 133, but from what I've done of the 133 assignments it seems to be pretty easy. I don't really do any hobby programming either....Do you know how long the 134 assignments usually take? Also, the 134 stuff will be brand new material while 133 is mostly review.

The math courses I don't think will be too much trouble. I thought the engineering math courses were pretty easy (115, 116, 118) but things could be different taking math math courses.

Thanks for all the responses

drucillica

Dec 12th, 2006, 07:25 PM

Actually I'm going to be in 2A in the upcoming term, so I've already learned from my first year mistakes

Is 134 much of a step up in difficulty from 133? I didn't take 133, but from what I've done of the 133 assignments it seems to be pretty easy. I don't really do any hobby programming either....Do you know how long the 134 assignments usually take? Also, the 134 stuff will be brand new material while 133 is mostly review.

The math courses I don't think will be too much trouble. I thought the engineering math courses were pretty easy (115, 116, 118) but things could be different taking math math courses.

Thanks for all the responses

cs133 concentrates on teaching you how to program. cs134 delves into data structures, introduces algorithms (searching, sorting etc) and asymptotic analysis. I think there was a part on induction and inductive proofs. The course might have changed a bit though - I took it in 2002, but the core material should stay the same.

As for the assignments, well it depends how fast you can grasp the concepts. I remember the discrete event simulation assignment taking pretty long, but not sure about others. I believe that some are group assignments too, half written and half programming.

and for the math courses - some of the stuff in cs135 is really weird when you first start out but it ended up being a pretty interesting course. cs239 is broken into 2 completely independent halves, graph theory being an "easier" half. First half is kinda hard to grasp, but one day it just clicks and you get it (at least that's how it was with a lot of people..). our 239 prof was awesome - the class would be completely full with people sitting on steps or standing but it was worth it. Avoid profs like Goulden.

I hated stats230 - it might have been the most boring class ever and we got completely murdered on the final (approx 45% class average). I think that course is pretty hit & miss as the next term i heard it was completely easy.

I don't know how our math compared to eng math, but i'd imagine you guys had more emphasis on problem solving, which isn't the case in the math faculty. All i can say is that math in the math faculty is not easy, so be prepared.

ill_mango

Dec 12th, 2006, 08:09 PM

134 is much hard than 133...if you aren't used to abstract concepts you may get smoked fairly easily.

Econ102 is a joke, even on campus. Actually I would recommend taking it on campus with Larry Smith because everyone seems to love him (I think he is highly overrated) and because his tests are ridiculously easy. I fell asleep in class all the time and it didn't see to matter.

Math 135 is actually pretty interesting, and I had Serge D'Alessio, who was the absolute man. His tests were hard but fair, and I learned a lot from him. Actually, since I am in softeng I have taken both engineering and math faculty math classes and I can tell youthat all the teachers in the math faculty are way better than their ece counterparts.

manho

Dec 12th, 2006, 09:58 PM

Math 135 is actually pretty interesting, and I had Serge D'Alessio, who was the absolute man. His tests were hard but fair, and I learned a lot from him. Actually, since I am in softeng I have taken both engineering and math faculty math classes and I can tell youthat all the teachers in the math faculty are way better than their ece counterparts.

I couldn't agree to this more. I hate the fact that they get a civil engineer prof to teach us (i'm a cive) probability/stat, differential eq'n, etc. It wasn't just their thing, and besides, those profs usually show no interest in teaching the course anyway since it isn't anything close to their research interest

Nyte

Dec 13th, 2006, 09:51 AM

Is 134 much of a step up in difficulty from 133? I didn't take 133, but from what I've done of the 133 assignments it seems to be pretty easy. I don't really do any hobby programming either....Do you know how long the 134 assignments usually take? Also, the 134 stuff will be brand new material while 133 is mostly review.

I haven't taken 133, so I can't really compare with that, but I found 134 to be extremely easy. Also, if you've taken CS in high school, half of it will likely be review.

Actually, since I am in softeng I have taken both engineering and math faculty math classes and I can tell youthat all the teachers in the math faculty are way better than their ece counterparts.

I second that. One of the ECE profs I had which was suppose to be one of their best was not much better than my average Math prof.

As for Math 135, I found that one really hard, for a specific reason, which is why I said it will probably depend on your background. The problem is that is was very heavy on proofs. A typical class went something like theorem, lemma, theorem, theorem, theorem, lemma, etc, all with proofs for each one. The problem is, I was never taught about how to do proofs, how formal logic worked, and the prof never bothered to go over any of that either. So this led to a lot of BS proofs which didn't make any sense, and the famous proof by example. I remember there were many other people in my class with the same problem. In later terms, I had a friend who was TAing the course, and I looked at some of the assignments students handed in, same problems.

danfromwaterloo

Dec 13th, 2006, 10:19 AM

134 is much hard than 133...if you aren't used to abstract concepts you may get smoked fairly easily.

And word to the wise: if you find 134 difficult, don't bother staying in a CS program. It gets SO much more difficult from there on in, 134 is a breeze. There's enough work, but the concepts are much much easier than in later courses. I don't know if they still have the same numbering, but CS 246 and CS 241 is tough. Let alone the fourth year courses.

Anybody here go through OS? Do they even still offer that? Or realtime?

Both those courses were widowmakers.

ElvaSoShexai

Dec 13th, 2006, 10:21 AM

cs134 is easy... assignments usually take like 1day... but the assignments can be a real b****... i started hating cs after taking this course...

for stat230... i had a test every other week during tutorial... and no weekly assignments...

um... math239... was hard to understand...so... assignments took 2-3 days...

math135... um.. pretty easy... i suck at math and got pretty good in this coursee

econ102... eh... i think this was the easiest course i ever took... along with econ101

they still offer OS.. in 3a.. realtime is 4th year... i think it's like what.. the hardest course offered? so good thing it's optional
cs 241... i guess prepares u for the assignments ahead.... just... omg...
i hated 251 and 240... ugh... and 245 was bad too...
246 was easy tho...

Nyte

Dec 13th, 2006, 10:36 AM

OS wasn't bad at all. Interestingly enough, for me, it was actually the easiest course that term. The only annoying part was trying to figure out certain things in the assignments, which wasn't bad once you learned the code base.

danfromwaterloo

Dec 13th, 2006, 10:45 AM

drucillica

Dec 13th, 2006, 12:44 PM

And word to the wise: if you find 134 difficult, don't bother staying in a CS program. It gets SO much more difficult from there on in, 134 is a breeze. There's enough work, but the concepts are much much easier than in later courses. I don't know if they still have the same numbering, but CS 246 and CS 241 is tough. Let alone the fourth year courses.

Anybody here go through OS? Do they even still offer that? Or realtime?

Both those courses were widowmakers.

I had an opposite experience almost. Didn't really have any problems with CS241 or CS246 but had some difficulty with 134, at least at first. Probably lack of experience and not really having any interest in CS and still trying to figure out why the heck I was majoring in Math/CS. It got much better once I figured out what the heck I was doing, esp with Big-O/induction/etc..

Yeah they're still offering OS. Assignments were insane - we pulled at least one allnighter for each one, but the course material is very manageable. It's not really that hard to do well in, but to this day I still hate nachOS. :/

j3fan

Dec 13th, 2006, 10:35 PM

I had an opposite experience almost. Didn't really have any problems with CS241 or CS246 but had some difficulty with 134, at least at first. Probably lack of experience and not really having any interest in CS and still trying to figure out why the heck I was majoring in Math/CS. It got much better once I figured out what the heck I was doing, esp with Big-O/induction/etc..

Yeah they're still offering OS. Assignments were insane - we pulled at least one allnighter for each one, but the course material is very manageable. It's not really that hard to do well in, but to this day I still hate nachOS. :/

ahhh...alnighters, i remember pulling allnighters my first year....it was insane...especially when everyone in residence doesn't sleep....once i graduated, i thought that was the end of allnighters, but then i had to pull a couple of allnighters at work :(

konfusion666

Dec 13th, 2006, 10:41 PM

ahhh...alnighters, i remember pulling allnighters my first year....it was insane...especially when everyone in residence doesn't sleep....once i graduated, i thought that was the end of allnighters, but then i had to pull a couple of allnighters at work :(

Sucka! :twisted:

(But the allnighters at work help fund the Lexus... so it's all good)

j3fan

Dec 13th, 2006, 11:18 PM

Sucka! :twisted:

(But the allnighters at work help fund the Lexus... so it's all good)

I don't get paid for allnighters at work...my manager just tells me to go home the next day and get some sleep....and as for residence, it was you and everyone else on our floor that never sleeps...and my room was right next to the lounge :evil: