I realize that this forum is for people applying to university but maybe some of you can offer some advice. I'm a Waterloo computer science student about to enter 4th year, and basically I don't have a good idea of what to do next. In the past I often doubted my major but now at least in some ways I'm glad I'm in CS and I'm actually slightly eager to complete my degree for once (well there's an annoying elective requirement but that's another story). My original intention was to go on to graduate studies, but I'm not sure about doing it in CS - like some parts of CS but don't do so well in others, and may not do well in a graduate program that makes me take a bit of everything. I also don't have a good idea of what other subjects I can go into (I'm open to just about anything), or what prerequisite courses are needed or what the approximate chances of me getting in are. It's not like in high school when I had those brochures with the admission averages nicely listed, the representatives that visit, or the easy online application. As for finding a job, I've gone through coop but I don't think my experiences overall are as good as the average coop student and I don't think I can return to any of my past coop jobs, for various reasons.

Actually, when I mentioned graduate school, it's not that I'm particularly enthralled with doing research, it's just that I can't think of anything better to do. I feel like I've hardly accomplished anything in the last 4 years and I want to do something that I can be somewhat proud of. The thing is I don't think I've ever knew how to do research on what I can do for my career - looking back I don't think I knew how to do research in high school besides looking at academic calendars on universities' websites, and I didn't even think about what to do after graduation which probably has already closed some doors. What can I do besides Googling random universities' websites? I tried emailing academic advisors but some of them don't respond (maybe because I sound too "emo" lol.) You could say that I'm indecisive, but somewhere deep down I feel like I know exactly what I want to do to get motivated, but it's some abstract notion that's hard to explain. It doesn't even have to be academic or job related (I could become a monk in some reclusive country if it means I feel I accomplished something lol). Let's say it this way - an athlete doesn't compete in a sport because he likes the shape of the ball he's throwing, but he plays because he likes the style of competition which he can win - that's kind of how I feel.

I realize this is a weird topic, but if any of you have any advice, criticisms, etc. I'd love to hear it, thanks.

I think doing more years of university is a trap that a lot of students fall into. They reach the end of their degree and the prospect of actually having to go out in the real world seems quite daunting, so they go for their masters, and then their ph d, and then what? Really if you go into grad school because you don't know what you want to do you're just postponing the problem for a couple more years. Now if you feel like grad school is really something you want to do, then by all means, but I don't think it's a very good solution to not finding a job.

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University of Alberta - Mechanical Engineering '11

Hope this helps: http://career.uwo.ca/library/handouts/majors/science/computerscience.pdf

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UWO 12' Political Science and Psychology

Thanks for all of your replies. Karla - you make a good point. As for what I did during coop, in short:

1st term - horrible job, boss was bleep, enough said.
2nd, 3rd term - worked for the federal government. It was more of a stats kind of job and it may have been good from a stats perspective, I did things like participate in the survey design process, but much of it was fairly basic, I think I spent more time making Excel charts than programming. Boss liked me but the department disbanded after I left. I returned because it was 1000X better than my 1st term but maybe I shouldn't have in retrospect.
4th term - worked for another branch of the government. It was again more of a stats kind of job. I was supposed to do an analysis of a statistical procedures to estimate data but it was really just me entering data into a program than understanding what's really going on. Assisted a GIS coop on some VB programming. The boss was happy but admitted that the department mostly hires biologists/environmentalists and it's unlikely that I'd get a full time job there.
5th term - worked for a small IT company (only real IT job to date). Spent most of the work term modifying an installer using this obscure installer language. Nobody else in the company knew it so I was dependent on my Googling luck. I did Java in the last month or so and got much more work done but my boss still wasn't very impressed.
6th/current term - working for energy company that mostly hires engineers. Mostly designing a small web page for the department to retrieve data using SQL and do some modelling on the data. Little supervision, boss is supportive but he's hinted that there's unlikely be a position available for my type of job.

So that's basically it - I probably don't have the typical IT-based coop experience (in the one IT job I hardly did any significant programming but I got a feel for the IT process). Now I'm fine with applying CS to another sector like energy rather than in a company that makes it, and I do like working with math, but in practice I hardly did anything mathematical in those "math" coops.

As for academically, I tend to do better in more math-based CS courses like algorithms than in systems courses, but I think that's more about the style (if not quality) of teaching of certain courses than personal interest in the subject.

juiced - I've heard the computational finance suggestion before, and it sounds like a good one, but do you think just having a CS degree is enough or do they also need a specific background in finance or pure math stuff that I think they do in the program? I mean I'm fine with learning extra material either on my own or going back to school to pick up courses, but how do I know that I have what I need to apply, or that I'm competitive for being admitted?

And you don't necessarily have to go back to your co-op jobs. Try applying elsewhere.

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University of Alberta - Mechanical Engineering '11

kinesis,
what kind of grades do you have? you're talking about grad school but do you have the GPA to get in?

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WLU/UW BBA/BMath Double Degree '11

Kaylya – isn’t a 3.0 like a 75%? My average is about 81-82 but that’s hiding my lower CS average and a somewhat declining trend.

I know I don’t have to go back to my coops – let me explain myself a bit more.

I never really thought of myself as having a set career path. When I came into university I had little idea of what somebody in CS or math does, but I felt I wanted to learn knowledge for its own sake. I like how math is intrinsically valuable on its own and I started off as “undeclared” math but then switched into CS since the individual math programs seemed to be too specific. That’s not to say that I don’t want a good paying career – my parents never had a white-collar job and I’m secretly proud of the opportunity to pave my own path.

Deep down I feel like I can be very competitive – I can completely immerse myself in studying or doing an assignment if I wanted to; I feel like I want to fight for my success and never back down. But sometimes I only see my failures and I feel unmotivated – let’s say with the computational finance suggestion for example. I looked up the program and I feel like if I was admitted I would work hard and be proud of myself when I finish but that’s a big IF – there’s no indication of remotely how likely I would get in (and I mean that for graduate programs in general) but even the math prereqs haunt me. They ask for a lot of real analysis background and it reminds me of back in the day when I checked out analysis and other math textbooks and tried to read them on my own and gave up. I felt like working hard isn’t enough if I didn’t have “it”. It’s like in Grade 11 when I could see myself doing physics, even theoretical, but then I finished last in my school in the UW physics contest and realized I didn’t have “it”.

I’m not saying I have to succeed academically or monetarily to see myself as successful. Some people aim for being helpful in society and do a lot of extracurriculars or travel a lot (the poster who said had a good point) – those people seem happier but I’ve never prepared my life for that. At one point I almost wanted to switch into arts or something but I realized that although I might suck at math compared to some, there are many people who wished they had basic math to pursue the career they want – to them I feel like I have a gift, and it’s arrogant for me to throw it away.

Still, I feel like I want to be open to as many possibilities as possible. Every time I take a course I’m worried that it means there something else I’ll never take that I’m scratching off my future – and I feel like I need to know what I can get into without my application or resume being laughed at before I decide what I want to do. When I applied to university I looked at what I could get into (which was most everything) and then I decided what I want to apply to. I’m in CS and I don’t even see myself as a “computer geek”, I like the subject in the sense that it gives me the power to solve problems, but I don’t feel an urge to keep up with the industry or talk about programming after I leave the lab or work. I want to but don't feel passionate about anything. I just want to fulfill a sense of accomplishment for myself.

Sorry if what I wrote is nonsense – thanks a lot if you can still offer me advice.

I just graudated so I know exactly where you're coming from.

Basically, you're going through a quarter life crisis like the majority of University grads experience these days. Be thankful that at least you recongize the problem NOW and not later.

Check out quarterlifecrisis.com



I can't tell you how many of my friends simply graduated, moved home/Toronto, got a job only to realize 1yr later that they are NOT happy whatsoever. They feel like their life is empty and pointless as the wake up every morning to a soul-sucking 9-to-5 grind.

What you need to do is take some time to SERIOUSLY think about what it is you want out of life. Don't know what you want out of life? That's perfectly okay, because quite frankly right now is the perfect time in your life to do whatever the eff you want. You have no commitments so you can literally do anything you want.

A lot of my friends took this chance to do the whole "teach english in Asia" deal (actually my cousin is leaving for China in 2 months), and I'm actually considering the same thing right now. They seem really happy right now because they basically get to live and travel around the world having adventures while the rest of us die a little inside staring at computer screens, lol.

By the time they're done their adventures and come home, they'll have a MUCH better idea of what directiont their life wants to take.

This is also a great article: http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/economist/103250

First off, if I didn't make it clear, I am currently a CS grad student ;) I'm at Ottawa, which is not very competitive to get in to.

It is a bit tricky. Sometimes there's some wording on the website about how competitive they are (I remember Toronto had that). With Waterloo, I am doing a bit of "Everyone knows it's more competitive". I didn't apply there. When their application deadline is is a big indicator. Toronto's is in December. Many others are around March-May, and some are even later (or, sometimes they post a deadline and then extend it.. Ottawa did that when I applied).

With Toronto, I applied and did not get in. I want to say there were 700 applicants for 70 spaces (I might not be remembering exactly right, but you get the idea). I got a phone interview from a prof (who could have become my supervisor) and he told me that. I think about half were given the phone interviews, or maybe a bit less. I don't think I did particularly well on the phone interview as I wasn't really expecting it and usually spend quite a bit of time before an interview thinking of interview type questions, which I'm not naturally good at, and didn't really have the opportunity there. My rejection from U of T did come quite a while after they said they'd send it, so perhaps I was very close and they wanted to see if some others accepted their offer? I don't know.

To give some context here, my GPA wound up being 3.88. Acadia requires a thesis from Honours students, so I had research experience with a prof. I got an NSERC scholarship out of undergrad, which profs were telling me would get me in anywhere (I will add that NSERC has a round internal to the university and then a national round where all the university nominees are considered. I understand that at many schools it's hard to get that university nomination out of undergrad, while at Acadia it's not. Acadia undergrads do *very* well at getting NSERC's - which amounts to $17,500 x 2 years if you get it out of undergrad). I had started, but not completed, an application to Alberta (I decided that I probably wasn't going to go there and if I changed my mind I could apply for a later term) and after the NSERC awards were announced, they sent me an e-mail inviting me to apply even though the deadline had passed.

This being said I don't think I would have gone to Toronto had I gotten in, Ottawa was always where I wanted to go for a variety of reasons (which mainly include things like it had a few people researching in my area of interest (Natural Language Processing), I grew up in Ottawa and liked the city, my boyfriend got a job there, etc)

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Remember that it often takes just as long to do a search or two on Google to try and find the answer to your question as it takes to type it in a post here, let alone the time waiting for a reply.
If your question is "What mark does it take to get into University X", or "What are the requirements to get into University X", it's on their website and/or electronicinfo.ca (for Ontario schools). Particularly for Ontario schools, those ranges are a pretty good picture of what kind of mark will get you into the program, and if you're more than a couple percent higher it's practically guaranteed unless it requires a supplementary form.