Hopefully bijan can shed some light on this =)

I'm wondering if there are any tips to get in the top 10 of my engineering class. I find that many people make the mistake of messing up their first year, and I really want to try my best to avoid that! How much time should Ireally be studying? Also, what brings peoples marks down so much? Is it the labs? The tests? Exams? Everything? What are some particular courses that I should be putting a lot of time into?

Any suggestions would be great!

---

University of Toronto Engineering 12'

haha yeah Taiyab has some creative input I must say! However first before my MAMMOTH of a post, I must place a disclaimer!

NOTE: Although you should always try and get the best marks you can. In first year I'd be much more focused with meeting people and making friends then being a hobbit in the library! It'll pay off almost 10 fold in the long run so get active in first year, you have 3 more years to be a cave animal.

but as for being top 10. I'll tell you right now it's VERY VERY competitive, as usually the top 15-20 are all very capable of being top 5 and averages differ by like 2-4%! Usually labs are pretty easy if you know what's going on and you just gotta put in a couple hours to get them done before hand, most of the time it's just not FULLY understanding what's going on and then getting screwed on the exam / midterms. There's usually only 3 or 4 questions for a 2 hour exam and if you missed something or forgot some material, you get one question wrong.. there goes your whole mark for the course! However if you just want to get a very good mark to make sure you're with that group here are the most important tips (and although it may seem stupid and obvious, you'll be surprised at how hard it actually is to implement for most people):

1) KEEP UP with the lectures! Actually be AHEAD of the lectures! Find out (through the syllabus you get in the first week) what your prof is going to talk about and just skim through that part of the textbook in the morning before class or the night before. Even if you have NO IDEA what's going on, just skim through and read it once. Then when the prof mentions it, it'll hit like a bell and you'll pay attention and actually know what he's talking about. I'd say 80% of the class usually just sits there, droning and taking notes, not knowing what in the world the prof is talking about (I am a prime example of that). So in a way, most lectures are of a complete waste to me, but I like to have the notes to reference back to later on (some people don't ever look back at their lectures notes).

2) DO the labs YOURSELF. As tempting as it is to borrow someone else's answers and numbers, make sure you fully understand WHY you're doing the labs and what it accomplishes. It'll help you understand the formulas much more.

3) Obviously go to lectures, as tempting as it maybe to skip.

4) Go to EVERY tutorial unless it's absolutely uselss (most of the time it's not even though it may seem so) and make sure you have your problem set done by the time you go to tutorial. This way when the TA takes up the questions, you can really make use of some techniques that maybe you didn't apply.

5) Study SMARTLY. Don't just throw yourself at the book, but do all the assigned problems, look at past final exams (all on exams.skule.ca) , see the trends. Most Prof's are too lazy to come up with something new every year so they just take last years exam and change the numbers. Find out what types of things you should study and focus on that.

6) For most people, as hard as it is, especially in ECE, get a GOOD study group going early. Find people you click with and people who are on the same level as you (or if you don't get ANYTHING, people a lot smarter than you that know exactly what's going on) and study together and ask them questions.

7) Never just ask someone to solve a question for you and look at their solution (even though it seems like you know it now because someone showed you). Ask them for steps or if they DO solve it for you, solve another TWO questions that are similar so you really know what just happened.

8) Being lazy is what cripples most people. If you can get over your laziness and actually do the work, you should be fine! I'm in the top third of my class now and I honestly probably study like 8-12 hours a week. Most people study more than me and get worse marks but I think I'm slowly learning how to study SMARTLY (that's something that's different for everyone). I'm also a very lazy person.. first year first semester I had a 63-ish average (luckily didn't fail anything though I was close), I have an almost 79 this past semester and I'm pretty sure it'll go up in my next 2 years.

Good luck next year!

---

-University of Toronto Electrical Engineering 1T0!

This thread has my name written all over it

a) You have to be an International student
ii) Must be from Hong Kong
c) Must have no form of social life, e.g frosh week was the most fun you ever had in your life, and probably ever will, yes Frosh week.
d) You have to be an International student
iv) Actually be a nerd, no not a good student. But an actual nerd.
e) No INTERESTS OUTSIDE of engineering. E.g I like to cook, I had to throw that out the window. If you have a TV show you watch every week, forget about it now. No, I'm not saying I'm in the top 10th or whatever, but you'll notice alot of those people do nothing besides...school stuff, or watch anime every now and then


You can follow me 2nd year, I can be the older brother you never had.

---

University of Lost Hope, Broken Dreams and Tattered Souls - Sanitational Engineering '08
Self-help: I am taking Engineering, but Engineering isn't taking me.

Overall, bijanv is giving you some excellent advice. I'll try to add on a few things.

I found that my term marks were usually relatively high (80-90) for most classes and after the exam, my mark usually drops. I have had a couple of classes where my mark increased from the exam, but it doesn't happen too often for me. Marks for assignments and labs are pretty much free marks, so ALWAYS do them even if they are only worth 1-2% each. It really adds up.

I don't know which program you're taking, but I'll give you some tips on the courses I took:

CIV101 - Scrape all the marks you can from the easy term work because the exam is pretty bad. The format is always very similar to past exams however. Be sure to do all the problem sets. The exam questions are usually around the same caliber, maybe a bit harder. Don't worry if your prof is a hard marker, they adjust every class average to 70% before the exam. I had Prof. Naser for the class. He was very friendly but I felt he did not prepare us enough for the exam (I got slaughtered).

MAT188 - What can I say... memorize the theorems. Many of them will be the same theorems stated in slightly different ways with different names, so don't get scared. Overall, this class was not too hard. Exam was pretty easy. I had Prof. Pugh for this class. I found her to be an excellent teacher and would definitely recommend. She may seem quirky at first, but is extremely helpful.

MAT196 - Don't let epsilon-delta scare you. It's ridiculous, I know, but it will hardly show up at all. When I took this class, there was one easy proof on the first quiz, and that was it. Other than that, make sure you know how to graph extremely well, as you will surely get a tough one on the exam. I found the exam to be pretty hard, mainly composed of a couple of word problems, one huge graphing question and a volume question. The Coordinator was Prof. Cohen, who is new, so old exams do not really reflect anything.

APS105 - If you know how to program, this class will be a breeze. If not, it's still not too bad. Know the syntax and try to think out of the box for some problems. Write as many programs as you can from past exams/midterms and you will do well. Quizzes are kind of ridiculous at 15 minutes each. Often you will get an extremely easy one followed by a hard one and so on. Don't be too bummed out if you screw up a quiz as they mark it easy enough as long as you wrote some code that makes sense. I had Prof. Fairgrieve for this course and found that he was really helpful. The exam was not too bad. Practice makes perfect!

APS111 - The course that everybody hates... Try not to fall asleep in lecture, but go to them all! I cannot stress this enough! The book you get is horrendous and almost impossible to read. Just go to lecture and absorb material. The multiple choice midterm is also horrible. Be prepared for a ton of ambiguous multiple choice questions that have no RIGHT answer, just the BEST answer. As for the group work, hope you don't get a group full of losers and use iWrite whenever possible. Getting a good mark on that portion of the course is not too hard.

to be continued... (second term courses)

---

U of T Electrical Engineering 1T1

ECE's do C++ if its still the same as my time and others either do C or Java

---

-University of Toronto Electrical Engineering 1T0!

hey i was just wondering whether any of u guys were interested in the bfc.
i went to my brother's convocation on monday, and they were defs something to see.
needless to say the parents were pretty confused.

---

"My parents live in Ohio; I live in the moment." -himym.

By the way, take my marks with a molecule of NaCl. I'm not top 20, nor am I bottom 20. I'm just a tweener.

---

University of Lost Hope, Broken Dreams and Tattered Souls - Sanitational Engineering '08
Self-help: I am taking Engineering, but Engineering isn't taking me.

I've heard that they're switching to C, but I'm not completely sure.

I'll continue my course post tomorrow when I'm bored at work

---

U of T Electrical Engineering 1T1

1) the bfc don't exist
2) It's not necessarily just F!rosh week Taiyab, a lot of us go to all the events throughout the year
3) How was F!rosh week not fun? maybe you guys had a bad leader or something but I had a great time - although some events were kinda stupid I admit


and lastly, I should probably mention that I probably also don't follow ANY of the advice I just gave... I'm just saying that's what you SHOULD try and do if you want to be top 15

---

-University of Toronto Electrical Engineering 1T0!

yes most likely

---

-University of Toronto Electrical Engineering 1T0!