Software Engineering @ Waterloo – Courses

May 12 Update: 3A courses added! P.S. I also updated my About Me page, so have a read if you’re interested. P.S.S. I updated the blog design again.. I didn’t really like the old one because there was not a clear distinction between bold and non-bolded font.

This is a reflective post on my past 2.5 years in SoftEng, the pains, the stresses, and the rejoices.

Reference on my Class of 2015 course sequence is here. If you’re a prospective student, you may be taking a different sequence of courses.

Note – I published this awhile ago but it somehow got saved as a draft.. So it’s back up now.

1A

I worked pretty hard during this school term. Straight out of high school, had a lot of keener in me. No expectations because I had no idea what university would be like, but still wanted to do well.

I entered SoftEng feeling very lowly compared to a handful of my classmates. There are geniuses in my class, seriously. But what can you expect? 145ish 85%+ average students in 1 classroom.

Overall recommendation: it’s 1A. Get used to university, get used to the huge student:prof ratio, utilize TA/prof office hours; but don’t over study and lose out on your first-year social experience.

Math 117, CS 137: Calculus, and CS. Both fairly easily. Use of online resources is recommended for these courses. Not doing well in 117 will lead to problems in future Calc courses. Not doing well in CS will lead to problems in future CS courses. Note that the faculty assumes you have some sort of CS experience coming into the program. If you don’t, then you’ll have a larger learning curve to deal with. If you don’t want to deal with it, go into CS and take CS 115 ( a start from scratch course).

ECE 105: Will be your most difficult course. Pay attention! If you have Firas Mansour, you will be in luck. Great prof, teaches well. But midterm and final are usually killer. He likes to add extensions to past midterm and final problems, it’s not just plug and chug, unfortunately. Mandatory quizzes really test your knowledge and are not too difficult, but are worth a very small fraction of your final mark.

ECE 140: Fairly standard course, it gets difficult towards the end when complex numbers are involved. But it’ll be the highest degree you’ll have to deal with complex numbers (at least for awhile), esp if you’re in softeng. This is a newer course that came out of ‘electrodeath’ (More about this later).

Math 115: Standard Linear Algebra course. Midterm and final look similar to past midterms and finals. It’s pretty abstract, but just pay attention in class. Assignments are usually difficult, but they aren’t worth too much of your final mark.

SE 101: Should be a bird course. It’s a 0.25 credit, meaning you don’t attend much class or labs. You do a group project, pretty simple – programming a robot to maneuver around a maze. Although it’s in a group of 6. Awkward division of tasks ftw. Apparently they have updated this course to entail a different sort of project, so don’t take my work.

1B

I started getting lazy in this term. More 830am classes, but slightly more free time.

Math 119, 135: Not much to say about 119, same comments as 117, really. Hopefully you get Eddie Dupont (great prof). Math 135 is taken by CS and Math students in Fall term. They originally had a really good textbook for the course, but they recently changed it (unfortunately). A few proofs here and there. They generally go easier on students who take this course because it often composes of CS/Math students who failed it in Fall term.

CS 138: Depends on prof teaching style. This course is actually a nice intro for CS 240 and CS 247. Unfortunately, bad TAs and bad profs lead to bad results on midterms and finals. It’s not common to see past midterms posted for this course, although the content and assignments don’t change very much. It can be an interesting course if taught well, and is pretty useful for your future co-op placements. Intro to BSTs, some algorithms, data structures – queues, heaps, etc. And object oriented. All in C++.

Ece 124: This course really depends on the prof. It introduces some useful concepts for ECE 222 and future logic courses, but can be very dry. Powerpoint type of lectures is the norm (study off of them). Textbook is not really needed, but still useful if you want to do reading on your own time. The mandatory labs are truly horrible. Coding in an outdated language (VHDL), doing things barely related to the course, disorganized lab instructors, etc. The optional assignments are pretty useful, make sure you do them even though they’re not for marks, as they are great for applying things you learned in class.

Ece 106: Extension to 105, but it’s all ElectroMag. This used to be part of Electrodeath. It is a pretty intense course, no more high school review as in 105 – mainly new concepts with added calculus. Mandatory quizzes as usual. MT + Final are fairly similar to past ones… although extensions to past midterms still happened to us. The labs are pretty straightforward – easy marks.

Note: Electrodeath was a combination of 106 and 140, for students in 2A to take. It was the course that weeded out a lot of students as it had so much content packed into 1. They solved this by splitting the course (originally Ece 126) into 2 courses.

2A

Housing for Waterloo Students – Tips for Searching

(This post was made a couple months ago, but I’ve added many more details)

Housing in Waterloo is very unique because we (and Laurier) have the co-op program, meaning students are around during the spring term (May-Aug). This has allowed housing companies like KW4Rent, Atlas, Domus, and Luxe to take advantage of 1 year leases. You see, other university towns like London (UWO) have 8-month leases as the norm because summer is pretty empty.

Many houses near the universities (especially on Lester and Sunview) are being knocked down to build huge apartments by the big corps. This is due to demand. There is an increase in the number of students each year. The other reason is that many students will tend not to stick with on-campus residence since it is much more expensive in comparison, and there isn’t a huge amount of availability for upper years for residence, anyway. Plus, living off-campus is a great experience. You make your own rules and you will (hopefully) have made friends that you want to live with. I’m not encouraging weekly parties, but it’s a step up towards gaining independence.

Housing situations will differ depending on your year of study and whether you are on co-op. Subletting is extremely common for Waterloo due to the co-op program, and it’s usually a lot cheaper to go for sublets than yearly leases since subletters usually combine utilities and internet into the price and offer furnished rooms. Usually what you lose out on is the ability to live with your friends (unless you are able to sublet the whole unit). Winter and Spring sublets are very common, but it’s more difficult to find Fall sublets simply because very few people will sign a lease and immediately sublet (leases are usually Sept-Aug).

1 year leases are more of a commitment, and more of a hassle if you have a co-op term somewhere in the middle (meaning you have to find a sublet). When finding a sublet, you will usually end up lowering the price due to competition. Summer sublet prices drop by 30-40% of original price most of the time. I have seen $550/month places go for $250/month. Definitely start posting up ads early in the term instead of waiting until end-of-term, near exams, when everyone is busy.

So what path should you take? This will depend on your willingness to live with random people or your hopes to stay together in a group of friends.

Some general tips..

-If you are looking for roommates or sublets, use the Waterloo Housing group (you need a verified @uwaterloo.ca email to access this). It is probably way better than Kijiji or the official Waterloo board, since people will more likely (and more quickly) respond to you in comparison to email. Although, if there’s a phone number, then that’s definitely the quickest :)

-Another useful tool is Padmapper, if you care about location. The ads are pulled from Kijji and Craigslist for better viewing.

-Make sure you do a little research before you sign. Do you want to be able to walk to school, or don’t mind depending on the bus? It makes a huge difference when you need to depend on a bus to get to school. Do you plan to cook often? If so.. do you mind living 20 min away from the closest supermarket?

First Impressions of the Canon Elph 330 HS

Final exams are over, and I’ve been mainly relaxing at home, sleeping more, and shopping for my 4th co-op term. The weather is also having its ups and downs. Yesterday it was a beautiful, sunny ~21 degrees. Today, is a muggy, rainy ~16 degrees. So in recent events, I lost my digital camera. :( I’ve had this camera since Dec 2008 – the Canon PowerShot SD880 IS (Elph series). It was a pretty good digital camera for its time – 10MP, 4x zoom, a large variety of color/lighting/scene settings. Throughout the years, I’ve dropped it on the ground multiple times. It’s also survived being completely soaked in water. In the past month or so, the lens cover would get stuck when I turn on the camera, and I would have to manually open it (probably due to me dropping it while it was still turned on). This is when my friends started noting that I should upgrade, but I didn’t want to part with it yet. So yes, I lost it, after ~4 years of extensive use. Not happy that I lost it, but I really was due for an upgrade.

The Search for a Replacement.
I was considering a DSLR. But thinking more about it, I didn’t see myself carrying around such a huge camera everywhere. I don’t aim for extremely HQ photos shot at perfect angles. I aim for quick shots on a day of exploring or a night out. Photos of humans, rather than scenery. So yes, I stuck with the point-and-shoot realm. I also stuck with Canon because I am accustomed to the button arrangements and screen interface. I really can’t go wrong.

Now, which series?
I never really paid attention in the past, but there are 3 major digital camera series for Canon. The A-series, the Elph series, and the SX series. The SX series is a little more expensive because it’s an in between of digital camera and DSLR. The optical zoom is usually pretty high. The A-series is more for performance, and many of them allow AA(A?) batteries for power, which I find quite unnecessary for me. Also, I discovered that the Elph series has a lot more customization on colour and scene settings than the other series, so I decided to stick with it. I find that the colour settings allow my images to appear better when using flash. This is especially important when taking photos of humans. Many people have told me my photos have a very particular look, and yes, that’s because of Canon’s colour settings that I can apply to every photo.

So yes, the Elph series. It was between the 110, 130, 320, 520, and 330. The 320 and 520 were both complete touch screen cameras, so that was out of the question. The 110 and 130 are older models. It was really between the 130 (16MP, 8x zoom) and the 330 (12MP, 10x zoom), both wifi models. I chose the 330 (in black) because it apparently has a better processor and I prefer zoom over megapixels. The 330 also records 1080p video, while the 130 can only record at 720p. The price difference is about $30. Best Buy USA has it on sale for $200 (online only I think) but I decided to buy it here in Canada for $239 to save the hassle.

Day 1 of playing with the camera:
I love it. The only thing I miss about my old camera is the ability to scroll continuously and quickly through my photos via the circular dial. None of the newer Elph models have it (none of the old ones really had it, either, actually). I was worried that I wouldn’t be used to the tiny buttons.. I’m still getting used to them. They are placing priority on a larger display screen, so I guess it’s worth it. The lithium battery is also slightly smaller than my old camera’s, making the camera very light when carrying around. I love the texture and form factor; it’s easy to hold firmly and I don’t think I’ll have to worry about fingerprints at all.

The Wifi functionality isn’t too difficult to set up (despite the negative online reviews), but I haven’t gotten web services to work yet. Canon seems to have lack of support for Mac. I did get to try out CameraWindow, transferring my pictures to my Android device (can also do it on an iOS device). This is definitely convenient. My main purpose of taking photos is to share them onto some kind of social networking service. It’s a hassle having to take out my SD card, copy the photos somewhere (either manually or through iPhoto), and uploading it through the web. iPhoto is always giving me problems now, too, so I refrain from using it. I have never actually used Canon’s image transferring tools (don’t plan to), so I cannot comment on that. There is also this extremely convenient option that allows you to resize the images to 1600×1200 or 640×480 when using CameraWindow for quick and easy uploads via mobile.

So far I am very happy with my new 330, and will update this post with some sample shots after a few weeks of usage.

 

Having Fun with Search Engine Terms

So I decided to make a 2nd blog post today based on the search results that people took to come to my site (WordPress shows me stats for “words or phrases users find me with when they search”). Some are pretty amusing so I’ve decided to try to decipher them:

“computer science first year waterloo c++”
CS students do not learn C++ in 1st year. They learn Scheme in 1A and C in 1B. A handful of upper year profs don’t like this and look down on it. Now I’ve never learned Scheme myself so I wouldn’t know how it is.
P.S. SE students learn C in 1A and C++ in 1B. You could say that we are “ahead” since we learn a more industry accepted language ahead of time. CS students catch up from CS 246, which teaches C++.

“why is waterloo’s ranking so bad”
Having a good ranking means money being put into research. Our university was established not too long ago (about 50 years ago), comparing to other universities we obviously won’t rank as high. It takes awhile to grow a strong faculty of profs. Also, we do not have a lot of amazing graduate programs yet. We have a ton of amazing undergrad programs that allow students to be set for the real world (if they choose co-op), though.

“are there any advantages to returning to a previous employer? job mine”
I may have mentioned this in my co-op blog post but I really don’t remember. So the advantage of returning to a previous employer is that you are already familiar with the tools that the company uses. If it’s a large company, you can take advantage of being a trusted co-op student, and try out a different team. If it’s a small company, you would probably be on the same team, but be considered “senior” to new employees. Make sure you take the opportunity of working on a different team if you choose to return to your previous employer. Some companies also have stock options that only apply if you are a returning co-op student.

There is honestly no disadvantage of returning, except if you feel that you could get a better job elsewhere and you want to try out a different company structure or whatever. If you already liked the environment you were in though, returning is not a bad idea at all. Now, I wouldn’t return for more than 2 terms (although it’s really up to you).

“statistics waterloo summer sublet”
I’m guessing this person is having a tough time renting out their place for the Spring term. Yes, it is very tough finding sublets for summer. Apparently at other university towns, the leases are almost always 8 month since summer term doesn’t really exist. Unfortunately, both Waterloo and Laurier have co-op, meaning a chunk of the student population is still present during May to August. So, that’s what rental companies take advantage of. Fortunately for me, I’ve never had to deal with subletting a room in the summer (I don’t sign a 12 month lease if I know I’m not in Waterloo for the summer). Most people end up not finding anyone to rent to and have to incur the 4 months even though they aren’t there (it really does suck).

“better to lease or sublet waterloo university coop”
So it depends on your sequence. 8stream engineers can sign during their 2nd and 4th years since they will be on term for Fall and Summer. They should not sign during their 3rd and 5th year at Waterloo since they will only be on term for the Winter. What you can do is find a group of people who are always off-stream from you and sublet off of each other.

All in all, if you want to save money, subletting is the way to go. It’s a little more of a hassle since you have to search around, and you may end up with terribad roommates if you are living with complete randoms.

“waterloo co-op will i ever get a job”
Keep checking your emails. Your faculty advisor should be emailing you opportunities throughout the term. Your co-op advisors also do the same (they have a list of students who aren’t employed yet). Ask around for opportunities. If anything, you can work at a summer camp that is hopefully related to your program.

“is it difficult to write afmaa”
For those who don’t know, I wrote the afmaa in 2010 and was accepted to AFM-PA, but obviously did not take the offer. So I thought the AFMAA was pretty straight forward. Just make sure you go in with a clear mind, and remember the standard essay structure. The AFMAA is actually very similar to the ELPE (an English proficiency test that all Waterloo students need to pass as a graduation requirement, written in 1st year).

“afmaa grade 11 marks”
The only grade 11 mark they consider is your Grade 11 English mark if you do NOT have a final Grade 12 English mark on your transcript (i.e. you are currently taking it in 2nd semester). They want a minimum of 75 percent on the most recent English mark. If you don’t have it, you won’t get an AFMAA invite.

“don’t get invited to waterloo afmaa you don’t get accepted ?”
The AFMAA is a highly weighted component on acceptance for AFM. So no AFMAA invite = no acceptance.

“why employers don’t like waterloo”
Employers love Waterloo. There are very few universities out there with mandatory co-op education.

“university of waterloo software engineeing timetable”
Check out https://uwaterloo.ca/software-engineering/current-undergraduate-students/class-homepages for some sample timetables. Don’t be too overwhelmed, this is engineering for ya..

“i dont want the job job mine”
Always get the interviewer’s contact information. If you already have a bad feeling about what you’re getting into, tell them before the interview ends. If you rather not say it in person, email them saying that you are no longer interested in the job. Don’t set up yourself for a bad work term if you know it won’t end well. Make sure you do this asap (before rankings).

“too much software job on jobmine uw”
Sorry. We’re in demand :/

“university of waterloo social life”
I think I’ve reiterated on this plenty of times – university is what you make of it. “Social life” is not going to come to you, you’re going to have to go out there and find it, whether by joining clubs, attending events, getting to know your roommates or classmates, etc. I guess it’s a little harder at UW since we don’t have as much school spirit (lack of amazing varsity teams perhaps). Personally I have an amazing social life when I’m at Waterloo. Yes, I admit that I go out a lot (i.e. Bomber nights, parties, club socials).

We are depicted as a nerdy school because we are strong in our Math and Engineering faculties but it doesnt mean that we sit around at home all the time.

“is mkv more expensive than v1? uwaterloo”
Yes. It’s newer, and it’s suite style.

“are waterloo coops worth hiring”
Yes. Especially if you want to hire a 3rd or 4th year. We already have experience at 3-4 different companies, and it’s not just grabbing coffee, we do real life work at our co-op jobs.

“ranked but no offer what happens next jobmine”
You might get matched if the employer doesn’t get the person they gave the offer to.

“uwaterloo program with the least girls”
It’s probably ECE or Tron.

“make strawberry milkshake essay”
I really couldn’t figure this one out… Were they writing an essay about strawberry milkshakes?

PS. I updated my blog layout again because I realize that the default font used is really large and there’s whitespace that can be used. Hopefully it will be easier on the eyes to read my blocks of text!

How I Feel about LinkedIn

I finally have time for a new blog post. So classes finished up this Monday and it’s time to procrastinate on studying for finals (just kidding, I spent the whole day studying since it was a rainy day). Many many things have happened in the past 4 months and I guess I finally had time to sit around and reminisce. I met a ton of amazing people this term outside of my program. I went out a lot, building on the work-hard play-hard philosophy. No regrets for sure.

Despite the rumours that 3A is the toughest term for Software Engineers at Waterloo, I found it quite manageable. I guess this was affected by our exceptional round of professors this term (with the exception of one..) It was tough in the sense that we never got a break; it was 1 assignment after another. But this term was a lot of fun in terms of the stuff I got to learn and do. User Interfaces (CS 349) being a favourite. Fun assignments (although tedious) with a fun prof. Take a look over at my Github if you’re interested (I just pushed the repos today).

So I actually have a topic to talk about today: LinkedIn.

The whole concept of LinkedIn is kind of iffy to me. I was recently surprised to learn that not a lot of university students know of it (since their peers don’t use it, or they have never had a professional job before). It’s quite interesting from a UW student perspective because once you are immersed into the co-op program, you are obliged to have a LinkedIn profile and connect with all your friends and coworkers … and people you might not even know who happen to go to your school.

So what exactly is it in comparison to Facebook? It’s like social networking, except you get notified when someone stalks you. Oh, and there’s a newsfeed for updates on your Connections and the Companies and Groups you’re following. Does it really matter if you never update your LinkedIn though? For full-time people, you probably update once a year or whenever you switch jobs. You connect with people so you can have access to their network, to expand the possibility of recruiters coming to your profile. For students, it’s a nice replacement for a “website” or “portfolio” (but you should probably move away from that once you get your own blog or website).

So is LinkedIn just a recruiting tool then? Yes. In many senses it is, because recruiters/HR people need to find talented people suited for the job. LinkedIn is a nice way to do it without having to flip through resumes. Usually you have a 1-liner under each job instead of the long detailed descriptions you see in resumes (..at least based on the Canadian resumes I’ve seen).

What does this imply?  That you should have a beautified profile, with maxed out endorsements on your Skills (more on this later). No matter, HR will still want to do a phone screen of some sort before transferring you to the manager or engineer or whoever you’d be working under. So it’s not like the hiring happens through LinkedIn messaging.

So back to maxing out your skillz.. The act of endorsing. I find this very silly. I discovered it one day when I received an email notification saying my friend has “endorsed” me for Git and Java and perhaps some other skills I had on my profile. This person is a classmate of mine so we take similar courses and everything.. but how could he know if I was proficient in Java or Git? We never worked together.

Fast forward a couple of months, and I’m starting to get Endorsement requests from my friends. It’s amusing, it really is, this strange feature.

Other strange features: Introductions. Quoted from the Help Center page: “An introduction lets you contact members who are in your 2nd degree network or 3rd degree network. If a member is within your extended network, you can contact them through connections you have in common.” So basically you message your connection in common to request to be connected to their connection. It’s very silly and kind of a foreign concept to those who have used group messaging on any IM client or simply, Facebook. What if your common connection never checks LinkedIn? Then you just wasted an Invitation, because you only get 5. After that, you need to pay.

I guess I just don’t see LinkedIn as a company that will grow properly. They have a very strong foundation, but there are many unnecessary and complex features that normal users won’t bother figuring out.

There are other cool recruiting tools out there that are more engineering focused. For example, StackOverflow Careers, which is of course directly connected to all of StackExchange. They have a really cool resume builder, and you can append your top answers to StackOverflow questions. Yes, I think this is cool. Although, I don’t know many people who use it, and I’ve never been contacted through it. The concept of having your profile and being contacted by technical people because they actually look at your contributions is cool – but who really has time to read through your contributions?

That’s the issue with writing paragraphs on your LinkedIn or resume. It can all be a load of crap on paper, and you can even bullshit through your interview. In the end, it’s all about how you work with others and handle conflicts and stress at work. I guess that’s what LinkedIn recommendations are for. Now THOSE are pretty legit. Having the references there are prepared, rather than the generic “References upon request” (which, btw, you really shouldn’t put on your resume… seems like such a 90s thing to do thinking about it now).

I just wanted to get that off my chest, the topic is probably really irrelevant to most of the people reading my blog.

So anyways, good luck to those with final exams, and good luck to prospective students that are still in high school. Feel free to email me or comment below at any time… I am pretty quick at responding.