Hello, I will be starting Engineering I this fall and I have a couple of questions about picking my courses

There is a webpage which lists the required engineering courses for 1st year (sorry can't link it since I need to have 5 posts before I can post URLs ). There are 37 units which are already chosen for me, leaving me only to choose the electives, or am I missing something?

For the electives, I am planing to take Econ 1B03 (in case I go for 5yr engineering & management) and then I want to choose between Philos 1D03 or Psych 1X03. Does anyone who has taken either or both of these courses have any advice? (I read the philos 1D03 review, but I couldn't find anything about phych 1X03)

I am also planing to attend student counseling before SOLAR opens for registration, I just want to know a little more about choosing my courses before I go there.

thanks in advance!!

Hey I took ECON 1B03 and PHILOS 1D03 last year and I loved both of them. Econ was very easy and I found it interesting so much so that I'm going into management this year. The Philosophy course is not for everyone though so I'll give you some details on it. The lectures I had were basically all spoken with no aid except for one or two overheads put up. So really you have to take notes based on what he is saying and it's fast paced. There is a lot of reading for homework and it can be very bland. Last year 60 percent of your mark was based on 3 essays (20 each) written through out the year and 40 percent was the exam which was composed of an exam and a few multiple choice questions based on the readings.

Originally Posted by Arisu4

Hello, I will be starting Engineering I this fall and I have a couple of questions about picking my courses

There is a webpage which lists the required engineering courses for 1st year (sorry can't link it since I need to have 5 posts before I can post URLs ). There are 37 units which are already chosen for me, leaving me only to choose the electives, or am I missing something?

For the electives, I am planing to take Econ 1B03 (in case I go for 5yr engineering & management) and then I want to choose between Philos 1D03 or Psych 1X03. Does anyone who has taken either or both of these courses have any advice? (I read the philos 1D03 review, but I couldn't find anything about phych 1X03)

I am also planing to attend student counseling before SOLAR opens for registration, I just want to know a little more about choosing my courses before I go there.

thanks in advance!!

There's plenty on psych 1X03...thousands of students take it every year Check the course outline and course review sections of Macinsiders, and do a search for posts about 1X03 using the search bar...there are tons.

Also, only 31 units are chosen for you...the last six units are your electives, to make 37 units total.

Thanks for the replies, I somehow missed the course review when i searched earlier.

both psych and philos courses look very interesting to me.

Would going for the drop in counseling in JHE room A214 be beneficial in any way, considering the 31 compulsory units are already chosen for me and I can most likely make up my mind about philos or psych electives?

I took Econ 1B03 and 1BB3 in first year and Psych 1X03 in third year (I was actually going to take Philos 1D03, but dropped it for Psych a week before school started). I definitely recommend 1X03. It's a very interesting class. It's also really nice to take as an Engineering student since there's only one hour of scheduled class per week, which makes it easy to fit into a cramped schedule.

It's not a bird course though (Econ is) so don't expect to get a great mark by putting in little to no effort. You can definitely get 10+ (a 10 is equivalent to 80-84%) if you put in a decent amount of effort.

Remember you don't need to take those 2 general electives to get into level 2. If you are planning on trying for a high demand/ high required average Engineering discipline (Mechanical, Electrical and Bio etc) you could consider taking those pesky electives later on and concentrating on your core Engineering courses so you get a higher average or have a bit of extra free time, so you can enjoy 1st year of university.

Good luck

Originally Posted by bsamartin

Remember you don't need to take those 2 general electives to get into level 2. If you are planning on trying for a high demand/ high required average Engineering discipline (Mechanical, Electrical and Bio etc) you could consider taking those pesky electives later on and concentrating on your core Engineering courses so you get a higher average or have a bit of extra free time, so you can enjoy 1st year of university.

Good luck

Bad idea your average for the 2nd year programs is calculated as follows, Average Grade x # of units
so only taking 31 units would mean you would need a much higher average to get the same score as someone with 37 units

Originally Posted by bsamartin

Remember you don't need to take those 2 general electives to get into level 2. If you are planning on trying for a high demand/ high required average Engineering discipline (Mechanical, Electrical and Bio etc) you could consider taking those pesky electives later on and concentrating on your core Engineering courses so you get a higher average or have a bit of extra free time, so you can enjoy 1st year of university.

Good luck

If you don't take your electives in first year
You're going to have a very bad time







Took psych, it was awesome (summer) and easy

Originally Posted by yaroslav64

Bad idea your average for the 2nd year programs is calculated as follows, Average Grade x # of units
so only taking 31 units would mean you would need a much higher average to get the same score as someone with 37 units

Well that's assuming that you pass all your required courses; If you get a zero in anyone of those required courses your not getting into 2nd year, so taking 31 units or 37 units won't matter. If you limit the number of courses and redirect the time that would have been spent on those electives to concentrating on your required (more difficult) courses you probably will do a lot better (overall higher C.A) then if you took those electives.

I'm graduating this year from Electrical Eng. In my first year there were over 1000 1st year eng students. There are under 600 graduating with me. Its important in1st year to get a good average and be successful. I personally knew many 1st years that flunked out. They didn't fail because they were dumb, but they either screwed around (okay these people were dumb), didn't study properly, or tried to do more then they were able to do at one time (too many courses).

I was merely mentioning as an option that electives weren't required for 2nd year eng

Originally Posted by RyanC

If you don't take your electives in first year
You're going to have a very bad time







Took psych, it was awesome (summer) and easy

Unless I've misunderstood something, you didn't take all your electives during first year. As you took a psych course in the summer, your psych mark would not have counted towards your average for getting into second year.

Well, I have the "free choice of discipline" for 2nd year in my acceptance letter, but I definitely don't want to rely on that.

Hopefully I can manage my time properly and do good while taking the electives as well, from what I hear time management is very important for uni.

also, are the 31 compulsory units already set for term 1 and term 2? or is it possible to have the hardest ones in different terms?

Originally Posted by Arisu4

Well, I have the "free choice of discipline" for 2nd year in my acceptance letter, but I definitely don't want to rely on that.

Hopefully I can manage my time properly and do good while taking the electives as well, from what I hear time management is very important for uni.

also, are the 31 compulsory units already set for term 1 and term 2? or is it possible to have the hardest ones in different terms?

If you have free choice you don't need to worry about dropping courses, but if you are thinking about management then it will be much harder to get a high average with only 31 units (since management is higher than civil and mechanical). Also, I think free choice does not include Elect&Biomed and Chem&Bio.

The 31 compulsory units are set for both terms except for Engineer 1D04 and Engineer 1C03...you can take these 2 courses in any term but don't take them in the same semester -_-

So, from the answers I got here and reading few other topics, course selection seems very straight forward (at least for 1st year eng)

I am going to campus today and biking all the way back to Mississauga (yay!) and I am wondering if I should go to the drop in counseling in JHE room A214? I also plan to attend the information session on June 29.

it is very easy for course selection yes. If you want to go into management, you will need one of the econ electives. cant remember if it is 1b03 or 1bb3. both are easy and straight forward. you dont have much choice about what term you take your compulsory courses. They are all set to either first or second term, with the exception being 1c03 and 1d03, which can be either first or second term. I would recommend not putting them both in the same term. If you are not a good programmer, 1d03 could prove difficult, I took it second term and due to the low marks from the first term class, the labs were apparently made to be much easier than that of the first term. Also now 1d03 is using python as its programming language, so that should be much easier than when we used to do C++

thanks Chris, I have no programming experience, whatsoever, but from what I heard that isn't a problem since the program has no programming prerequisites.

I hope that would be alright, or would you suggest to start learning Python's basics over the summer so I have an easier time during the fall?