Originally Posted by huzaifa47

Wait did I just hear Math and "enjoy" in the same sentence, from a GIRL?! hahahahah where exactly did the sun rise from today I wonder. But then again you are brown
I'm used to just about 99.9% of people on Insiders and my Facebook Socsci group saying they HATE math. But yeah 1A03 is an indepth course as far as theory goes, but 1M03 isn't bad either. A C- in 1M03 gets you a credit for 1A03!

Well I did "hate" Math in grade 9, and I ended up with a 78%.
Grade 10 and 11 were wonderful. I began to think outside the box and force myself to think of problems in ways that I could grasp and I achieved 91s and 93s on the exams and tests.


Then came grade 12. I did slack in Advanced Functions (summer of 2008). I barely did the work, day dreamed in class and was lucky to end up with an 83%.

I poured my heart and soul into Calculus and Vectors which I did online. Calculus was around 88%. Then came vectors and tests that were written by the teacher resulting in 30%s on quizzes and bell curving...


I ended up with an 80% in that.

However, I really enjoy Math. I may not be wonderful at it but when I work at it, I do my best to ...work at it. I am probably the only 18 year old you'll meet who reexplained cross multiplication to herself. Multiply one fraction's numerator by the other's denominator didn't quite click and I Googled it to find the reasoning behind it and I do it a longer way now but to ensure I understand.


My biggest worry is what one teacher had informed me - that I memorize my math.
This may have been true because she was my Advanced Functions teacher and I began to memorize as I didn't want to do the work.


But I enjoy understanding and often write out explanations to even the most simple mathematical procedures to ensure I understand them so maybe she just saw me in a light that's not really representative of my approach to Math.


That being said, I'm not a typical brown person (though I could be of Latin descent and my mum may have simply named me creatively; you never know.) in that I'm not good at Math and things like Physics take a great deal of work for me.

I put in the work unless in extenuating circumstances and I tend to adore even the things I have the most difficulty with which is probably one of the few reasons I feel passionate about the sciences.


I never grew up with that strong rich math background that can be identified in certain groups within the subcontinental region; I just really like figuring things out

Originally Posted by Boccaccio

Hey,

It just depends on what you like to take. I'll use myself as an example. I am in honours economics and political science. In my first year, since social science is so open, I took the 2 required econ and full year poli-sci and then had 6 electives. In my second year I took 5 econ and 5 poli-sci and in 3rd year I took 5 poli-sci, 3 econ and a finance and now in my 4th year I am taking 2 econ, 3 poli-sci and 3 electives.

So it just depends what you like and what you want to do. As long as you complete all the requirements in your degree audit it doesn't really matter. Some people like to balance electives with required courses while others are interested in their course so they take a lot of the required courses all together.

Hope that helps

It does,t hank you My sister is in Political Science too (but at UTM)

Originally Posted by A.Marlowe

You can easily handle that course load, assuming math and science actually interest you (which it would appear that they do).

A balance between easy courses and hard courses is more important than a balance of electives and required courses. With your electives, your required courses might actually end up easier!

I will warn you that most people consider chemistry to be one of the hardest subjects though, and is pretty difficult for an elective. And like you stated, people like to use electives as an easy credit.

But if you can handle it, you will earn major bragging rights.

Math is wonderful; It just takes me some time. It's like a little kid chewing toffee. Very very difficult and it'll get stuck to his teeth pretty often but he'll keep on at it until he gets the hang of how to chew properly. I just chew...for very very long.


Yeah, I'm bracing myself for Chem. I know it's not particularly fun at all times, especially with things like Redox and Acids and Bases but I'll work at it

My chemistry teacher in high school told my physics teacher that he loves teaching chemistry. In grade 9, he explained, it's just a bunch of lies. And as we get older, his lies just get better.
I suppose that's very true...like how we learned that atoms bond due to their orbitals etc.....all stuff I need to review. I'm sort of excited to see what comes next. Chemistry is a struggle but it does end up being rewarding at the end which I suppose is enough for me

Thanks


I'm worried about Stats and Chem but will adjust I guess by doing a lot of practice and honing my work ethic and Biology and Psych are more of the 'reading type science' not "Here's the oxidation number. Now balance this" (I imagine) and Economics...I hope is as comfortable as suggested

Originally Posted by jhan523

I used to enjoy math (I'm a boy by the way). Once in university I got completely deterred though. I don't know if it was the material or the fact that the teacher I got for Math 1A03 had an accent and didn't explain thing well and the teacher I had in Math 1AA3 also had an accent (but I could understand this one), talked about rabbits and made mistakes every class.

I'm trying to pick Moore for 1M03. Fingers are still crossed for 1A03...but ...if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out. The other two (McLean and Azgin) appear to have teaching methods that may not be very beneficial to my particular way of understanding so we'll see

I redid my schedule and now i will draw up a 3rd hypothetical one JUST in case I get A03.

I had Moore, he is a good professor. Definitely knows his stuff.

Jhan: Did you have Dr. Cuadros for 1AA3? Because I did, and it sounds like a very similar experience to my 1AA3 experience.

And I'm a girl, and I like math...and even more random, I'm in Kin, planning to minor in math. That's not something you find very often, haha

Originally Posted by jade177

Jhan: Did you have Dr. Cuadros for 1AA3? Because I did, and it sounds like a very similar experience to my 1AA3 experience.

And I'm a girl, and I like math...and even more random, I'm in Kin, planning to minor in math. That's not something you find very often, haha

Yeah, I had Cuadros. Didn't really like him.

I learned most of that course from the textbook...thank goodness that it was an excellent textbook that was fairly easy to learn from

Originally Posted by jade177

I learned most of that course from the textbook...thank goodness that it was an excellent textbook that was fairly easy to learn from

Yeah, I learned pretty much everything from the textbook.

Well I have one real concern for you here. You mentioned you never really had a naturally strong maths background and tended to "memorize" your stuff and that you are not good with physics(i'm not sure if there is a co-relation). That is what alot of people back home(They did every single past paper for the last 15 years and all the textbook questions) did and they used to flunk superbly whenver the Cambridge GCSE examination board decided to throw us curveball papers, which they did more often then not. Those papers were nightmares for anyone who used the memorizing method, however I was one of the small minority who never did the doing all papers thing(I only did like 4-5 to get rid of rustiness once in a while). Instead I was very very good with my concepts because I only worked hard on them, and especially loved doing those special challenge questions that the teacher told us not to attempt since "they are a waste of time and never come in exams"
So much so that I hardly ever studied for midterms and quizzes and never had a problem since all I had to do was apply the formulas to questions and shimmy around any attempted tricks by my teachers(Whose curveballs weren't upto the hardcore levels of GCSE examiners obviously, plus they tended to boost our grades for the purposes of job retention). Does that explain how I was also very good at physics as well?

I'm not sure but 1A03 might throw similar curveballs at you so you better beware!

But then again I'm not sure what level of calculus is taught in Canada, the Economics department head actually reckoned that the calculus I was taught is probably equivalent of second year Math here, and he himself is dissapointed with the lack of challenge first year courses of calculus have here.

Does anyone who has taken 1M03 and 1A03 know if they go by the books or have had those Natural Disaster papers where they distort and mess around with everything?

I know in Math 1M03, a lot of people tended to memorize how a certain question was done instead of understanding the concept, and then on midterms and exams, when the prof would change part of the question slightly, no one would know how to do it.

Originally Posted by PTGregD

I know in Math 1M03, a lot of people tended to memorize how a certain question was done instead of understanding the concept, and then on midterms and exams, when the prof would change part of the question slightly, no one would know how to do it.

Slightly eh? haha wimps

You should check out some of my Alevel GCSE Exams(Based on syllabus in 1K03/1M03 and some covered in a few 2nd year courses) especially June 2008 one, even a few future Harvard/Oxbridge people I know suffered and dropped guaranteed questions. Like 2000 people gave the same exam and it was an absolute nightmare, a few were crying(girls) most were cursing the rest just ran out and got high.

lol huzaifa, be sure to check this year's P3 it was even trickier than last year's

Originally Posted by Afzal

lol huzaifa, be sure to check this year's P3 it was even trickier than last year's

nahh nothing can beat June 2008...NOTHING! There was even a facebook group with over 500 members called "P3 Paper rape victims"

I still don't know why everyone is so against math..Lol It's my favourite subject.. and yes I'm a girl ..