My first year went better than I anticipated. My average dropped about 5% from 85% to 80% but that was alright with me. I had friends who dropped 20%. It really depends on how much high school prepared you, and your own work ethic. First year is by no means easy, and admittedly, boring classes are harder to do well in, but keep working at it and you'll find a way for you.

Originally Posted by IbrahimH

The online notes that the prof. posts are ridicolous (they contain about 1 line about each topic). I know we're supposed to write our notes too but sometimes I have no time to write such extensive notes.

Part of 1st year is learning how to make good notes. Eventually you will learn to take down only what is important, instead of furiously trying to write out every single thing the prof says.

Also, after class you can go back to your textbook and read only the relevant info that the prof mentioned in lecture. You can you use the 1 line on each topic as a guide.

Originally Posted by hyvaa

Hey,
I am currently in Chem 1A03 and have gone to one of the lectures of Math 1LS3. I certainly do not think starting with chapter 8 isn't wrong. Why does one have to always start with chapter 1? I have seen many teachers starting with another chapter back in high school, because they thought things would make better sense with the knowledge later. Just because it does not fit your taste, it's not 'wrong'. Also I don't think it's right to compare ourselves with waterloo, because they simply have a different environment, profs, etc.
Math 1LS3 didn't appear hard at all.. especially if you have taken math in high school. They teach you unit conversions (which you are probably familiar with from sciences) as a chapter. I heard you guys were learning functions like exponential functions, etc right now... which is simply a repetition of grade 11 math or even grade 9 math. You shouldn't have many problems with learning them yourself. Well, I agree that your prof is terrible. She is talented at making simple stuff rocket science.. but the material isn't too hard..

I am sorry if I was being cocky.... or anything. I just wanted to share my thoughts.

Yea math material is definetly easy but I hate going to class cuz of the prof. I didn't say starting with ch. 8 was wrong because it didn't fit my taste... I just said that maybe we could've started with earlier chapters because numerous people in that class didn't have an up to date knowledge with chemistry.

Originally Posted by Fight0

I'm not trying to make you out as a bad person, I'm trying to suggest that you should show more sensitivity in your comments. You make it seem like self-mutilation is an expected response to dropping 20%.

What I was trying to say is that 20% is a big drop and that I really have respect for that person because they didn't give up and kept on working at it.

And I even quote myself "Kudos to you for staying put together..."

Now, the self-mutilation part was about me. I'm not saying that I would ever do it, it was a way of saying that I would have a hard time keeping my hopes up after such a big drop. I think you're reading too much into my words...

I don't think I was harsh in anyway... I was the total opposite of that (I was actually really thankful for the person's reply to the thread since it was so encouraging).

Originally Posted by IbrahimH

What I was trying to say is that 20% is a big drop and that I really have respect for that person because they didn't give up and kept on working at it.

And I even quote myself "Kudos to you for staying put together..."

Now, the self-mutilation part was about me. I'm not saying that I would ever do it, it was a way of saying that I would have a hard time keeping my hopes up after such a big drop. I think you're reading too much into my words...

I don't think I was harsh in anyway... I was the total opposite of that (I was actually really thankful for the person's reply to the thread since it was so encouraging).

There was definitely no offense taken =P I didn't even think about it that way until I read later posts about what you had said, hahaha!

@IbrahimH
I think the online Psych quizzes are pretty fair. I like how Dr. Kim forces us to think and apply our knowledge. And even though you're supposed to do it on your own, you can ask others and collaborate. If you can't do these quizzes, then you're gonna flop the midterm.

As well, if you compare Chem 1A03 with Waterloo's Chem 120, you can see that we cover topics that they don't, such as equilibrium and electrochemistry. Since there is so much more content to cover, this is why the profs start at chp. 8 and not 1. So far in this course, I think my prof (Hatala) is an awesome prof. He makes everything crystal clear, and understandable.

I think the powerpoint slides for Chem are more than adequate. I've supplemented the slides with notes for topics I didn't really understand. But, some of the stuff i.e. MOTW is so useless...

@Mahratta
I think we don't cover Schrodinger's equation because it's pretty complex stuff (calculus). Leaving it out is a good thing. And yeah, Lozinski is an excellent prof.

First year is great so far! I've stayed on top of the material, and my high school prepared me for the transition. And I have no complaints about Life Sci so far
EDIT: I do have a gripe about Life Sci - those long, and boring Biology labs. The first one was a snoozefest. And I took a look at the second lab... drawing from a microscope. Oh, so much fun.

I'd suggest for chem, perhaps recording the lectures. I've done it for all my courses for the past two years and its worked like a charm...i save so much time, not having to read the textbook (although this shouldnt be a substitute...) but you'd be amazed at how much more you actually pick up when you sit and listen to the lecture once more.

1st year psych was a little ridiculous...upper year psych courses are NOT this way...i absolutely loathed psych in 1st year, and now its become one of my favourite areas...

1st year is tough...and although you may consider dropping out, i'm sure the majority of upper years will tell you, especially in science, it gets so much better!

Originally Posted by IbrahimH

I don't know about you, but a lot of things from uni are getting me really frustrated.

The class that I enjoy so much and look forward to (Psych) has the most boring TA ever! He is so dry and he makes everyone go to sleep. I really hate it so much!

The online psych quizes are getting on everyone's last nerve. The psych discussion board seems to be filled with angry messages after a quiz's marks are released. And I don't blame the angry mob one bit. There are always technical problems with ELM, questions from a different test bank are constantly appearing on the psych quizzes... and in addition, the psych quizzes are EXTREMELY difficult! You could watch the online modules like 3 times and that would still not make a difference towards your mark.

Chem 1A03 is taught the wrong way. We started the year off with chapter 8 ... which Waterloo life sci starts off with chapter 1 (they have the same book). There are so many people in class who have never learned what we're learning in chemistry right now (even though it should be review)... so we clearly need to start with chapter 1. Skipping 7 chapters is just ridicolous.

The online notes that the prof. posts are ridicolous (they contain about 1 line about each topic). I know we're supposed to write our notes too but sometimes I have no time to write such extensive notes. Reading the textbook is a real *****! Half the stuff on there is irrelevant to the online notes that the prof. posts and he even told us that "reading the textbook might not give u a really good understanding of the material, but try your best".

My math prof. Dr. eftimie has no speaking skills.... she "umm's" her way through the 50 min. lecture and leaves everybody confused at the end. You basically have to self teach yourself which is not a very pleasant thing with math.

I'm basically second guessing this whole Life Sci thing and I'm considering dropping out (I can forsure handle the material... but I for sure don't want to deal with all this bull$h*t).

/End rant.

So how is your first year going?

Dont wrry... we are all on the same boat. I wanted to do Neuroscience @ Uft ... I used to like psychology so much... i hate it now.. the online crap.. ugh... i wish we had a prof.. and actually lectures...

And as for chem 1A03... I came out of the midterm thinkin i did okay.... now im scared i think i did horrible...

Math ... Ugh... once again teaching myself... lectures are so boring and pretty much everyone is sleeping with their eyes open...

Bio is the only course which gives me some peace and Women studies...

And its only Sem1 of First year... give it some time.. don't drop out.. u worked so hard to get here... im sure u can do this... Im sure we can all.. besides 1/4 of first is over already.. only 6 more months to gooo

Originally Posted by lorend

That isn't Mac's fault. It's the same for every first year program: certain high schools prepare their students adequately (or better) for first year university...but most don't.

Those who were taught well are bored, those who weren't have to play catch up.

Mac is teaching based on what should be assumed knowledge. That's why so many people struggle in first year: their high school's standards were not high and so they get screwed coming to university.

The only way this could really be solved is if the government instituted some kind of standardized testing procedure for all academic areas either at the end of grade 11 or 12.

100% Truth. I'm sorry to say this, but chapters 1-7 were all in the SCH3U1 and SCH4U1 curriculum. Even most of chapter 8 (or whatever the electrons in atoms/orbitals chapter was) should have been covered in grade 12.

I think the issue with first year chemistry is just the change in evaluation. University questions are lot more analytical and conceptual than your typical high school chemistry question, which is probably why a basic Lewis structure question (which everyone learned in like grade 9) seems foreign. My advice is to just keep at it: I've tutored a couple of students in 1A03/1AA3 last year and I found that a lot of them had the ability to succeed and just had to adjust to University level questions. Believe me, I can empathize with your frustration, but I would encourage you to stay resilient. Seek extra help from Thode/Office Hours/Peers or even general studying tips from CSD.

I unfortunately can't comment on Psych, since they've changed the outline of that course drastically since I took it in Fall 07 (the first year Dr. Joe Kim was the instructor).

Originally Posted by Inferno

@Mahratta
I think we don't cover Schrodinger's equation because it's pretty complex stuff (calculus). Leaving it out is a good thing. And yeah, Lozinski is an excellent prof.

Oh, it is indeed too complex to cover in-depth - however, even though the actual process of derivation would be too complex for the course, the concepts would not be. It's basically a combination of the classical model expressing energy as the sum of potential and kinetic energies (much of which is high school physics), de Broglie's 'matter wave' expression (which we did cover, and where the concept of momentum relates to the classical model) and equations describing the photoelectric effect (which we conceptually covered).

That much, at least, we could easily cover conceptually. Other aspects (mainly concepts relating to the complex plane and eigenstates) require a very thorough background in linear algebra, and the math along side requires a lot of calculus too. So that stuff would obviously have to be left out.

Originally Posted by Mahratta

Oh, it is indeed too complex to cover in-depth - however, even though the actual process of derivation would be too complex for the course, the concepts would not be. It's basically a combination of the classical model expressing energy as the sum of potential and kinetic energies (much of which is high school physics), de Broglie's 'matter wave' expression (which we did cover, and where the concept of momentum relates to the classical model) and equations describing the photoelectric effect (which we conceptually covered).

That much, at least, we could easily cover conceptually. Other aspects (mainly concepts relating to the complex plane and eigenstates) require a very thorough background in linear algebra, and the math along side requires a lot of calculus too. So that stuff would obviously have to be left out.

Considering the amount of people that were complaining on how hard the chem midterm was, I don't think people would be happy if this was covered lol.

Originally Posted by Inferno

Considering the amount of people that were complaining on how hard the chem midterm was, I don't think people would be happy if this was covered lol.

The chem midterm wasn't that hard - however (at least on the version I had) there were a lot of questions where more than one answer was justifiably right :(

Yeah, I was glad the Chem midterm was so easy this year - not as easy as the last couple years IMO, especially the practice tests they gave out, but it wasn't too bad.

I'm more concerned for the second midterm

And the psych quizzes and assignments really are annoying...they're grading us based on how well we can copy-paste and follow instructions? I do badly on those, not because I can't, but because I really don't care enough to actually follow them.

"Chem 1A03 is taught the wrong way. We started the year off with chapter 8 ... which Waterloo life sci starts off with chapter 1 (they have the same book). There are so many people in class who have never learned what we're learning in chemistry right now"

Yeah, we're "wrong" and Waterloo is "right"...okay there.

And, if you want to start with Chapter 1, instead of learning 9 units this term we'd be learning about 9+6 = 15. That means we'd be moving almost twice as fast - a unit every 1.5 days. Sure, let's do that!

Originally Posted by IbrahimH

I don't know about you, but a lot of things from uni are getting me really frustrated.

The class that I enjoy so much and look forward to (Psych) has the most boring TA ever! He is so dry and he makes everyone go to sleep. I really hate it so much!

The online psych quizes are getting on everyone's last nerve. The psych discussion board seems to be filled with angry messages after a quiz's marks are released. And I don't blame the angry mob one bit. There are always technical problems with ELM, questions from a different test bank are constantly appearing on the psych quizzes... and in addition, the psych quizzes are EXTREMELY difficult! You could watch the online modules like 3 times and that would still not make a difference towards your mark.

Chem 1A03 is taught the wrong way. We started the year off with chapter 8 ... which Waterloo life sci starts off with chapter 1 (they have the same book). There are so many people in class who have never learned what we're learning in chemistry right now (even though it should be review)... so we clearly need to start with chapter 1. Skipping 7 chapters is just ridicolous.

The online notes that the prof. posts are ridicolous (they contain about 1 line about each topic). I know we're supposed to write our notes too but sometimes I have no time to write such extensive notes. Reading the textbook is a real *****! Half the stuff on there is irrelevant to the online notes that the prof. posts and he even told us that "reading the textbook might not give u a really good understanding of the material, but try your best".

My math prof. Dr. eftimie has no speaking skills.... she "umm's" her way through the 50 min. lecture and leaves everybody confused at the end. You basically have to self teach yourself which is not a very pleasant thing with math.

I'm basically second guessing this whole Life Sci thing and I'm considering dropping out (I can forsure handle the material... but I for sure don't want to deal with all this bull$h*t).

/End rant.

So how is your first year going?

if a student doesn't know chapter 1-4 + 6 from the chem textbook then you must have not done well in chem. That stuff is GRADE 11 CHEMISTRY. The online chem notes are really well done to BTW.

As for your calc teacher's speaking skills I hear ya on that one. if you start to slip in MATH get HELP, don't make my mistake. The stuff you learn in 1st year math are essential.

ok, so first wave of midterms are just about done
i did absolutely horrible on my chem and bio midterm and im just wondering if its too late to boost my mark up to at least a 10 ?