Okay, so welcome week is starting in 2 days and school in a week and i'm pretty confused about a few things.


1- i will probably be driving to Mac everyday, is it worth paying for parking or are there places within 15 minutes of walking where i can do it for free?

2- as an engineering student, should i use or do i need a laptop? i have one, but i'd rather do math on pen and paper as i learn that way better. i'm not positive on how the lectures work but i just figure i write down what the Profs say that's important or print off PDF's.

3- labs stating EOW mean week 1,3,5 etc right?

thanks.

There's no free parking available most of time, I think you can score a spot in a few places if you come earlier, but nothing 100%.

Yes. You will be taking the notes with paper and pen, sure, homework too. You will be using software, and most likely read books off your laptop.

or 2,4,6... depends in what class and group you are.

okay. so i should pay $40 monthly fee to park at Mcmaster?

One mistake I made first year was buying a parking pass for a whole term at once and then realizing I didn't even use it for the month of December. If you're going to get a pass definitely buy it by month as you will probably only need it for 3 months a term

fortinos is about 15 min walk from the school, thats where I park when I drive to school on rare occasions and not during school year... I dont know if people park there everyday and go to school but you could find out :s

wow, i didn't even think about that RSK. you just saved me $40 if i got that route. thanks. and thanks Marido, that sounds good for the non-winter months.

Don't forget that you get a pass for City buses with your tuition. If you find a good place to stash your car, you might consider taking a bus instead of walking. As a beginning student, the only parking lot you would be likely to be able to buy a pass for is one that's at the extreme west end, across the highway. You would be taking a shuttle bus anyway to get back to the east end of the campus. Consider all the variations.

You can definitely save a lot more by parking somewhere and then taking the bus or walking in to campus. Another option is to rent someone's driveway and just park there.

You can also put your parking pass on hold for a month and utilize transit.

Good ideas. if it's true that i'd be parking across the highway anyways, i probably should be looking for somewhere i can park and then ride the bus, no point paying $40 if i'm not even near my building.

In terms of notes... you will find that most eng students use paper and pen for all their notes. So no you wont look weird or anything. At least not after the first few weeks when everyone gets over their shiny new laptops and tablets.

It's pretty stupid how people have to ask questions titled "dumb questions" cuz people here are so arrogant and rude to give flaming responses to generally simple questions. Not saying everyone here is but I'm seeing the trend of that with university students. Bash me all you want but you guys know who you are.

Welcome to Mac buddy!

1. Parking. I'm pretty sure you need a parking pass to park anywhere within campus, but there are plenty of spots slightly outside campus to park. Downside, you need to walk 5-10 mins extra.
2.You definitely need a laptop for engineering. Its fine to do math on paper and take notes or whatever, but all assignments for almost all Eng courses are done online. You must have a laptop
3. EOW means "Every other week". Some labs will have even weeks, some will have odd weeks.