Hey,
Well I'm going to second year commerce as well, and so the class 1E03 is still quite fresh..
To start off, I was in the exact same position as you too when reading and hearing all about professor Cossa. But honestly, I agree with Sarah. She's a great professor, yes intimidating, quite strict and the report rubric is quite hard BUT overall she knew what she was talking about, she knew what she was teaching and in reality, she pretty much points out what you need to know for your mid terms/exams if you went to lecture.
So I definitely recommend that you attend every lecture, and copy down practice questions she gives (they do turn up similar, if not exactly, the same on the mid terms/exam) Read the textbook, but like she says, only read in the textbook, what she goes over. So something she never talked about (like a whole new topic, then ignore it)

And as for the report, well our own TA was scaring us saying how hard it is; but in all honesty, the trick to the report was starting it early and proofreading A LOT. You had to make sure you followed the format she wanted, so what my group and I did was we got one of the group members to print out the 50 or so page of referencing and all, and we just followed it for the formatting. But also the other trick to this is you can't have everyone doing their own part and then putting it together. She wants it to flow, making it seem like one person wrote it. So again my suggestion would be each member gets a part, and gets as much information on that part (don't let them write anything, just get websites and such) and then get together every other day or so, and write it all together.

And leave at least 2 days for proofreading. We ended up with an 85%. Not the greatest thing, but we were definitely the highest in our class. And again just goes to show u, it really isn't that hard. You just have to start it early and oh make sure to have good and dedicated group members!

so yeah, i know its a long post, but start report early, attend every lecture, read the textbook, leave at least 2 days for proofreading and well you're guaranteed at least a 9 if not a 10 and above!

In my experience, the intimidating, difficult, etc. profs that I've had throughout the last two years (Horn, Ouellette, Brophy, for example) have been my favourites.

Don't listen to people's doomsday stories about Cossa. I got a 12 (A+) in 1E03 and was also a TA for the class in my fourth year, and she's fine. Her tests are pure memorization so depending on your memory retention abilities, that can be an easy mark booster.

As for the report, you're going to likely do poorly, but that's not so much the fault of prof as it is 99% of the students in the class thinking they are still in high school and not worrying about following instructions.

Seriously, all you need to do is follow instructions and you'll do fine. Unfortunately, no one (or at least few) does that.

And for the record, the class has changed significantly since the earlier years where you could get -100% aka 0% on the report. Now deductions are capped, so don't expect worse than 50% unless you really didn't put any effort into it at all.

Originally Posted by Zebedee

Welcome to first year university, folks.

what do you mean. i didnt experience any intimidating and overly judgmental profs in first year uni.

wanna know something that makes her less scary:
- shes not a phd holder
- she has her b.comm and mba
- shes just a lecturer

dont be scared of some chick thats a lecturer!
be scared of a phd holder who skips the pointless intimidations and straight up fails you