So far in physics (1d03) the CAPA assignment has been on uncertainties that nobody learned in high school and that weren't mentioned in class. The entire assignment was dealing with uncertainty propagation through arithmetic, logs and trig functions. All of this I had to learn online myself along with other eng students in my res. Meanwhile in classes we've been reviewing easy highschool kinematics and vectors, none of which was on CAPA.

And in math (1za3) there is a Maple assignment due through childsmath.ca in two days and classes have consisted of 5 hours of basic review like what a function is, what an inverse function is and the vertical line test...

Am I supposed to buy my Maple software and teach myself to use it and complete the assignment before it is mentioned in class? Not to sound cynical but if I could go back a week I'd skip every class so far and learn on my own time the content that I don't already know and that is assigned as homework.

They won't specifically teach you how to program it. The programming assignment is supposed to be based on what you are learning or will learn this week.

The uncertainity stuff is usually the first capa. error calculations (as you will find out in labs) are uber important

Instead of chatting with your buddies during lecture, perhaps you should pay attention to what the prof is instructing you to do. If you had done that, you would have heard the instructor stating that uncertainty isn't covered in lecture, but rather you need to read the lab manual for the information. Kinematic and vectors will come afterward so your effort isn't wasted.

You probably didn't pay attention in class for math either, else you would have heard that there are lab schedule with TAs to help you with Maple. If you looked carefully, you will also notice a tutorial file that is downloadable that will help you learn the concepts needed to do the lab.

My recommendation? Since your other eng friends in your rez didn't know about this, they are probably the same type of students that sit in lecture and talk excessively instead of listening to the prof. If that is the case, ditch them and find more studious eng friends.