• courses,  current student,  enrollment,  tutorials

    i am confusion

    June 23, 2022

    im so confused should i enroll in lectures or tutorials help please!!

    hi confused (sorry i had to),

    me too. i’m confused too.

    i’m gonna assume you’re starting first year in september (or have otherwise avoided enrolling in any lectures or tutorials this year somehow??) so here’s a quick rundown of how lectures and tutorials,work. lectures (LEC) are the actual “classes” you’ll be attending, while tutorials (TUT) are smaller workshops, Q & As or problem solving sessions. there are also practicals (PRA) which are things like labs for science students.

    you’d have to enroll in everything your course requires, so if a course says it has lectures and tutorials, then yeah, you’d have to enroll in both on acorn. (and yes, they’d both be mandatory, unless the instructor says otherwise.)

    Both Good Housekeeping GIFfrom Both GIFs


    if you’re at utsg you can check the artsci timetable to see if they offer lectures/practicals/tutorials. you can also search up your courses on acorn right now and there’ll be options to add lectures or tutorials if they’re available.

    just as a heads up, i’ve also had some profs who held tutorials at times that were actually different from the ones on acorn, or added optional tutorials outside of class time which you wouldn’t have to enroll on acorn either, but usually the lecture/tutorial schedule follows what’s on acorn.

    hope that helps,

    aska

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  • enrollment,  enrolment,  summer

    summer school here u come

    February 4, 2021

    when is enrolment for summer courses? how do we go about doing that? is it different from normal semester enrolment?

    ——————————————

    hi there,

    thank you for waiting for this answer! i hope it’s still of use to you.

    assuming you’re in artsci, by february 24, you should know your summer enrolment start time. you’ll be able to find that on ACORN, just like normal!

    summer enrolment is pretty much the same as the fall, only you can’t enrol in as many courses. you should also be aware that there’s a different timetable for the summer — last year’s was https://timetable.iit.artsci.utoronto.ca/summer2020, so i’d assume this summer’s will be the same but with the year changed. that’ll be up when it’s ready.

    i hope this helped! good luck with your midterms.

    be Boundless,

    aska

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  • enrollment,  enrolment,  wait list

    i have tons of uoft related headaches :(

    July 28, 2020

    Hello! i absolutely love what you do here, it’s so helpful and has stopped more than a few of my uoft related headaches haha. I’m a first year and I got into all of my courses except for CLA160H (in person). There’s 33 people in the class and thankfully I’m the 1st on the waitlist. The online-synchronous CLA160H still has a lot of room so should I wait it out on the waitlist? Are my chances good? Or would it be wise to just enroll in the online class? thanks so much, have a great day!!

    ——————————————

    hey there!

    if you’re first on the waitlist, i’d say that your chances are probably good. the rule of thumb is generally that if you’re in the top 10 percent of a waitlist (in this case, if you are number 1, 2, or 3) the waitlist will move quickly enough for you to make it into the class. if you’re really set on the in-person section, i would say that it’s probably worth staying on the waitlist.

    now, a bit of a disclaimer: i have no clue how the hybrid model is gonna be affecting this rule of thumb, given that one of either online or in-person classes may be more in demand. plus, people’s plans are likely a little more unstable this year than they have been other years, which may affect waitlist movement as well. all this uncertainty is not my vibe.

    but the rule of thumb is what we know, and what we go by. i’m sure people will still be dropping classes/switching courses around. just keep an eye on the waitlist. you might even get off the waitlist soon, if you’re lucky— i’m already off one of mine, and i was in the top 10 percent.

    i hope this helped and that the rest of your course enrolment went well!

    be Boundless,

    aska

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  • enrollment,  enrolment

    inconsistencies! great

    July 20, 2020

    why can i find some courses on the calendar but not on acorn?

    ——————————————

    hey there,

    i’m not really sure. i’ve seen this happen in calendar entries for programs, ie. a program will list a course but when you click on the hyperlink, you get an error. that usually just means a course used to exist but isn’t being offered anymore. but if you’re seeing full course entries in the calendar (you click on the hyperlink and the course description, prereqs etc show up in a different page) that aren’t showing up on ACORN, i have no idea why that might be.

    you could try testing the course codes in the timetable as well? if something doesn’t show up on both ACORN and the timetable, i think it’s safe to say that course isn’t being offered for the upcoming year.

    if a course you’d like to take shows up on both the timetable and calendar but won’t pop up on ACORN, i’d recommend that you get in touch with the offering division and see what’s up. maybe it’s an internal error. i dunno.

    i hope this helped, and good luck with course enrolment!

    be Boundless,

    aska

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  • economics,  enrollment,  enrolment,  international relations,  math

    wrote this post up so fast my keyboard caught fire

    July 20, 2020

    hi! i’m planning on doing a double major in international relations and public policy in second year. but for first year courses i have to take eco101 and 102 as eco105 conflicts with my vic one course and i want to stay in that program. do i need to take a first year math course with eco 101 and 102? i know that not taking a math will limit choices in eco courses in upper years, but if i don’t plan on focusing in economics is taking a first year math course helpful? thank you!

    ——————————————

    hi!

    i hope this answer is getting to you in time for your course enrolment. i’m pretty sure it is. mannnn every year i forget to budget time for the deluge of questions that surround important dates like first year course enrolment. now i gotta be speedy.

    as far as i know, you’re not required to take a first year math course with eco101 or eco102. i think you may have gotten that idea from the ‘recommended preparation’ line, which states that you should take calculus or advanced functions in order to be prepared for this course. as far as i know, though, ‘recommended preparation’ courses are never a strict requirement. you can definitely get away with ignoring recommended preparation. that’s a choice you’ll have to make for yourself, but anyway, i’m not sure that taking a first year math course alongside eco101/102 would help given that math is recommended preparation? 

    in terms of worrying about future prerequisites, it’s true that math courses are required for many upper-year econ courses. but as far as i can tell, you can definitely complete your IR major without a first-year math course. a lot of the upper-year econ courses that require math are only elective options for you, and you’ll be able to choose other courses from the IR list that don’t require a first year math credit. you can check this over with an academic advisor at your registrar’s office if you want (remember to include your student number if you send an email). but an in-depth perusal of the international relations calendar entry should confirm this. if you don’t plan on taking any of the econ electives, i wouldn’t recommend taking a first year math course, especially if you don’t have a burning desire to learn math.

    i hope this helped! good luck with your course enrolment. also, eco101 and eco102 have kicked the butts of many dear friends of mine, so best of luck. if you pay attention and stay caught up with your work, i have full faith in your ability to succeed in those courses.

    closing this post off with a stupid, vaguely math-related gif i found and wanted to share:

    be Boundless,

    aska

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  • enrollment,  enrolment,  first year,  one programs

    baby’s first uni course selection

    July 6, 2020

    I’m going into first year Life Sciences this year at U of T in the fall. I know three courses I want to take because of certain admission requirements: BIO120, BIO130, CHM135, CHM136, MAT135, & MAT136. I am not sure to take PHY131 and PHY132 for first year. I want to keep my options open for other programs, but I’m not sure. I have an interest in taking PSY100, but I’m not sure if I could take it. I want to do 5 FCEs but I am not still sure. Course selection is very overwhelming. Any advice?

    ——————————————

    hi there!

    course selection. my favourite time of year. it’s like christmas.

    do i have any advice? hmm. let’s see. if you’re certain about your bio, chem, and math courses, those should occupy 3.0 FCEs. which means you have a few course slots to play around with, even if you choose not to take 5.0 FCEs. i found the adjustment from high school to university a little challenging, so i didn’t take 5.0 FCEs and found it helpful. whether or not that’s the right decision for you is something only you know. i will note, though, that uni can be quite different, and taking a lighter courseload will give you more space to figure things out, like how to prepare for exams and how to use the libraries.

    if you’re undecided, you can always register for 5.0 FCEs and then drop courses later on. u of t has pretty generous course-drop periods, so you’ll have a good amount of time to decide whether or not you want to stay in your classes. plus, that’ll give you a chance to sus your courses out to see if they’re actually worth taking — if you decide to drop down from 5 to 4 courses a few weeks into the semester, you can just drop the elective you like the least.

    regardless of courseload, i always recommend that first years take either a first year foundations seminar or something in the ‘ones’ program, just because i personally had really good experiences in both. the idea of these courses is that they’re meant to help you transition from high school to university. the classes tend to be smaller, the program material is specially selected to be super interesting, and the assignments are more fun/less difficult. you can only take these courses in your first year, so they’re definitely something to take advantage of now. something to note, though, is that you won’t be able to apply the credit/no credit designation to these courses — i assume because they tend to be easier to do well in.

    here’s something else for you to consider: first year is a great time to get your breadth requirements out of the way. if you’re a life sciences kid, chances are you’ll have breadth 4 and 5 knocked out, but you’ll need to take a few classes that are breadth 1, 2, or 3. you can use the calendar to filter through different breadth requirements, in order to find the relevant courses for each category.

    here are my personal recommendations, either drawn from experience or conversations i’ve had with other students. none of these have prerequisites, so you should be able to take them in first year:

    you can also check the u of t reddit or the first year foundations seminar listings for other ideas!

    other than that… first year is a good time to explore different interests and take a few risks! i wish i’d done that more when i was in first year. it’s easy to be drawn to the big, generic classes like PSY100, and miss all the quirkier offerings like “introducing religion: blood, sex, and drugs” or “how to study video games.”

    you mentioned keeping your options open for other programs, and that’s a smart consideration to make as well. if you know what backup programs you might want to take, it’s a good idea to squeeze some of their prerequisites into your schedule, especially if they overlap with some of the courses you’re already taking.

    i know course selection can be overwhelming, but if you use the tools at your disposal— the timetable, the calendar, degree explorer, etc. — hopefully it will be a little easier! that’s about all the advice i can think of right now. i hope this helped, and feel free to send another question in if you’re confused about anything specific regarding course selection!

    be Boundless,

    aska

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  • enrollment,  timetable

    i also want to know when the timetable will be out :(

    June 29, 2020

    do you know when the timetable will be updated?

    ——————————————

    hey there,

    unfortunately i do not! i wish i had access to that kind of information, lol. i’m not high up enough in the bureaucracy for that.

    if you want to be alerted when it is updated, i’d recommend following the arts and science student union on twitter. they tend to be pretty on top of these things, and i get a lot of my faculty-related news from them before i hear it from anyplace else.

    otherwise, i anticipate the update will be released soon! course enrollment is coming up next month, and they’ve already released the preliminary timetable with info about course offerings/delivery/synchronicity. if you haven’t checked the preliminary timetable yet, it may at least be able to give you a sense of which courses will be offered!

    be Boundless,

    aska

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  • enrollment,  keeners

    5 courses is already a lot for me lol

    June 26, 2020

    Hi! Am I allowed to have only 4 FCE in my fourth and final year? I will have 21 FCE total if all goes well by the end of the fourth year. Basically, 5 FCE in my first year, 6 FCE in my second, 6 FCE in third, then 4 FCE in fourth, thus totaling 21. Stay safe and healthy bros. Sincerely, a stressed out freshie.

    ——————————————

    hey there, stressed out freshie,

    even if you didn’t tell me, i would definitely know that you were at least a little bit stressed out with a plan like that.

    the short answer for you is that yes, you are allowed to only have 4.0 FCE in your fourth year! this is super common, and i am totally planning to do something like that for my final year at u of t.

    the one thing you should note is that taking 4.0 FCE will probably not save you anything in terms of tuition– this goshdarned school charges the same tuition if you’re taking anything between 4.0 or 6.0 FCE. or at least, i think that’s pretty standard. if you’re not in artsci, i would check that over with your registrar.

    here’s the longer answer i really want to give, though. apparently i consider myself an advice columnist without any of the glory.

    is there a specific reason you’re doing this to yourself? taking six courses can be really rough, and i fully respect your decision to do what’s best for you, but i want to make sure that you know what you’re getting into as you make these plans. i do have friends that have managed six courses all right, but none of them have taken that many consecutive semesters of six courses, and most of them don’t have any extracurriculars or responsibilities. u of t is an amazing, vibrant school, but it does demand a lot of you, especially if you want to do well in your classes and be involved outside the classroom. is there a specific reason you want to be taking 4.0 FCEs in your final year/21.0 FCEs total? is taking summer school going to be an option? can you play around on degree explorer and see if there’s a better way to plan out your courses?

    if you’re dead set on this four-year plan, i would really recommend that you book an appointment with an academic advisor at your registrar, just to make sure it’s really your best option and that you’re well-equipped to make it through.

    anyway, hope u stay safe and healthy too, bro. don’t stress too hard </3

    be Boundless,

    aska

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  • enrollment,  enrolment,  keeners,  timetable

    keener alert

    May 13, 2020

    hi! do you know when the timetable for courses is going to update? i’ve been wanting to plan out my classes for next year but i know the timetable isn’t going to be 100% accurate until it updates.

    ——————————————

    hey there,

    to my understanding, there’s not really one comprehensive update for the timetable. u of t has too many departments and divisions that like to change things around at the last minute. they’ve probably already begun revamping the timetable for next year, but until it reads ‘2020-2021 fall & winter session timetable” instead of 2019-2020, i’d assume it’s fully unusable. especially with covid, we don’t necessarily know if classes are going to look the same next year. even in regular years, class times and offerings tend to change year to year.

    my guess is that by june-ish (late june??) that heading will update. perhaps it will update later this year if covid changes the way u of t will operate. regardless, it’s important to note that the heading update only indicates that the timetable is mostly accurate, not 100% solid. like i said, there might still be smaller updates after that. i wanna say that around…. mid july (?) is typically the best time to do course planning, because it’s when the timetable starts to settle down.

    right before my first year, i think i got on top of course planning several weeks before enrollment began. i also remember having to revise my course schedule several times, because a couple of things shifted and messed with the whole thing i had going on.

    happy season 7 GIF by MasterChef Junior

    i understand the desire to plan your courses out (it’s exciting!!) but i would advise against doing it too early, unless you’re willing to spend extra time revising your timetable should your course info change.

    i’d say the safest time to plan out your courses is just several days before your enrollment date, even though that might seem a bit tight. and then check over your course details one more time the morning of your enrollment day, to be super super sure nothing has changed.

    be Boundless,

    aska

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  • enrollment,  enrolment

    you just got FINCA’d

    May 4, 2020

    hi! my status on acorn for summer says financially cancelled, but i never enrolled for summer classes in the first place. is this normal?

    ——————————————

    hello hello,

    yes, this is normal! how the ACORN system operates is this:

    1. you’re invited to register in a session (ie. fall/winter or summer, in your case summer 2020)
    2. you enroll in courses
    3. you pay the minimum payment to register by the stated deadline, which has now passed
    4. you’re registered!

    or, like a choose-your-own-adventure, you can branch off at the first step and not enroll in courses. since you obviously don’t pay if you don’t enroll, you don’t get to make it to step 4. what happens at this point is you get FINCA’d. financially cancelled.

    this is not the same thing as getting cancelled on twitter. it does not mean that you are in trouble. all it means is that ACORN has acknowledged that you have not paid on time for a given session, and so you do not show up in the system as a current student. which is what you want if you didn’t intend to enroll for a session in the first place.

    for future references, two things to note about getting FINCA’d:

    • when this status shows up on your ACORN, it also means you’ve been booted from any classes you might have been enrolled in
    • if you didn’t intend to get FINCA’d, ie. you meant to register but didn’t pay by the deadline, what you need to do is get in contact with your registrar. they’ll be able to process a late registration for you, which is usually accompanied by a small fee.

    hope this helps!

    be Boundless,

    aska

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  • courses,  enrollment,  enrolment

    (this feels wrong lol)

    August 10, 2019

    hey aska how are you? I’m sorry if you’ve already answered a similar question but I wasn’t able to find anything about this – I’m in 3rd year IMM but want to enrol in LMP406. The timetable says I need to request permission to enrol with the LMP department after aug 9 (& links me to a website that doesn’t exist), & the LMP website isn’t very helpful either. Do I just email the course coordinator & beg them to let me in (this feels wrong lol). I appreciate any & all help as I’m very clearly lost.

    ——————————————

    hey there,

    appreciate you asking how i’m doing–  dunno how many people have noticed, but ever since the complete theme-180, years and years of our posts have been riddled with unsettling and ambiguous blank spots. the true intellectuals among us have probably figured out that when you highlight the invisible text it’s readable, but obviously that’s not ideal.

    so i’ve been doing the backbreaking, laborious work of pressing a few buttons here and there and restoring our precious content. which has also meant i’ve seen some pretty great stuff.

    You Won’t Believe What One Girl Did to Destroy her Existential Angst

    no, aska isn’t running clickbait ads (although– could i make a lil extra cash if we did?) that’s a real post from ’14.

    between literal years of complaints about math and posts with titles like “um” and “s IR PLeasE i jSUt am tr yiNG to wRIt e A NIce E – MAiL,” past askas have won my respect in every imaginable way. they’ve been begged, “please god no sarcastic answer back” and been called the hannah montana of the internet. which means, by extension, i’m also the hannah montana of the internet, right?

    however, all that other work has meant i haven’t been as quick with answers as usual, so sorry for the delay with answering this–it’s already past the 9th.

    i’m unsurprised the website you were linked to doesn’t work– unfortunately, that seems to be a pretty common problem with our school’s web content.  if you haven’t done so already, i would recommend that you shoot the department a wholesome and respectful email explaining the situation and making your request. i’m not aware of any other way to request enrolment in a course like that– there’s no form to fill out, or nothin’. so don’t worry too much– i’m sure they’re not unfamiliar with emails from kiddos in situations like yours.

    best of luck with it and hope this helped, even if it’s a bit late!

    seriously considering remodelling askastudent after a trashy clickbait site,

    aska

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  • enrollment,  enrolment

    big enrollment day… a week ago

    July 31, 2019

    Hello aska,

    I am just finalizing my timetable and course schedule before the big enrollment day tomorrow and I wanted to clarify whether I’m allowed to take the courses I’m planning to take.

    After enrolling in my core program courses, I have added a few electives, one of which is a regular full year course, the other three are VIC135, ENG196, and SMC199.

    I wanted to know whether I can take the vic course without being enrolled in “VIC One” and also whether I could take all those three courses in my first year.

    Thank you for your time, and I hope to hear from you soon.

    Kind regards,

    [redacted]

    ——————————————

    hey friendo,

    sorry this response is so late– it’s definitely past your course enrollment now! i figure that if there were any immediate consequences to registering in these courses, you’re already aware of them. i guess there still is the possibility of you getting kicked out later on, though, so this question is still worth an answer.

    it seems that vic135 is part of the vic one sphere, although i can’t figure out what stream it is. i’m just making this assumption based on the exclusions listed on the timetable– only a vic one class would have a ‘vic’ designation and be incompatible with all the other one programs. as long as it’s a vic one course, then, i doubt you’ll be able to get in (or stay in) without explicit admission to vic one. at least, that’s what this site indicates. if you don’t have admission but have somehow still managed to register (or want to), i would contact vic.one@utoronto.ca. dunno if they’ll actually let you this late in the game, but hey.

    as for the possibility of taking all 3 courses at once– i anticipate that the smc course is the one that’s gonna give ya trouble. it seems to list all other first year foundations and ones as exclusions. so you might wanna find something else to slot in there, because even if you’ve managed to register in it, once someone notices, they’ll have to kick you out.

    otherwise, if you manage to stay in vic135, that course and your eng196 seminar should be a-okay to be taken alongside each other.

    be Boundless,

    aska

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  • enrollment,  enrolment

    i am student blogger!

    July 25, 2019
    can/should a first year take 200/B courses? i gotta enrol tomorrow morning oops
    ——————————————

    yo can first years take courses above 100 levels
    ——————————————
    hey friends,

    sorry i (probably) wasn’t able to get this answer to you before your enrollment– at the same time, please try not to send me panicky last-minute asks! in the future, i’ll try to monitor my inbox the night before first year enrollment, but this goes for all things. it usually takes me a week or two to respond to questions. i am student blogger! not emergency help line! and this student blogger has got a backlog of stuff to get to.

    it’s not even a monday, but it’s always a monday, if you know what i mean.

    with that said, i sympathize with the whole panicky-last-minute thing, so i bumped yall to the top of my queue. the answer is that it depends. you definitely can take 200s, as long as you meet the prereqs. the prereqs will keep you out of a course if it isn’t meant for a first-year. for example, they’ll be first-year courses like BIO1whatever that you need to take first. or the prereq might simply be ‘the equivalent of 4.0 FCEs,’ which is just another way to say ‘no first years allowed.’

    i wouldn’t say 200-level courses are impossible for first-years to tackle– they’re usually just smaller and different from those huge first-year con hall lectures. so i would say go for it, if you’ve got the requirements. and if you don’t? that’s what second year is for.

    hope this helped! and that course enrolment went well.

    be Boundless,

    aska

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