• courses,  first year

    an interesting course? in my program? it’s more likely than you think

    July 21, 2015

    hi aska, I was wondering if you had any recommendations on interesting first year courses for someone who wants to take a wide variety of courses? thanks

    ———————————————

    hey there,

    good for you for asking this question. so many first years are afraid of taking lots of different courses. most people want to feel like they already have a handle on things when they come in to university, and very often that translates to people being open to only a select number of courses – the “right” courses.

    problem is, there are no right” courses, and the sooner you get excited about exploring everything on offer, the better a chance you have of finding something you love at university.

    since i don’t know what stream you’re entering into and i don’t really know which areas of study i should be focusing on in terms of course recommendations, i’m just gonna give you aska’s GENERAL TIPS on how to enrol in courses as a first year:

    1. make sure that you’re completing the prerequisites for whatever program(s) you’re interested in.

    after first year, you’ll be required to sign up for a subject program of study (POSt). for that reason, it’s a good idea to take courses in first year which fill the requirements for the program(s) you’re interested in.

    i want to be clear about this: you don’t HAVE to know which programs exactly you want to get into coming into first year. that kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a general first year. however, it’s a good idea to have some kind of plan going in – if that plan eventually changes, that’s not a big deal, but you have to try something out before you can change your mind about it.

    if you’re thinking of a life science program, the requirements usually include: BIO120+130, CHM138+139, MAT135+136, and sometimes PHY131+132. if you’re thinking of doing a psychology program, you’ll want to take PSY100H1.

    if you’re thinking of econ, you’ll want to take MAT133Y1 and ECO100Y1.

    if you’re thinking of doing computer science, you’ll need CSC148H1 and CSC165H1.

    some popular, foundational first-year courses for a variety of humanities and social science programs include: POL101Y1, SOC101Y1, ANT100Y1, ENG140Y1, CIN105Y1, CLA160H1 and PHL100Y1 (make sure to double-check the specific program you have in mind to see what the prerequisites are).

    2. start thinking about breadth requirements

    you may have noticed that no matter which program you’re interested in, you’ll still have some space left over to take other courses. you may want to think about filling those spaces with courses that fill a breadth requirement or two.

    every course in the faculty of arts & science will fill at least one breadth requirement. depending on your program, it’ll be really easy for you to fill some breadth requirements, and tougher to fill others. science students will have no trouble filling breadth requirements 4 and 5, while humanities students will have a lot of courses in breadth requirement 1, and social science courses tend to be in breadth categories 2 and 3.

    if you’re a humanities/social science student looking to fill your 4th and 5th group of breadth requirements, take a look at some intro. science courses i recommended here.

    if you’re a science student, those intro. humanities/social science courses that i listed above are good places to start looking.

    finally, just take one lazy sunday off to get to know the timetable. go in with an open mind and explore anything that strikes your fancy. the faculty of arts & science has so many options available, including a whole bunch that have probably never crossed your mind.

    3. just do what you feel, man

    if you have any space left after taking into consideration your program requirements and breadth requirements, then just indulge yourself in some wish fulfilment. want to take a 200-level intro. to European Studies course? you got it. always wanted to learn Estonian? now you can.

    you never know – these intro. courses could lead to a minor or even a second major that will complement the program(s) you originally set your eyes on.

    i realize that i didn’t recommend that many specific courses in this post, but that’s because i don’t want to limit you – what you find interesting will depend on your personality and – duh – your interests. explore those. find weird and obscure courses on the timetable. take that leap of faith and sign up for the ones that surprise you. you may just end up enjoying one of them.

    good luck on July 30th!

    peace,

    aska

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  • courses

    sneaky, hidden extra courses

    July 15, 2015

    I’m going into my second year, and already have 5.5 100-level credits, but I really want to take LAT10H1 and LAT102H1. Since LAT102H1 will be designated an “extra” course, can I take 6.0 courses in the second term and LAT102H1 on top of it, or does it still count as part of the maximum 6.0 FCE per term? If it does, is there a specific process to asking my registrar to let me take an extra course (I’m pretty sure I read you can take 7 with permission)? Thanks!

    ———————————————

    hey there,

    “extra” courses don’t count towards your degree credit and GPA, but they still exist. you still have to take them once you enrol in them, you still have to pay for them, you still have to pull all-nighters for them (ugh). so unfortunately they wouldn’t allow you to bypass the 6.0 limit.

    if you want to enrol in over 6.0 FCEs, including extras, you’ll have to talk to your college registrar’s office and request a course overload.

    good question, though. that’s a first. you have a special knack for creatively bypassing rules – i’m sure it’ll serve you well in the work world.

    cheers,

    aska

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  • courses,  law school

    ethics, society & law & law

    July 8, 2015

    Hi aska!
    I have a couple of questions I’m hoping you can answer for me:
    1. I’m planning on taking a couple bird courses related to my program throughout my undergrad years. What do you think about RLG232H1 (religion and film), PHL235H1 (philosophy of religion), and HPS100H1 (history and philosophy of science)? Have you heard other students claiming that these courses are easy?
    2. I know this may be a far stretch, but would you happen to? have any course suggestions for Ethics, Law and Society majors? I’m going into my second year and I’m scared that I’ll do very poorly due to the intensive program courses, so I’m wondering if there are any courses that can help me ease my way in this major while allocating the courses towards my major program?
    3. I’ll be applying to U of T and Colombia law school and I want to know if I’d be giving a bad impression by having my courses scattered all over with disregard for my particular year of study and its misalignment with lower course levels? I’ve planned my courses for the current and upcoming years, and though I have 3rd year courses in my 2nd year, in my 3rd year I’ll have 2nd and 3rd year courses, and in my 4th year I’ll have one 1st year course among some 4th year courses, but I’ll mainly have 3rd year courses. Do you happen to know if it’s bad to be so inconsistent with my course levels? Will law schools assume that I’m disorganized and not evolving as a student?
    4. Over the past few months, I’ve been think about starting my own research plan and developing my own publication. How do undergraduate students go about doing this in a successful manner? Who or which professor would I have to approach and how could I ask for the help if I don’t even have a Masters or Doctorate?
    I’d really appreciate your help! I know this was a long message so thank you for taking your time in answering my questions.
    Thanks!

    ———————————————

    hey there,

    thanks for ordering your questions! i’m going to stick to it in my answer, ’cause there’s nothing i like more than a GOOD LIST.

    1. i haven’t taken/heard much about any of those courses, unfortunately. all i can do is suggest you look up the course evals (they’re posted on blackboard under ‘Course Evals’ in the bar on top). also, check out what other people think of the profs teaching the course (using a website that aska can neither endorse nor mention since it’s not affiliated with uoft, but which you have almost definitely used before).

    a previous aska has recommended browsing PHL235 as a guest on blackboard (which you can do by clicking ‘Browse Course Catalogue’ on the home page of blackboard). that is generally a great piece of advice, but neither PHL235 and RLG232 seem not to be available there anymore. boo-hoo.

    i was able to find an old syllabus for PHL235 – it’s from the mississauga campus, but you’ll at least be able to get a general idea of what the course might look like.

    2. since i don’t actually know you, it’s hard for me to guess what courses you might find easy. again: just try and get some info about the profs for courses that pique your interest, see if you can find previous syllabi and check out the course evals.

    also, if there are any courses that logically follow a 100-level course you took and really liked, prioritize those.

    and keep an eye on the drop deadline so you can ditch courses you don’t end up liking like a hot potato.

    3. this is a VERY TRICKY question for me to answer, mainly because i don’t KNOW the answer. all i can do is extrapolate from the information that’s already public to us.

    uoft law does explicitly state that “we examine the pattern of the intensity of the course work taken across an applicant’s undergraduate career (light versus heavy, full-time versus part-time, co-op versus regular, introductory versus upper-year courses, courses on exchange, courses during the summer term). We also examine the patterns of results the applicant achieved in that coursework (increasing trends, sustained periods of strong performance, short-term deviations, cumulative results, etc). Moreover, we take into account the nature of the program and the undergraduate institution (or institutions) at which an applicant has studied.”

    colombia law makes a similar statement: “Applications are holistically reviewed by the Committee, a process that thoroughly considers each candidate’s intellectual and academic qualifications, performance on the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), and an examination of the personal qualities considered requisite to scholastic success, professional distinction, and public service.”

    so yeah, the kinds of courses you take will have some impact. however, if you take on a course load that you can’t handle and your GPA isn’t competitive, then you may as well not apply in the first place.

    plus, that bit about “increasing trends” is important – if your GPA is going in the upwards direction, that is very promising. if you have to take a few 300-levels (or even 200- or 100-level) courses in your fourth year, and a couple of 200-levels in your third year, to make that happen, it’s not the end of the world. in fact, at uoft, it’s probably the norm.

    so: try to challenge yourself, but don’t shoot yourself in the foot. give yourself the opportunity to succeed. let them determine how difficult your program or institution is – your primary focus, in my opinion, should be making your GPA as competitive as possible.

    4. what kind of publication, chum? depending on the project you have in mind, the process could be different. however, generally:

    if there is a professor you have a good rapport with, you could definitely approach them about it. there are also a few avenues for carrying out research within the faculty as an undergraduate: 389/399 courses are offered by most departments, as are independent study courses.

    there’s also the undergraduate research fund and the trinity comprehensive paper. you might also consider getting involved with Mindful, the ethics, society & law undergraduate journal, and using that as a springboard into other projects.

    cheers,

    aska

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  • courses

    where the profs at??

    July 2, 2015

    Hi!

    So i want to enroll in a class (rlg369) for which i don’t have the prerequisites. Normally this wouldn’t be allowed but i feel like i have sufficient prior knowledge of the subject matter to do well in the class without the prereqs. (rlg205). I’ve emailed a couple people to ask for special permission but no one has replied and its been months. I was just wondering what more ishould be doing and just who i should be talking to.

    Thanks

    ———————————————

    hey there,

    you’ve done everything right, my friend. departments are super sketchy to contact in the summer because half the profs are away conducting research in antarctica and naples and other places i’d much rather be than here (honestly, there’s only so many times i can go to the fox and the fiddle before developing some serious trauma related to honey garlic wings). however, there’s not much you can do but wait.

    since a couple of months have gone by, i’m sure your message just got lost in the endless barrage of e-mails the department gets (it happens to the best of us). you may want to send them a follow-up e-mail.

    if you’re close enough to campus, you could even drop by the department during business hours (there’s also a number you can call). there’s bound to be someone there. even if they can’t answer your question, they may forward your request to the person who can.

    good luck,

    aska

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  • courses,  enrollment,  first year

    you can’t really understand course enrolment until you’ve lived through it

    June 1, 2015

    Picking my first year courses and I was wondering do a lot of first years not get into the courses they want due to the amount of people signing up? I don’t really have backup courses….

    ———————————————

    hey there,

    as with everything at uoft, that question depends on a tangle of finicky little conditions. because why would things ever be simple at this university?

    i’m gonna try and give you a general sketch of how course enrolment tends to go down, and then you can make your game plan from there.

    the lowdown:

    the faculty of arts & science, in their infinite wisdom, knows very well what courses first year students need to get into subject POSts. there’s a group of regular suspects: BIO120+130, CHM138+139, MAT133/135+136, PHY131+132, PSY100, CSC108H1, SOC101, ENG140, CLA160, POL101. and i didn’t even have to look at the course calendar for that. come at me, faculty registrars.

    because everyone needs to take the same handful of classes, they try to set it up so that there’s enough space for you all. they do this by 1) making the classes MASSIVE, and 2) giving certain students priorities. a priority is basically a restriction on a course that lets some students enrol in it before others.

    let’s take CSC108H1 – introduction to computer programming – as an example to see how this works.

    if you take a look at CSC108 on the timetable (tip: bookmark the timetable now; it’ll by your absolute best friend for course planning), you’ll see that there is a ‘P’ under the column ‘Enrolment Indicator.’ that ‘P’ stands for priority.

    if you click on ‘See Details,’ you’ll see that first-year UTSG Computer Science students have priority for this course. that means they’ll be able to enrol in the course earlier than everyone else. this is called the ‘priority period.’

    on July 30th, when course enrolment opens for first-year students, first year computer science students ONLY will be able to enrol in CSC108H1. then, when the priority lifts on August 7th at 6am, everyone else will have the opportunity to sign up for the course.

    what this system boils down to is this: if you’re in the priority group for a big class, you should be fine. if you’re planning on taking any courses that are smaller, more obscure, or that you don’t have priority for, i would highly recommend you get yourself some backups, pronto.

    notice i said ‘backups,’ plural. the faculty does everything they can to stop course enrolment from spiralling into a hunger games-esque nightmare, but there’s only so much they can do.

    ALSO: make sure that you’re ready to start enrolling in courses the MINUTE YOUR START TIME HITS. have all the course codes of the classes you want to take (including backups) ready to go. if your start time is at 6am, you best be at your computer and ready to go at 5:55. too early? need to sleep? too bad. i promise you this won’t be the first time uoft forces you out of bed.

    keep in mind that first-years are the last people who get to sign up for courses, so you’re at a bit of a disadvantage already. don’t’make it worse by showing up late to the party.

    finally, remember that loads of people will drop out of classes after the first week, so it’s a good idea to enrol in place-holder courses while you wait for a class you absolutely NEED to become available again. waitlists are a great way to do this easily.

    as long as you unquestioningly follow all of aska’s advice, you should be able to get into most of the classes you want.

    do as i say not as i do

    cheers,

    aska

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  • courses

    but i NEED to take this advanced semiotic bird-watching course!!

    May 27, 2015

    Hey aska! do you know if anyone’s successfully gotten their registrar to enrol them into a course that’s full? especially if it’s for their major? Thanks in advance!

    ———————————————

    hey there,

    it’s definitely possible. however, you do need to have some kind of extenuating circumstance for your request to be considered. see, i bolded that bit because “i just really want to take this course pretty please also do you even know who i AM” is not an extenuating circumstance. so stop asking, CARL.*

    by far the most common reason a student might be enrolled in a course they can’t access – for whatever reason – is through the dean’s promise, which is something that people often misuse, so i’ma just explain it right now for you.

    it goes like this: the dean’s promise is for graduating students who need a specific course to complete their program requirements and graduate on time. if that one course is full, and you won’t graduate unless you take that course, then the registrar’s office at your college/faculty can try to get you in.

    HOWEVER, if the course is one of a group of courses that you can take to satisfy a requirement, if you’re looking to fill a breadth requirement which can be completed through many courses, or if you’re in any other situation where you have more than exactly one course option, the dean’s promise does not apply. it’s basically a last resort (also, it has a deadline of August 1st, so keep that in mind).

    in some cases, it is also possible for the department to enrol students in a course, but again, that’s on a case-by-case basis.

    the long and short of it is this: if you have a unique situation, it doesn’t cost you anything to swing by your registrar’s office and plead your case. throw it against the wall and see what sticks, is what i say.

    cheers,

    aska

    * just kidding, carl. you know we’re good.

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  • courses,  enrollment

    S is for summer (NOT)

    May 15, 2015

    Hey,

    I’m coming back to U of T after being suspended in 2005. I want to take a summer course if it’s possible. I went to my registrar and in addition to paying the $25 re-registration fee I also paid a $19 late registration fee.

    Now I’m trying to sign up for a summer course on ROSI. I can see that the deadline has passed but I thought that’s what the late fee was for. I’m trying to get into one of the courses that start June 29th. On the enrollment page, though, the header reads “2015-2016 Fall/Winter – A&S Bachelor’s Degree Program (ASPRGHBA) Status: Invited”.

    The problem is that when I try to enroll I get a message saying “NMC277H1 S is not offered in 2015-2016 Fall/Winter session. Please contact your
    college or faculty registrar’s office or graduate department for assistance.” It’s the same error for any course I try. I mean, of course an S course isn’t offered in the F/W session, right? How do I get to a page where I can sign up for summer courses?

    Thanks!!

    ———————————————

    hey there,

    you’ve got a whole bunch of terminology all twisted up there, friend. that’ll happen when you’re away from uoft for 10 years – not that i would know what that feels like. this place will never let me go.

    but i digress. lemme straighten a few things out for you:

    1. if you paid the late registration fee to get invited, you would’ve gotten invited either to the Summer session or the Fall/Winter session. if you got invited to Fall/Winter, then you wouldn’t be able to sign up for Summer courses. and it’s way too early to sign up for Fall/Winter courses at this point.

    if you got invited to the Summer session, then you need to make sure you’re enrolling in Summer courses, not Fall/Winter. (you can check which session you’re invited to by going to the home page of ROSI, opening Summer 2015, and checking your academic status. it’ll say one of three things: ‘invited,’ ‘registered,’ or ‘financially cancelled.’)

    2. NMC277H1 isn’t offered in the summer, so even if you tried to sign up for that course in the summer, you wouldn’t be able to.

    3. ‘S’ means ‘second term,’ not summer, so don’t assume that because it has an ‘S’ attached to the course code, that it’s offered in the summer. you can take a look at courses that ARE offered in the summer session here.

    and with all that, you should be set to start enrolling in summer courses!

    good luck studying on picnic blankets out in the blistering heat and stuff,

    aska

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  • courses

    the nitty gritty on griddy

    May 7, 2015

    hey aska! Do you recommend findacourse or griddy for figuring out schedules? Is there one that’s better? Thanks! 🙂

    ———————————————

    hey there,

    i’d definitely recommend both. they’re great tools and they provide a service that, honestly, ROSI should really be doing anyway. they let you construct your timetable and play around with courses and lecture sections until you’re happy with them. i personally prefer the layout on griddy, but both sites are great and useful. massive props to the students who created them. i can’t even manage Excel.

    however, a word of caution: these services are not affiliated with the university, so while they do pull their info from the uoft timetable and calendar, they can get information wrong.

    i input my (ideal) fall/winter schedule into both griddy and findacourse as a test, and while it went off mostly without a hitch, there were a few errors. a couple of courses that are listed on the uoft timetable couldn’t be found by griddy or findacourse, and griddy was convinced that one of my Y courses was an F-section course, and would only list it on my Fall timetable.*

    so yes, they’re handy tools, but they’re not foolproof. i DEFINITELY would not advise going ahead to sign up for courses in August based solely on what griddy or findacourse is telling you. always double check it against the course calendar, because that is the most official information.

    cheers,

    aska

    * i won’t give you any specifics about which courses it messed up on because then you’d know my schedule and aska likes to fly UNDER THE RADAR, you get me? if i think i’m an enigma it’ll make me feel better about the fact that i have mustard spills on my shirt, like…75% of the time.

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  • biology,  courses

    bio-bo-bio, bio bio bo-bio

    May 5, 2015

    I want to take first year bio but I don’t have grade 12 bio as a prereq. It says I need special permission to take it. Is it hard to get special permission to take bio first year ?

    ———————————————

    hey there,

    it depends. if you’re very strong academically, and have other experiences that might supplement what you would’ve learned in grade 12 bio, then it’s possible you’ll get special permission. otherwise, it might be a bit trickier. think about it this way: to get special permission, you have to have a special reason.

    however, at the end of the day, it’s the bio department who grants special permission, so the best thing to do is ask them.

    cheers,

    aska

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  • courses

    F/S/Y

    May 5, 2015

    When choosing courses, are we picking four/five different classes, or a bunch of classes that add up to four/five credits per year? Like I can take 2 full credit classes and then 6 half-credit classes or . . . ?

    ———————————————

    hey there,

    great question!* the answer is that you can take any combination of half- and full-year courses that you want, as long as they exceed 3.0 credits but do not exceed 6.0 credits when you add them all up (assuming you’re going to be a full-time student in the Fall/Winter term).

    xoxo,

    aska

    * and i don’t just say that to anyone. trust me. making fun of questions is like 10 times easier than praising them. also 10 times more fun.

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  • courses

    omg don’t sign up for every tutorial that’s offered

    May 4, 2015

    Hi Aska, I am a prospective first year at UTM and I was looking through the timetable planner and going through courses I’d like to take. I was wondering, besides lectures, what are we supposed to put down into the timetable (like labs/tutorials and stuff like that)? And how many per a certain class? Thanks (: There’s so many courses I’d like to take, I’m probably gonna be at university until I’m 40 :p

    ———————————————

    hey there,

    love it when first years look at all these new courses that weren’t offered in their high school and they get so excited. i remember being like that?oh, how times change.

    but don’t let a grumpy old codger ruin your excitement. you just keep that enthusiasm alive – hopefully it can carry you clean through exams.

    basically, if a course indicates that it has a lab or tutorial attached to it, you have to sign up to ONE lab or tutorial section. if a class has a lab AND a tutorial, sign up to one tutorial section and one lab section. if a class has NO labs or tutorials, don’t freak out – not all classes have them.

    and that’s all there is to it! the challenge will be actually consistently attending your classes – now there’s a problem that has stumped me for years.

    cheers,

    aska

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  • courses,  enrollment,  tutorials

    don’t take any more classes than absolutely necessary

    April 24, 2015

    Hey there! I am a soon-to-be student and extremely organized becauseIwillgetsuperstressedotherwise. *nervous laughter* So I am already looking at the courses and organizing. This is probably hinted elsewhere, or you’ve answered it somehow, but I just need clarification… We only enroll in one tutorial per course, correct?

    ———————————————

    hey there,

    yup! you should only ever be signing up for one tutorial per class, which is good, because there’s only so much awkward small-class interaction a person can take in a week.

    and just so you know, ROSI will tell you when you sign up for courses whether there are any lab/tutorial sections you need to sign up for – so it’ll all be laid out for you nice and easy when enrolment time comes along.

    try not to be too stressed about school starting. it’s great to organize and plan and stuff, but there’s no reason to be nervous. everything’s gonna work out fine. you’re going to have a great time, and it’ll be a lot better than the cafeteria drama and “did-you-hear-what-stacey-did-at-the-birthday-party” gossip nonsense of high school.

    see you in september!

    aska

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  • courses

    what do i gotta do to take 2nd year courses?

    April 21, 2015

    Can I sign up for second year courses with only 3.0 credits? Sorry if this a dumb question, but I only earned 3.0 credits throughout this year. I can’t go to summer school, but I plan on signing up for one more first year credit for the fall, along with second year courses if that’s allowed. So, how does that work with the subject posts and everything? Thank you.

    ———————————————

    hey there,

    unless a course states in its course calendar listing that you need to have completed 4.0 courses already, then it’s not an issue.

    as for POSts, you don’t have to be in a subject POSt to enrol in second year courses, though some courses do prioritize or are completely restricted to certain students via these things called ‘enrolment indicators.’ you can see which courses have these enrolment indicators on the timetable.*

    other than that, you should be able to sign up for second-year courses without any problem! (in fact, i know a few screwball first-years who took a few second-year courses in their first year…kids these days! but hey – if you can do it, then why not?)

    all the best,

    aska

    * just to clarify: once you?have completed 4.0 credits, you are absolutely required to enrol in an acceptable combination of subject POSts. if you?don’t enrol in a POSt after completing 4.0 credits, THEN you wouldn’t be able to sign up for courses.

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