^
Maybe the textbook thing varies from faculty to faculty. Looking over my Art History course outline, I couldn't imagine not owning the required text. The same thing applies for my World Religion course, and I'm sure will apply for some others as well.

One of my English courses requirs a handful of novels, which I'm sure I can find for low low prices at used book sales. Or I could just keep it constantly checked out at my local library LOL

Originally Posted by AelyaS

^
Maybe the textbook thing varies from faculty to faculty. Looking over my Art History course outline, I couldn't imagine not owning the required text. The same thing applies for my World Religion course, and I'm sure will apply for some others as well.

One of my English courses requirs a handful of novels, which I'm sure I can find for low low prices at used book sales. Or I could just keep it constantly checked out at my local library LOL

Yeah, I've taken one non-science course, and the textbook contained testable material not covered in the lectures, so it was necessary then. I was talking about science courses, though.

At least for science courses some of the textbooks can be used in both semesters. I know when I was in first year I used the same chem, math and physics books each semester so even though they seemed to be pretty expensive when you divide that by 2 semesters it wasn't too bad.

Thanks for this thread. I find it to provide a lot of insight! I'm definitely following some of these tips.

Originally Posted by lawleypop

Not if you're in commerce.

that makes me scared , I am in 2nd year commerce now.............whats the drop rate for 2nd year commerce , any chance u know?

Bushra. Everything you said is very true...
getting enough sleep is very important specially in exam days

I wish that I had have experienced more during Welcome Week, actually did the assigned course readings (came back to kill me on exams), went to see the profs/TAs more, and I just generally should have tried harder.

Math can be fun...especially if your prof is Yazinski. <3

don't know if anyone said this... but i found i was lost quite often during the first week or so, or when i had to find a new room or where an office was... for the most part, everyone on campus is friendly. it's not in my nature to just walk up to people and many times i went early to try to find out where things were, but occasional desperation made me ask.... "excuse me, do you know where X is?" LOL so my advice is - don't be afraid to reach out and ask if you need to.

Originally Posted by Mahratta

1) Don't spend the week before first-semester finals smoking pot
2) Don't spend the week before second-semester finals smoking pot

If you avoid making these two 'mistakes', you should do fine. First-year life sci is pretty easy otherwise.

hmm, I smoked pot during both my finals thank you bell curves =)

Originally Posted by soltintal

don't know if anyone said this... but i found i was lost quite often during the first week or so, or when i had to find a new room or where an office was... for the most part, everyone on campus is friendly. it's not in my nature to just walk up to people and many times i went early to try to find out where things were, but occasional desperation made me ask.... "excuse me, do you know where X is?" LOL so my advice is - don't be afraid to reach out and ask if you need to.

I completely agree. I don't like bothering people so I try to sort things out on my own, but even when I left really early for classes and tutorials, I still found myself lost once or twice. Luckily, the people I asked were really nice. I get asked for directions and a lot because I'm nearly always smiling like an idiot and probably come across as friendly/helpful because of that - I honestly keep a campus map in my bag for that reason.

So if you're ever lost and see someone smiling for no apparent reason, I'm your girl!

I wish I knew that TAs have a large part in your marks first year in terms of labs.

I wish I went to get more help more often and did more work.

I don't know if this has been mentioned before
...but NEVER ...i repeat NEVERRRRRRRR EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRR take a course just because other students think it's easy. I ****ed up my C.A by taking courses as my electives that were "considered easy". And I am not saying they weren't.. some had tests that were easy BUT omfg.. if you dont like the material you wont study.. atleast I wont study. I have to love the course and its content to do really well. This would be the biggest regret of my university life :(

And I know it's not because I can't focus or I am dumb because I have gotten straight 12s in courses like: cell bio, cytoplasm, animal physiology and other courses that were very sciency and fascinating. But then I decided to take courses like earth science -_- and geography 1Ha3


So in the end, it really matters what YOU LIKE.. dont listen to people. The most I do to see if I like a course or not.. read the course description, talk to the prof ( this has helped me alotttttt), check the prof rating and jump in. Because I bet most of the people drop their C.As because they're not interested in their courses.

I wish i knew proper studying habits. Like this post if you were one of those people who didn't do HW and got straight A's in high school only to realize that you now have bad study habits that are essential to your degree

thank this post if you think i should not use run-on sentences.

Originally Posted by thedog123123

I wish i knew proper studying habits. Like this post if you were one of those people who didn't do HW and got straight A's in high school only to realize that you now have bad study habits that are essential to your degree

thank this post if you think i should not use run-on sentences.

Dislike.


I should not have taken the electives I took. Should have left out electives till the summer, and took psych instead of english/health studies.