[CS-FSLUG] (missing e-mail) Fwd: [OT] Re: Seeking opinions

[Nathan T.]

I accidentally sent this one to David instead of to the list, so here
it is for the rest of you folks to read :-) .

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Nathan T. <celerate at gmail.com>
Date: May 23, 2006 5:11 PM
Subject: Re: [CS-FSLUG] [OT] Re: Seeking opinions
To: David Aikema <david at aikema.net>


On 5/23/06, David Aikema <david at aikema.net> wrote:
> On 5/22/06, Nathan T. <celerate at gmail.com> wrote:
> > With two weeks left of school I now have a tutor for Calculus who'll
> > hopefully help me to get through the course with good enough marks to
> > have my choice of universities. Only a few week ago we hit related
> > rates in Calculus that made an ugly dent in my grades and put me in
> > over my head. Now it's turned into damage control and I'm aiming for
> > what would now be a very difficult to achieve 75 average in that
> > class.
>
> Calculus wasn't something that I ever ended up encountering in high
> school - although I think that they revised the curiculum shortly
> after I left.  That and not offering advanced placement classes were a
> couple of the downsides of coming from a small high school.

Now it's a prerequisite for University Computer Science apparently, at
least that's what the paperwork I've seen has indicated. If Calculus
isn't required than what am I doing wasting my time with in now when I
don't have a teacher to teach it :-p .

> > I'm also feeling that there's a definite University of Waterloo theme
> > over here in Yk lately, the guidance counsellor wants me to go there
> > and went out of his way to try and convince me, and now my Calculus
> > tutor is telling me that the U of W is the school for CS in Canada.
> > I'm almost getting the feeling that if I want my CS degree to be worth
> > anything it'll need to come from U of W.
>
> As far as the top CS school goes, I'd probably opt for the U of
> Toronto.  Waterloo is somewhere up there though.  (If you think that
> Saskatoon is too big, how would you describe Toronto?)

Humongous; however I'm counting on the idea of subdivisions to put all
the essentials within my reach without a vehicle.

I'm crashing right now though, the last few nights I forgot how to go
from closing my text books to being in bed, I can't get to sleep in
the evenings any more and I barely manage to get up in the morning. I
almost went looking for the text book that would tell me how to brush
my teeth last night because I forgot how and I had just finished a
very similar routine with Calculus. The thought of another four years
of this has me thinking about college rather than university. Are
there any good Colleges for CS I can consider?

And can anyone tell me why I should consider University over College,
or vice versa? I'm not looking at how many figures will be on my
paycheck as long as my income is fairly good, or whether I'll be
employable by NASA. I want to know what I'll personally get out of
each. If you folks were in my shoes what would you pick and why?