Computer Science at Ryerson University
Richard (Year 4)
richard.zhang.sing@gmail.com
What did you wish you knew before going to your university? What made you choose this institution over all others? What are advantages and disadvantages of your institution or campus? List any advice for incoming first-year students about your university.
I chose Ryerson University because of its reputation in Computer Science. I knew about the co-op program where you can intern between semesters. It gives you a huge advantage over others in terms of landing a job after you graduate. However, it would've helped if I knew about how expensive the house pricing downtown would have been in a few years. It increased really fast while I was in university.
What did you wish you knew before choosing your specific program? What are the advantages and disadvantages of your program? List any advice for incoming first-year students about your program of study.
I wish I knew how difficult computer science was going to be. The amount of workload compared to high school was utterly insane. As I entered into second year and third year back in 2016/2017, it seemed as if more than 30% of the students had dropped. I would study harder because if you wanted a good job after graduation, you'd have to answer a lot of technical questions correctly during interviews.
What was your favourite university experience?
My best experience at university would have to be my co-op jobs. I gathered a lot of experience and they really showed me what it was like to work in a workplace. I also made some new friends and connections!
What was your least favourite university experience?
There really isn't a worse experience other than learning courses you absolutely have no interest in, even if they are somewhat important. Many courses during the study were extremely boring and everyone would fall asleep. Those tests and exams were the hardest because it really is hard to study for something that doesn't interest you.
What is the hardest part about your program and what were the steps that you took to overcome any difficulties?
The hardest part of my program would have to be the difficult courses. Every semester, there would be at least 2 or 3 hard courses. What's worse is that the workload combined makes it more intimidating. What I did was make sure I understood what was taught that day during class on my own time. For many courses, there is usually a session a week with a teaching assistant where you can reflect on what you learned and do exercises. This will be part of your final mark and is critical in university. They help you understand the course better. Personally I did not have much time to review what would be taught the next class because of the workload. Coping with uncooperative team members wasn't a huge issue because if they didn't do anything, they would result in a mark of 0. Also, you wouldn't want to be that person anyway because the project would consist of many important things taught in the course. Those would show up on the exam.
If you were able to take electives, what was your favourite elective? If you were not able to take electives, what was your favourite course and why?
I liked a lot of courses so I'm just going to list SOME of them here. I will also list SOME of the important courses.
CPS109, CPS209, CPS393, CPS305, CPS616, CPS530, CPS630, CPS510, CPS847
The list really just goes on and on, even for the courses I didn't take. I did not like all of the courses, but they are good to learn for the future. (Note: some courses here are mandatory for Computer Science and the course codes and content may change).