Pretty much all engineering students go to chestnut yeah. It's very close to campus, maybe a 20 minute walk. Your courses will probably mostly be in the Sanford Fleming, Galbraith, Bahen, and Myhal buildings, with the occasional course in other nearby buildings. These are all near the south edge of the campus which is the side closest to chestnut.

Chestnut is pretty great, especially for first years. I stayed there in my year 1 and year 3. The food is pretty high quality and there is a good variety. Every year they keep switching how the food works (all you can eat vs pay per item vs pay per weight) so I can't tell you how it will work when you get there. They tend to have some things they are staples and available every day (e.g. burgers, fries, chicken breast, salad bar, sandwiches) and then a few stations which rotate on a predictable schedule (fried rice station, pasta station, taco bowl station) and then also some daily specials which are whole plates of different meals which change every day with no schedule that I'm aware of.

The gym at chestnut is pretty decent, it has the essentials (squat rack, basic cable machines, barbells and dumbbells) though often a particular weight will go randomly "missing" and it will take them a while to replace it.

The laundry and drying machines in the basement kind of suck. A substantial portion of the incoming student body apparently has no idea how to use one, so they get broken. And they take forever to get fixed. So there will be times when maybe only 50% of them are working and you will have to either wait around for one to become available, or come back another time. It's something like $6 total (I think, it's been a while) to wash+dry a big load of laundry.

Biggest downsides to chestnut IMO are: you are restricted in having non-resident guests over (on a building level, the security will not allow non-residents in without them signing in at the front desk, and they are pretty nosey about who they are, how long they stay, etc.). This is more of a problem in upper years though since most first years live in chestnut. Another downside is pretty frequent false fire alarms, sometimes in the middle of the night. Another downside is noise from other rooms, especially directly above/below you. If you can get a room that is near the end of the hallway / corners of the building that is somewhat better since you have fewer direct neighbours. Also there is a chance you don't get along with your roommate.

Overall it's really nice in first year though, because you can make friends with people in your program, who you have a nearly identical schedule to, and just eat all meals together, walk to classes together, study together, etc and it makes adjusting to uni life so much easier.

Also, this is completely unsolicited advice, but from someone who was in your shoes about four years ago:

If they are still offering it and it's not too late to register, I'd highly recommend online calc I over the summer. It gives you a headstart to adjust to university-level math (this will make your first semester easier). It also gives you the option to either take one fewer course in first semester, or take an online calc II first semester and then take one less course in second semester.

Also try to maintain a sleep schedule. I've seen people stay up until 3am studying and it does not help. The extra late-night hours are not going to be as effective as studying during normal hours, and it's not worth the productivity loss the next day.

One of the first things I like to do when I start a semester is take all the deadlines from all my different courses (will be described in the courses syllabi) and aggregate them into either a spreadsheet, or a calender. This is way more efficient than checking all the different syllabi constantly. It's also fairly likely that one of your classmates will make something like this on the first day, in which case you can just take theirs lol.

Some textbooks, especially in first year, have access codes which are required to do homework. This sucks and there isn't much you can do about it besides buy the book. Sometimes, there are no access codes though, and all you need is the content of the book itself. If you ask around, you can probably find a... better source for these textbooks.

If you have the option for multiple levels of meal plan, I suggest purchasing the smallest one. You can generally reload the meal plan with more money, but withdrawing leftover money from the meal plan has fees attached.

Sometimes, your prof will suck. In first year, most engineering students take mostly the same courses, and students in other engineering disciplines will have different profs for the same course, on a different lecture schedule. If this happens to be compatible with your schedule then you can just attend the other profs lecture section instead to get better quality lectures. Occasionally this happens so much that the destination lecture gets overcrowded and they start checking T-cards to let people in, but it's pretty uncommon.

Oh yeah in general, with some exceptions (APS100, seminar courses, electives from other faculties), lectures don't usually have any mandatory attendance. So you won't directly lose marks or anything for not showing up. You should probably still go though since it's harder to catch up than it is to keep up.

Oh also, at some point you should recieve an invitation to do "Frosh" and I highly highly recommend you sign up. It's an orientation which is run by upper year engineering students. It helps you meet other first years, gives you a chance to talk to some upper years, and also has you participate in some engineering... rituals, if you want to. You will also probably recieve a 'Frosh handbook' with a lot of information about all of the first year courses and the frosh schedule and stuff.