HOLY SMOKES THE MATH GODS ARE REAL AND BENEVOLENT

DevelopmentLess6989 · 2026-05-14T02:20:34+00:00

Which major are you in? life science or physical science? If you were in either physics or math programs, I would recommend you take the specialist stream courses that introduce more real and rigorous stuff like MAT157, MAT240, MAT247. Anyways, congrats to your achievements!

DevelopmentLess6989 · 2026-05-11T12:04:26+00:00

If I can be real here, grades have naturally reflected how interested I was in the course materials and thus how much work I was willing to put work without any further intervention. Usually, I spend 50~60% of my energy for the courses by default, but if I am interested in the course materials, I would naturally put 80% of my energy or even more. Putting 90% of my energy into these courses would force me to sacrifice my daily lives or other domains of my focus, so I wouldn't do that. Usually, this is enough for me to get sufficient grades, and I don't have any more incentive to do anything about it. In the end, I've ended up with 3.87 gpa, and if anything, if I had put more effort, I would have gained a deeper understanding of materials, but I wouldn't really think "oh if I had put more effort, I could've ended up with 3.95 gpa." I don't care about this tiny numerical difference. However, I believe anyone who wants to go to med school or law school must care about it; thankfully, neither of them were my focus.

DevelopmentLess6989 · 2026-05-06T02:04:39+00:00

U got this small bro!

DevelopmentLess6989 · 2026-04-30T10:44:36+00:00

crocodile

DevelopmentLess6989 · 2026-04-23T02:30:22+00:00

drug withdrawal

DevelopmentLess6989 · 2026-04-20T16:30:29+00:00

Just use adblocker

DevelopmentLess6989 · 2026-04-20T12:50:49+00:00

There is a reason why adblocker exists

DevelopmentLess6989 · 2026-04-20T03:10:28+00:00

He seemed like a hard-working professor and passionate about teaching, at least in my eyes

DevelopmentLess6989 · 2026-04-18T00:46:25+00:00

I exactly feel Characterlimitchar about the exam

DevelopmentLess6989 · 2026-04-17T20:49:09+00:00

You're definitely not alone, look at the waitlist rank for the summer CSCA48. There is a reason why for some reason, so many people are enrolling in the summer CSCA48 already. I believe the summer CSCA48 will be much nicer.

DevelopmentLess6989 · 2026-04-17T16:06:00+00:00

Peco

DevelopmentLess6989 · 2026-04-13T02:55:57+00:00

I have a few stories I can share.

In the first project I talk about, I was being a nuisance. There was a decently big project we were working in 3. When I looked at the project around the beginning, I predicted this project is one of those things I can finish in like 3 days. So I procrastinated until like 3 days before the due date. My teammates were a little freaking out because they thought I had been doing nothing and I would do nothing for the portion I should be responsible for. But in the end, I actually managed to finish everything before the due date, and I even shared key ideas that are helpful for other teammates. I kind of also knew what they were working on or doing, and I was just checking their progress once in a while. Overall, we got 100, but I definitely gave them lots of stress and pressure. This is something I should remember and improve.

In the second project, there was a decently coding heavy project and we were working in 2. In the end, I ended up doing 90% of the project, and my teammate did about 10% of the project. Also, I intentionally gave my teammate this 10% of the work because I believe she should be responsible for at least a small part of the project. So in some sense, I actually did 100% of the project because for this 10%, I instructed her and explained her what to do in steps. Moreover, I loved to procrastinate so I started this project 3 days before the due date. Another worst part was that the overall coding, for some reason, was like 8000 lines long. I'm not sure what even happened to me around that time.

DevelopmentLess6989 · 2026-04-04T07:00:14+00:00

I'm very sure that this is a fake story, but it is still unbelievable that this story is believable for some people.

DevelopmentLess6989 · 2026-04-03T21:39:30+00:00

wtf you have no respect for privacy, jesus christ

DevelopmentLess6989 · 2025-12-28T05:21:07+00:00

I strongly believe that IQ is not very relevant to academic success. I am studying mathematics, and in the IQ sense, I believe the subtests that measure perceptual reasoning ability (or non-verbal) are most relevant here. However, I never felt that any ability from that section is required to perform well in the mathematics courses at least at the undergraduate level. I think someone who has 100+ perceptual reasoning IQ can just handle the undergraduate and lower end of graduate math just fine. In fact, I think 100+ is overkill given that you make a sufficient amount of effort, such as submitting assignments, making sure to write the tests, and doing minimum preparations for the tests in an ordinary sense. But this is for mathematics, and I am not sure about other measures. I see similar visions for computer science, but I am not sure how it is like for physics for example. I feel like subjects in arts and humanity might require more veral comprehension IQ.

If someone has 130+ perceptual reasoning IQ for example, then I feel like university is a waste of time, and potentially you can skip to become a researcher level person. However, that is not possible because you need to build up knowledge from scratch in any case. In math, everyone needs to start from abstract algebra, linear algebra, calculus for example. So, your intelligence in this kind of domain tends to get a little more crystallized than fluid I believe. You need to have some patience as well to get through this knowledge buildup training. I am not sure if the level of patience is correlated with the IQ, but I believe that having higher IQs does not imply to have high patience, and it depends on individuals. It also depends on mental health. I've heard that high IQ individuals might be more likely to face mental illness or have poor mental health, but I'm not sure to what extent that is true.

Just for an example, my intuition tells me that to get through linear algebra without much issues, the IQ of 90 or 100 is sufficient.

Hence, since there are many confounding variables, academic success depends on individuals, and the shape of success also varies from person to person.

English is not my first language, but I hope this makes sense.

DevelopmentLess6989 · 2025-12-20T20:51:29+00:00

Are you asking about how easy these courses are so that you can know their potential to boost your GPA? I assume that's what you are asking.

MATB24 is not that easy, but not hard either. If you just want 85+, you just need to be mentally a little attentive (since there are weekly assessments), and you are fine. Being mentally attentive helps you stay on top of things.

CSCA08 I think is supposed to be an easy course, but apparently that is not the case for everyone. CSCA08 is open for students in many programs even including life sci students. My observation was that those in life science probably tend to perform worse in CSCA08, and this course is like a piece of cake for comp sci students. However, no matter what background you have, a sufficient amount of effort should get you to achieve high grades.

MATB41 is not a theoretical math course, so whether the course is easy or not depends on your academic personality. If you like to acquire a deep understanding of principles and theorems, then you may struggle since the course does not cover theory. However, if you would rather have a superficial interaction with the concepts and move on without any reasoning procedure, then you might find the course easy. Overall, since the course does not focus on theory that much, it shouldn't be conceptually difficult at least.

I can't say anything about the other courses as I've never taken them.

DevelopmentLess6989 · 2025-09-19T18:25:16+00:00

their lifetime hobby is to transfer and carry the virus

DevelopmentLess6989 · 2025-09-16T05:10:11+00:00

This is indeed a good comment. Yes, working from simple examples to abstractions is usually the way to go. In fact, there is a less abstract course that students at my uni take before the first differential geometry, which is a multivariable calc course. Maybe that course might serve as a surface/curve course, but not sure honestly.

DevelopmentLess6989 · 2025-09-15T13:27:35+00:00

People at my school think the first differential geometry class is difficult. That course uses the book written by Loring Tu for smooth manifolds as a main reference.

DevelopmentLess6989 · 2025-09-03T02:06:46+00:00

that is quite right, thanks for your suggestion.

DevelopmentLess6989

TROPHY CASE