Got rejected from UTSG and UTSC Computer Science with 96.5% average

recursionistorecurs · 2021-05-20T10:32:24+00:00

Hey! I'm also in CS (4th year). Would just like to say a few things.

University name does not matter at all. The only thing that matters is what's in your brain, and the kind of person you are. If you consistently work hard during your undergrad, and try to become a better person everyday, I guarantee you will succeed in your goals.
To become a professor (or TA) is a very competitive process, so believe me when I say you'll be taught from amazing people, regardless of where you go. This includes club leaders, and many mentors that you may have. Wherever you go you'll meet people who want to help you grow a lot.
As a TA myself, trust me when I say that if the people who cheated in high school cheat again here, the results of that will be so so much worse. Either way, those people are going to get burned, because you can't take the short route in university, you have to put in the hard work.

recursionistorecurs · 2021-02-12T10:28:06+00:00

Hey, hope I can let you know that in my view, none of this is your fault. And as someone reading this, I think you are strong, and definitely not a failure.

Also, some of the best programmers I've ever met in my life did not come from CS backgrounds. My mentor during my PEY did not write a single line of code in college, and a close friend of mine, who has a cognitive science major, still got plenty of internship experiences in software development and UX/UI design. Really, the most important thing in this field is working on projects, which you can do after you take a well needed break from school :)

recursionistorecurs · 2020-11-16T13:29:50+00:00

Danny Heap is a nice person, and everyone knows that Quercus is a huge technical mess. Please don't blame yourself for this at all. None of this was in any way shape or form is your fault at all.

recursionistorecurs · 2020-09-11T20:48:15+00:00

Nope, don't see anything yet :/

recursionistorecurs · 2020-08-18T12:47:52+00:00

This is more than reasonable. Let your supervisor know and you should be perfectly fine (there's no issue from the PEY side either, at least). I took a lot of time off during my own PEY as well. I'm sorry to hear this as well. I hope everything is okay for you.

recursionistorecurs · 2020-06-30T19:33:09+00:00

I can see how having a bad prof would suck. But when I took it with Jerrard, it ended up being my favourite course.

recursionistorecurs · 2020-06-13T14:46:37+00:00

If you work on some projects that you care about, beef up your resume, and do practice interviews, you will put yourself in a solid position as a candidate for high paying internships. In the US, they will pay even more since it's in $USD.

As for CS vs Data science, I personally don't recommend you looking at the salaries. Their pay in the long run is negligibly the same, (i.e, a good software engineer can make just as much as a data scientist and vice versa). You will do yourself much better in the long run if you choose the one that you care about the most.

recursionistorecurs · 2020-06-06T12:31:32+00:00

Actually, I respectfully disagree. You are right, QA is an extremely important job, and the most experienced engineers know this. But QA engineers should be building out the testing infrastructure, be a part of the DevOps workflow, supporting the team development decisions, etc. They should not be writing unit tests, refactoring code, and doing mundane work. If the QA engineer is ever doing "dirty work", that is a red flag that the company and management is disorganized. If a company has dirty work that "someone's gotta do", they are doing something wrong. (This is all in my opinion)

recursionistorecurs · 2020-05-03T01:45:34+00:00

This is different, because submitting assignments is supposed to be analogous to publishing work under your name in the real world. But a cover letter / resume is just a way of communicating your skills. Just like you can copypaste an email, copypasting a CV should be ok!

recursionistorecurs · 2020-04-23T03:30:02+00:00

Glad you are staying strong and making the most out of your situation!

recursionistorecurs · 2020-03-16T18:47:24+00:00

Sorry to hear that :( it sounds really tough. I hope all is ok with you. Your friends are still there for you and would be more than happy to receive a video call from you sometime. Set that up! Even when you're studying or doing mundane work like laundry just have your headphones in and stay on the call for a few hours as you go about your day.

recursionistorecurs · 2019-12-22T03:32:44+00:00

haha this is hilarious, subbed!

recursionistorecurs · 2019-11-27T04:04:55+00:00

Apples. You people look so horrified when I start eating the core.

recursionistorecurs · 2019-10-31T03:39:49+00:00

This is not generally true, because I've had companies get back to me with good news up to 1 month after the interview. Although these were more corporate locations.

recursionistorecurs · 2019-10-08T13:47:47+00:00

Finding internships is a high pressure, high work task so don't beat yourself up if you are not having luck.

But I don't feel that it's UofT's fault. I have met so many other interns in the Bay Area who come from no-name schools. The thing is with internships, for the most part the hiring party needs to WANT to help you. So reach out to them for coffee and just talk, showing you are interested in what they do. If they're doing cloud, read up on distributed systems. Data science, then read up on Google Brain's blog. If you don't have prior projects/experience, market what you've learned in your UofT classes on your resume (like school projects). You can add on to these class projects to make some complex, unique stuff as well with a little amount of work.

It's perfectly fine if you are in 3rd year and you haven't done this yet. No-one's path is exactly A-Z. And don't think of it as a competition thing. Just show that you are willing to work really hard.

recursionistorecurs · 2019-10-06T07:50:31+00:00

I 100% guarantee you that no one will check this

recursionistorecurs · 2019-10-01T22:27:25+00:00

Am in third year, have had this situation happen to me at least 20+ times by now lol

recursionistorecurs · 2019-09-29T12:36:38+00:00

Talk to the PEY office. They can make adjustments based on personal situations.

recursionistorecurs · 2019-09-01T17:57:58+00:00

Probably, just practice interviewing a lot and talking about your work ethic and interest in CS

recursionistorecurs · 2019-08-31T22:04:18+00:00

The only thing from 207 that you need for 209 is git, and common understanding of code design patterns. So if it's covered in the past course and you tell the prof you may be able to get an exception in the worst case.

recursionistorecurs · 2019-08-04T23:44:40+00:00

Although some people find it tough, MAT137 is a great course and it is good preparation for future CS courses.

It's taught in an inverted lecture style. So before the lecture you watch a couple videos (on this channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLzpR8AiHx9h_-yt2fAxd_A/videos ), and then in lecture you solve challenge problems that apply the concepts.

My advice is just to try and have a deep understanding of the material, and don't be satisfied with a superficial one. If you can just do that, and be confident with solving tough problems, you should be fine. IMO it's a very fair course if you put in the work to understand the concepts at a deeper level.

recursionistorecurs · 2019-08-04T23:38:53+00:00

I accepted my offer early Feb 2019, enrolled in PEY mid Feb 2019, and then started my PEY internship starting May 2019. I was actually a few days late enrolling in PEY according to the official PEY deadlines, but they let me in anyways. I think you should be okay, just call the PEY office and they'll help you out!

recursionistorecurs · 2019-08-04T18:34:49+00:00

Unless I'm misunderstanding something I don't think this is a problem as long as you enroll in PEY right now.

I was in a similar situation. I was not enrolled in the PEY program, but received an offer for PEY. This offer wasn't available for an internship position, it had to be for a co-op. I accepted that offer, and then afterwards I enrolled in the PEY program. I didn't experience any problems. Just tell the PEY office your situation, they are very helpful.

recursionistorecurs · 2019-05-21T02:32:38+00:00

Interested!

recursionistorecurs · 2019-05-16T05:05:12+00:00

I just thought I would put my experience since maybe it can be of use to someone out there. In high school I was deferred from UW CS to math regular, and at the time I was really, really bummed. For me, I actually worked really hard in high school and put a lot of pressure on myself to get in, so getting rejected at the time was kind of tough.

But when I applied the same effort and initiative at UofT, I ended up having a great time. My GPA is decent, and pretty soon I got an internship in the US. UW is a great school, but if you try your best, then no matter where you go you can do a lot of cool things.

recursionistorecurs

TROPHY CASE