Civ100: Fill & Download for Free

I would say the answer best depends on your stream of study. First year students have class times from anywhere between 10 - 30 hours per week (lectures, tutorials and labs included). I would address Non- engineers first, then the engineers.For Non-engineers, be prepared to memorize stuff.Professors in the social sciences would go through material faster than Usain Bolt and you’d be cramming right before the exam trying to cover the 20 pages the professor spent 2 minutes on during lecture. Play it smart, understand how you can study best, skip some classes, attend others and form a network of peers who can actually help.For Comp. Sci., Rotman Commerce and Mathematics and Medicine, choose your courses wisely. The course descriptions you are supposed to look at to guide you are very misleading at times. Math, specially can be hard. Unless you love math, do not go for 137 or 157. 133 is light, 135/6 is a bit harder but bearable if you still want a challenge. You can choose 4-6 courses per semester, do not overburden yourself.Summer courses may feel tempting but they aren’t so good. Professors cram through material strikingly fast. To quote a senior “by the time you’re done saying “Hi” to the kid next to you, your midterm is tomorrow”, keep that in mind before deciding if you want to leave a course for the summer.Bottom line: It’s bearable, you made it to u of t, you can make it through u of t.My general advice for first yearKeep up with your readings, the last thing you want to do is read 300 pages one day before the examCommunism wins. Find a good group of friends, enter into group chats and leverage them to your benefit. Help others and get help from others, you can not survive alone (unless you’re very smart, in that case, help others, the majority depends on you).Doctor your schedule. Keep enough gaps between classes so you can study. Don’t rush to end your days early, because at home there are too many distractionsKnow your professors. Some professors are superstars and some aren’t that good. Know which professors are best. Sometimes changing classes for the professor even if it messes up your timetable is worth it.Residences are over-rated. The prevalent joke is, people living in residences, don’t actually live in residences, they live in the libraries. They only go back to sleep.Do firsthand research on courses. For Electives and Seminar courses the descriptions on the internet are misleading. Ask someone who has taken the course how it is.Come to Campus. Even if you have only 2 classes on a particular day, come to campus. You may just end up catching up on something you would not have caught up on at home.Resist temptation. We are told u of t is fun, and there are a lot of “fun” places in and around campus, at one point you have to stop the “fun”, know when to apply the breaks.Be Realistic. While pessimism is definitely not a good idea, optimism isn’t either. You have to know what you are weak in, in order to play on your strengths. Don’t expect too much from life at u of t, have a sense of how much material you actually know before a test and try to capitalize the most out of it.Set a minimum threshold. Learn at least enough of everything that on an exam you will be able to write some good sounding rubbish in the tests. If there is even a shred of merit to your answer, you may get something, which is, as we have been told since eternity, still better than nothing.Not academic advice, but advice anyways! In the TTC we (do not) trust. Keep buffer times during your commute if you have a commute.Engineers usually have a greater workload (unless you are going for a double major in Comp.Sci. and Math; believe me there are people who do that!) that any other discipline in the university.For future engineers, be ready to give up everything you used to do for leisure in high school, it’s that bad. Nah, just kidding. The two semesters are very different in terms of the content covered.There is a lot of Math in first semester. Calculus 1 is partially review from grade 12 but towards the end they push through integration very quickly, and it is included on the final exam, look out for that. CIV100 is a physics course, dreadful, look out for that, introduces you to moments and forces and asks you to start thinking in 3d spaces right away. Depending on your taste for Mathematics, either you would love linear algebra or hate it. Three things to keep in mind about it, it is abstract, introduces you to proofs, and is useless for engineers.Second semester is a bit better (p.s. you get used to it). there are 2 physics (the physics of electricity - light and the physics of motion (Dynamics) - much heavier). Calc 2 has much less content than Calc1, the professors cover material very slowly because there isnt much to cover. It gets bad after the first 8 weeks.my advice for engineers:All lectures are recorded, there is no excuse of falling behind on material, if you miss class (or skip it, NOT RECOMMENDED), watch the lectures and catch up.Get into as many group-chats as possible. Group chats are the first resource of help when you are new, no body knows you, and you need help.Assignments and 1st year labs are free marks. If you can’t do them the group chat’s/friends would do it for you, don’t leave them (lowkey - I didn’t tell this to y’all).Learn to play it smart. GPA’s work weird, if you get 90’s in 3 courses and a 70’s in the other 2, congratulations your GPA just went down the drain. My advice: set a goal for what GPA you want, if you know you’re safely in the range, start focusing on other courses.Don’t leave anything blank. If writing F = ma can give you one mark, write it down (cough cough, it actually happend to me). You will see the pricelessness when right before the exam you are calculating what you need for the mark you were aiming for. Study just enough to write down at least some good sounding rubbish in the answer space.Always keep in mind, we don’t live in the USSR, even though the TTC was North America’s best transit system in 2017 (no comments), expect delays. keep buffers if you have to reach skule for important lectures/exams/labs. U of T sends out emails for transit delays sometimes, but be prepared.