You're GPA is great so you don't need to worry about that, IMO I'd list it on your resume.

I would recommend the following:

1. Do this book, attempt all the chapters if you can (you might be able to leave out threading, but I still recommend it): https://www.amazon.ca/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/0984782850 (Note: there is a better book but this is a good starting book)
   
   While concurrently (har har) reading the book, any data structures you don't know, learn. Program them and test that they work.
   
   Further, check out CSC263 materials and see if you can implement the data structures. You should also at the end of CtCI be able to attempt some of the assignments from CSC263 and complete them.
   
   Also try coding problems on hackerrank or leetcode or w/e the sites are called -- note they can be demoralizing on hard but it's worth it and you learn a lot
   
   
2. Now that it's the summer time, try to create some bigger projects. If you're going to make a smaller project then make sure you learn something inside and out... for example if you're learning Java and do something with reflection, go absolutely ham on learning how reflection works
   
   Pick a language and learn it well, again if you do Java, then know how garbage collection works and other core language features (ex: If I ask you what a GC root is, do you know? [ask yourself this in 4 months] Can you compile from the command line? Do you know what Maven is and how to use it? Can you use lambdas and the new stream API? What is type erasure? etc)
   
   C++ is great at removing your hair, but you'll learn a lot... and if you ever have to work on a C++ project you won't want to kill yourself when you accidentally do object slicing or something funny like this.
   
   
3. Learn SQL/databases/one ORM framework, and interface it with your language of choice (will make CSC343 much easier for you)
   
   
4. Try to learn some web stuff so if you come across it you won't be confused by what to do. Making your own personal site from a template is a good start
   
   
5. Learn either Git or Mercurial well, and good practices (ex: always branch and pull to the master), which will dramatically save you headaches when you get hired. You do not want to be 'that guy' who fucks up the repo...
   
   
6. Learn C or assembly if you can, this will give you the bigger picture and make CSC209/CSC258 also A marks for you (I recommend NASM but MIPS or ARM can work great too)
   
   
7. Get someone to proof read your resume, I don't know anyone who had a proper first resume.
   
   
8. IF YOU CAN... try to contribute to a massive project. Committing even a one line bug fix to a massive project can be a significant amount of work and looks really good on a resume. In fact, I've been told by multiple employers that seeing someone do work on a massive code base that isn't theirs is great brownie points for getting hired since that is what you'll be doing.
   
   Obviously put your work on github or somewhere, though I think you know that this is implied
   
   As you can see, attempting the above will directly benefit the following courses:
   
   

• CSC207 (if you do Java)
  
• CSC209 (if you do C, or C++)
  
• CSC258 (if you do any assembly)
  
• CSC236/240/263/265/373 (from CtCI, general experience, etc)
  
• CSC301/302 (if you do contributions to a large database)
  
• CSC309 (if you do any web stuff)
  
• CSC343 (databases)
  
• CSC369 (threading, other misc stuff)
  
  Sounds good doesn't it? Though this is probably only possible if you are doing literally nothing over the summer ;)

Someone that hires first years here [1]:

Resumes

I can only speak from the perspective of a smaller company, but I have several suggestions, some of which may be more applicable if you're going to apply to somewhere with less than 100 employees:

1. A good resume is a must, this is a template that I recommend, keep it one page or less Make sure you get someone else to proof read, because it's a HUGE ding to your 'getting an interview' score if you have obvious typos in your resume.
   
   
2. Some things I look for are open source contributions (github links are very valuable), even if they are just documentation changes. [2]
   
   
3. Also, make sure you include your full (legal) name, phone number, email, and mailing address. Some people don't do this and I probably won't bother emailing you to ask you for those details if you don't include them.
   
   
4. Even if you don't have any personal projects, have taken CSC240, CSC236 or CSC207 and having >80 usually means that you'll at least get an interview as a first year, but larger companies probably won't know the significance of having taken 240.
   

• If you want an internship at big-4, you will probably need to talk to an on-campus recruiter at somewhere like YNCF, or have an internal reference. I don't know anyone that even got an interview as a first year except for within those means.
  
  

5. If you've placed in a hackathon or have interesting (or challenging, and well put together) personal projects, that's also good enough to at least land an interview at my company.
   
   

   Cover letters
   

   Some companies will care about cover letters -- I personally count it as a negative if you include a cover letter that is obviously templated:
   
   Dear hiring manager, I see you are doing [some random thing copied from our website] and I am myself very passionate about [that thing]...
   
   If you are actually reaching out specifically to join my company because you know someone else that's worked here, or you've used our product and want to work with us for that reason, a cover letter is probably appropriate.
   
   

   Interviewing
   

   Interview in as many places as possible. There are really only two things you should be focusing on as a first year: Cracking the Code Interview, and not being too nervous.
   
   Seriously. Buy cracking the code interview [3], and spend a week or so solving problems and learning memoization / pointer manipulation / dynamic programming. You'll be SO much better off.
   
   I find that if you think of every interview as "interview practice for when it matters in later years" you will not be so nervous as a first year. Expect to not know the answers to some questions, and just explain what you are thinking to get "part marks." Freezing up looks much worse than going down the wrong path with confidence.
   
   

   References
   

   [1] I'm CEO of ParseHub -- you can contact me at [email protected]
   
   [2] I also do optional lectures for CSC207 on Fridays noon-1PM @ BA1200, one of which will be on how to make open source contributions. Feel free to email me if you want to come.
   
   [3] It's available on amazon

Of these, I've only taken SMC229, and I took it in Spring 2014. If you do the reading, you'll understand the content and be fine for the midterm test and possibly even the essay. If Jenna Sunkenberg is teaching it, she is a very caring and intelligent instructor. If you express any challenges you have to her (via email or during her office hours), she will help you to understand the content better. She is also open to creative submissions of final assignments, if that isn't too intimidating.

The weekly reading doesn't tend to be long, but it can be dense and full of terms you haven't seen before. Read them before class and make notes with your questions. Most of your questions will be resolved during lecture. The year I took it, the textbook wasn't terribly expensive.

If you're on a waitlist, you might not get off of it easily, since it's a mandatory course for a Book and Media Studies major or minor. The program has grown a lot in the last years and the courses aren't big enough to accommodate the students who are interested. Generally the people who take the class are friendly and could be interested in doing things like studying together. There will be a few moments in lecture where you'll have to talk to other people about ideas you had while reading.

So here are some options I recommend:

• (Advanced) Go through a few chapters of Spivak's Calculus. This is the MAT157 textbook and will over prepare you for the course and you will probably do very well. This will require a lot of self motivation, but I think is worth it (I went through a bit of Spivak's after 137). Keep in mind that this material is more rigorous than what you will see in MAT137
  
  
• (Computer Science) If you're a CS student, grab How to Prove It. You will be dealing with a lot of proofs in MAT137, CSC165, 236/240, etc. This is a more broad approach and is not directly calculus, though what you learn will help for 137. Also, get familiar with epsilon-delta proofs.
  
  
• (At your own pace: videos) Khan Academy tries to build an intuitive knowledge of calculus, which is something that MAT137 also tries to do. The videos are well done and you get points and achievements for watching them (gamification is great), you can watch the videos in your free time and it's fun(?).
  
  
• (At your own pace: reading) One of the (previous?) instructors for MAT137 has some really good lecture notes, which you can read/download here. This is essentially the exact content of the course, if you go through it, you will do well. Try to read at least up to page 50 (the end of limits chapter), and do the exercises.
  
  You can find all the textbooks I mentioned online, if you know what I mean. All of these assume you haven't seen math in a while, and they all start from the very basics. Take your time with the material, play around with it a bit, and enjoy your summer :D
  
  EditL this article describes one way you can go about your studies

157 is very different from most other first year university courses. The lectures are helpful because they illustrate the ideas, but they don't get you familiar with any particular type of problem or prepare you for the tests/exams. Also, for most first year math/science courses, textbooks are really just there to provide you practice questions. It's different for MAT157. You need to actually read it, from the first page to the last, understanding every single line of it. It's a tough book, but also an amazing one. I think you will enjoy it if you do like math.

https://www.amazon.ca/Calculus-Michael-Spivak/dp/0521867444

You have 4 months before September. Even 10 mins/day of work will be enough for you to finish this book prior to the course starts. Good luck.

High school performance has very, very little to do with how prepared you are for MAT157. In fact you could probably argue that no high school preparation is even needed since the course starts everything from scratch: you'll start with the basic properties of numbers, formally construct the Real Numbers, and work your way up to infinite series - the whole course is very self-contained.

SAT/AP math is gonna be different by a long shot because MAT157 is a course emphasizing proofs - there's hardly any "number crunching" anymore. If you do not have any experience with proofs (perhaps through math contests and stuff like that) then I strongly recommend taking MAT138 (if Prof. Alfonso Gracia-Saz is teaching, this will be a really great class). While you can certainly pull off a good MAT157 performance without MAT138 (I only took MAT138 in the Winter), it's going to be a steep learning curve, and trust me, you want to be very comfortable with proofs involving sets before tackling Dedekind cuts.

(Edit: As an alternative to MAT138, you could work through Galovich's An introduction to proofs and problem-solving during the summer. It's the MAT138 textbook.)

As far as courses go just take the math-oriented ones like algos and data structures seriously. It's about developing your problem solving ability more than anything. Strong problem solver, strong interviews. Also developing an intuitive understanding of complexity and problem classes will help you to think clearly.

For interview-specific stuff courses won't help you. Pick up Cracking the Coding Interview and Elements of Programming Interviews. The latter used to be called Algorithms for Interviews which is also good.

Protip: last time I checked all these books were available through Safari Books Online, which most university libraries give you access to for free.

Hey,

ECE212.


ECE241 - You learn C++ and OOP fundamentals in this course. We didn't have a textbook when I took it. Just online notes.

ECE241 - Stephen Brown is a prof at UofT and a great lecturer. I also still have this book if you are interested in buying from me!

ECE216 - Might still have this book if you're interested.

ECE221 - Professor Stickle probably will teach this course. Great lecturer but his tests/exams are notoriously hard.

ECE243 - Did not have a textbook when I took the course. Prof. Moshovos provided course notes online.

ECE297 - No textbook for this course. It's like a mini design project that lasts all semester where you have to build a concurrency based storage server in a team of 3. Picking a good team of programmers and technical writers is imperative.

Protip: Next time check TUSBE for textbook names and buying second-hand textbooks.

PS: Congrats on getting through 1st year, 2nd year will be tough.

thanks for the tip! I didn't yet go through CTCI and won't have the time to cover the entire thing. If it isn't too much to ask, would you mind telling me which of the chapters are the most important? I know Recursion/Dynamic Programming (Chapter 8) is really important, but what else? (If you don't have the book the contents page is here if you press the "Look Inside" button on the picture. Thanks very much again!

Oh man 2011 was probably the hardest MATA31 revision. Don't worry, about that midterm though, the course content is really different now, that was when CSC/MATA67 used to be merged with MATA31, so they did a lot more set theory/number theory in MATA31 than they do now. I doubt most people who took MATA31 (and did well) could even pass that midterm just because we don't learn that stuff in MATA31 anymore. If you're trying to get started on studying for MATA31 now, I actually recommend you don't learn MATA31 material. Instead, improve on your critical thinking skills which your high school has definitely not given you. "Find" a book called how to prove it and go through maybe the first two or so chapters which just introduce proofs, and start to build up your proof skills. Becoming comfortable with proofs will come in handy immensely for CSCA67, MATA37, and in a big chunk of MATA31.

You'll need to have some experience coding a few hundred lines and also have experience using a debugger. You'll also be expected to do readings which I highly recommend and the concepts are not that trivial; you'll need to wrap your head around concepts in 369 until it finally clicks. Implementing them in C isn't too bad, make good use of office hours and tutorials. Worst case scenario just get a good partner.

here's the textbook I was assigned, its a good read too: https://www.amazon.ca/Modern-Operating-Systems-Andrew-Tanenbaum/dp/013359162X

If you're looking for a book on library research, I can recommend The Oxford Guide to Library Research, which is a comprehensive guide to forming a research question, and the tools you need to execute your search.

Book: Cracking the Coding Interview Learn it and learn it well. Also, don't forget Java after 207. Very few PEY jobs use C (which is the primary language for second/third year), so good java skills are more important to have.

Why don’t you pick up a Bluetooth keyboard off Amazon?

this one seems like a good deal but at that price you should be able to find a decent mechanical one

If you do decide on it, definitely read this beforehand:

http://www.amazon.ca/How-Prove-It-Structured-Approach/dp/0521675995

https://www.amazon.ca/How-Become-Straight-Student-Unconventional/dp/0767922719?th=1&psc=1&source=googleshopping&locale=en-CA&tag=googcana-20&ref=pd_sl_1yhclkjrqs_e

https://www.amazon.ca/How-Prove-Structured-Daniel-Velleman/dp/0521675995/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501343615&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+prove+it

1. Learn everything in this book
   
   
2. http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~david/csc165/resources/csc165_notes.pdf
   
   Learn the information of chapter 4 in this book, in particular the stuff from page 90 to the end of the chapter

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/0984782850/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_kGRIBbQ23XWQC

Yea we used some of the questions from that in the lectures. If you really want answers just work on similar problems from last year's textbook (pdf on libgen too). Or even from the year before which still has recommended exercises.

​

It's really not good to be reliant on the answers though.

I took the course with absolutely no background in French and the majority of the students also didn't have any background in French. I found the class to be very easy, but that might not be true for everyone. If you're worried about it, you could purchase a copy of the textbook in advance and go through it. Like I said, though, it's pass or fail, so you don't need to excel but just get by. You'll have plenty of time to enhance your French reading abilities when (and if) you need them.