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2-F. Summer Before Start
2020-09-06
Note: Relax, project, work/volunteer, study ahead, independence
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This is a footnote for the series on preparation for first year at the University of Waterloo.
Today’s topic will be on what to do during the summer before entering UW.
There’s a hundred and four days of summer vacation and school comes along just to end it! So the annual problem for our generation is finding a good way to spend it!
# Suggestions
# Relax
The first suggestion: Have fun! This is the last bit of free time you will have before getting crushed under the boots of academic and professional work. You will either be doing 60-hour weeks studying or doing 40-hour weeks on your co-op, working.
1B’s solid block of green.
# Side Projects
The second suggestion: Work on a relevant side project. Employers aren’t interested in high school assignments, nor will they be interested in (lower-year) university course assignments. The project could be an extension of an assignment, a clone of something that’s already been built, or an original started entirely from scratch. As long as you show that you were the one to implement it, and understand some additional concepts relevant to your industry, it will be something useful to add to your résumé. Smaller, completed projects are better than larger, incomplete projects (but tiny ones are useless).
Webdev projects are popular (e.g. MERN stack, React) as they are easy to get into and there is an abundance of jobs, which will help you on your first co-op search. The Odin project is a good place to start learning.
Focus on expanding your side projects, as it is important to have content that you can eventually summarize into a few point on your résumé. It’s also important to know the specific aspects of the coding language and to have algorithms and data structures knowledge passing co-op interviews.
# Work
The third suggestion: Get relevant job experience. You can work or volunteer in your industry, which gives valuable experience for your résumé. The money is not a bad thing either.
# Study Ahead
The fourth suggestion: Study ahead. Academics are hard. Even if you don’t understand the content, it’s good to know at a high level what the topic is about. I do not suggest going out of your way to buy textbooks though. For example, 3Blue1Brown has a good series on introductory calculus and linear algebra.
Of particular importance is programming in C++, as the introductory programming course ECE 150 is fast-paced, and the grade distributions are often bimodal (low because the course is often too fast for beginners, high because the first half is redundant for those who have already taken a programming course in high school). There are plenty of online tutorials, but the course website is also available.
Personally, I found that self-study is rather inefficient, especially for pre-studying. The reason is that I end up going over the content twice, and I have to spend mental effort paying attention to something I think I already know and to unlearn wrong information. However, if it works for you then you can do it.
# Independence
The fifth suggestion: Learn to become independent. At university, you will be on your own. Do you know how to do laundry? To interact with other humans? To cook? Clean? If your laptop breaks, can you do basic troubleshooting? Grocery shopping? Budgeting? Time management? Deal with housing management? Make a doctor’s appointment (or any other appointment)? The list goes on.
Driver’s licence and cooking are two skills suggested by henlo (UW alumnus, EE 2019).
# Don’t Stress
There are many things to look forward to when starting university: Maturity through adversity. Meeting new people. Weekly meetups. Independence (I can sleep whenever!). Adulting. Anime club. Student design teams. League. Being surrounded by smart people. Cali or bust. Walking on campus. Geese.
Enjoy your last few days of freedom!
# Conclusion
The important information to take away is to think about what you want to do during the summer before entering UW. Note that none of my five suggestions are mutually exclusive, nor is it exhaustive.
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