Rating Each of my Final Year Fall Courses (CS/CPSC @ UCalgary)

The last year of uni is definitely the "oh shit!" time when you look at your academic requirements and realize you need to take five 500-level CPSC courses, three 300+ level options (the only one that fits your schedule is Analysis of Slavic Music), and two of the most grueling courses you've ever taken because they're prerequisites for CPSC 5XX: Course you wanted to take since first year. OK, maybe it's not that bad.

To this day, I've never had a computer science class in the ICT building

CPSC 441 - Computer Networks

This course had a great balance between theory and practicality, because while we were given (and tested on) many equations and theoretical considerations related to packet delays, protocols, checksums, etc., it was made clear what each one was useful for.

I also felt that the mix of assessment types helped with learning. We had written assignments and in-class activities, many of which required looking back on prior course content and combining concepts. There were also programming assignments and Wireshark assignments which helped nail down the real-life aspects of what we were learning, and of course the final exam. Despite all these, the workload was not overwhelming. This specific instructor was also incredibly helpful and kind.

I would give this course a 9/10 rating, with one point lost only because I felt it was a bit packed with some concepts brushed over.

MATH 367 - Calculus III

"Why would you do that to yourself?" is a common question I am asked when people find out I took Calculus III as an option. Well,

1. Calc III concepts are super useful for many areas like graphics, AI, simulations, data science, etc.
2. All the previous math courses I've taken at UCalgary were exceptionally well-taught
3. Someone told me that its actually "The easiest of all 3 calculuses!" (calculi?).

These reasons made it a no-brainer, and so I proceeded to take it, thinking that if it was easier than Calculus I, then it must be a walk in the park. Unfortunately, it was anything but.

The course started out relatively fine, with concepts being very similar to its predecessors'. The online quizzes were not terribly difficult either. Then things started to go downhill for me:

1. New concepts began to sound nonsensical and were introduced really quickly
2. The professor seemed to forgo intuitive explanations in favour of long formal proofs
3. There was no formula sheet for the midterm (worth 30%) nor the final (worth 46%), and there's a lot of formulas and notation in this course

I usually attend lectures because it forces me to listen and absorb more information, but unfortunately the style of teaching just didn't match my learning style. As this course progressed, I started to use external resources more and more until eventually I didn't go to the lectures anymore. The tutorials were 100% helpful though.

I dedicated a significant portion of my time to Khan Academy's Multivariable calculus course and Professor Leonard's YouTube Videos which helped me to fundamentally understand most of the things in the course.

It doesn't hurt that Professor Leonard looks like a real-life Clark Kent...

With some hard work I ended up doing well and enjoying the content. From what I've heard, the difficulty of this course varies a lot between professors. I would rate the delivery of my specific lectures a 6/10 but I am still glad I took it.

If you are interested in advanced STEM concepts and think you can handle it, I still recommend this course regardless of who the instructor is.

PHIL 264 - How Do We Know?

This course is mainly about epistemology (the theory of knowledge) and is quite introspective. Lectures were more or less mandatory as in-class questions are worth 11% in total. Another 25% were some pretty easy online quizzes, and the rest of the grade came from biweekly discussion posts and two term papers (not too difficult).

I have mixed feelings about this course, because while the content was interesting in some ways, it didn't feel as immediately useful as any of my other courses. Of course, as an intro to philosophy course, it introduces a broad range of ideas without digging too deeply. I do feel somewhat more self-reflective, skeptical, and understanding of different ways of thinking after taking it.

It's a pretty solid 200-level option and I'd rate it a 7/10.

HTST 395 - History of Energy

I'd never taken a university-level history course before and this sounded quite daunting, but I do enjoy the occasional documentary and this sounded like one of the most interesting 300-level options with no prerequisites, so I decided to take it.

The professor was quite passionate and I learned about a lot of intriguing historical events related to energy sources and innovations in this course. At times, the workload felt a bit much with weekly ~30-page textbook readings that we had to journal about (worth 20% in total) in addition to a midterm, final exam, major group project, and final project.

Viewing historical archives at the university library (TFDL)

Maybe it's my lack of experience with history courses, but it felt like it was very difficult to get an A in anything major, though not too difficult to get in the B to A- range (something to consider if you're aiming for a perfect GPA).

I was super glad that there was no date or name memorization required in this course, you just needed to know about significant events and ideas and the general decades/centuries in which they occurred. I'd rate it an 8/10, but you should only take it if you do have some interest in history, otherwise it will be way more difficult.

CPSC 599 - Explorations in Software Engineering

I'm not sure if this specific course will be offered again, but it had an interesting combination of discussing release engineering and mining software engineering data. In general, I like the deeper dive that 599 courses do into their specific topics.

I appreciated that we had to read and discuss papers in this course and make our own final project with a semi-official report; it felt like a little glimpse into grad school. I wish it was more structured though and the grading felt quite harsh, especially for the later assignments. I'll give this course a 7/10.

Overall

I was happy with how this semester went despite my midway math panic. In fact, I think it has the highest average course rating yet! May my last semester go just as well or better 🤞, and I hope this helped you with your own course selections in some way.

Please feel free to ask me any questions or leave your own thoughts in the comments below :)

- Ana