r/uwaterloo

Caught using phone on final ECE exam. Professor took pics of evidence and watcard photo. Pulled out phone during exam and searched up answers cause was getting stressed. I was wondering if anyone has any advice especially to convince associate dean that it was opportunistic and not premeditated.

How did we all do guys?

Hi

Is co op competitive? What if I cant find anything?

Going into 4B and I’m so tired with them increasing my already insanely expensive tuition. I want to make the most of my money on campus this fall, what are some ways to capitalize off of the fees I am paying?

I already go to campus gyms, take a fair amount of public transit, study hard in my courses, etc. I’m talking about niche things that people might not know about.

Any free things on campus you guys recommend?

any past TAs????

The end of one term and the beginning of the next (especially when it's the Fall term), brings about many emotions. Many of you are insanely ecstatic about starting your dream coop. Some of you just failed a course, or maybe even the term. Some of you are going through a million challenges at once, from a failed exam, no coop, and the death of a loved one, it just feels like the challenges and hard times don't stop. You've almost attempted to end yourself. For others, you got some good news that you spent years waiting for. You graduated after longer than you expected, your brother survived his battle with cancer, your research paper got published, etc.

No matter what you're going through, just remember: "This too shall pass", just take a breather. No matter how bad it is, you'll be looking back at this in a year and tell yourself how important that event was for your character development. For those in their good times, make the most of it, enjoy it to the fullest.

I hope this message reaches the right person! Good luck to you all. Rise and rise!

Following up on a topic I've been thinking about a lot lately.
I always hear people relying on instant ramen, Costco rice pouches, or just walking to the Plaza. But honestly every time I rely on takeout or cheap frozen meals for a week straight I feel like garbage. Low energy, bloated, and gym progress completely goes away.
At the same time ordering anything decent on doordash or uber eats gets ridiculous once all the service fees, delivery fees, and tips get stacked on.
I'm trying to figure out if anyone here has actually found a good workaround. Are you guys just spending hours every Sunday batch cooking protein and rice for the week, or did you find some local setup that actually works? How are you balancing eating clean without cooking every day or spending too much?

I swear I was hit in the head with a brick before I walked into that final. It feels like all the questions I've seen before but just couldn't remember how tf to do them.

im scared

sosososososo scared sososososo scared alr failed once so sososos scared help someone pls tell me theyre in the same boat

Hi everyone. My average in grade 11 was mid 70’s for functions, chem, physics, english.
I’m trying to figure out what programs I can apply to in the gta. With this type of average do you think I can even get into any program in a university?

I know I should be applying to programs I enjoy and this is backwards but any advice?…

Took the CS480 exam. At first glance, I might get a 0.

Never seen these questions before. Didn't know what they were asking, didn't know where to start.

But then I started reading word by word. Each word went into my context window. Every time a new word appeared, I attended to it with all the context from the words before.

y_i * f_w(x) = w? What does that even mean? I only recognize y_i * ŷ_i = 1. Are these related? Is this a typo? Wait — w = 1 is the answer, so is it saying y_i * f_w(x) = 1? Is this a trick question?

Wait, let's try an example. x_1 = -1, y_1 = -1, x_2 = 1, y_2 = 1.

Hmm. I don't understand what I'm supposed to do with that.

What if I substitute the values in?

Oh. y_i * w * x_i = 1 * w * 1 = w. I see. (-1) * w * (-1) = w. Ah, that makes sense.

……

d(L)/d(a). Okay, I know what d(L)/d(s) is — it's g. But then I need d(L)/d(s) · d(s)/d(r) · d(r)/d(h) · d(h)/d(z) · d(z)/d(a). Wait, how do I even differentiate matrices?

Oh — 2d) says d(L)/d(z) = g(0, 1, 1)^T. So d(s)/d(r) · d(r)/d(h) · d(h)/d(z) needs to match g(0, 1, 1)^T. Let's pattern match and get the answer.

wait, my dimensions are wrong. a is a scalar, so how did I get a 3x3 matrix? I did something wrong. Let me reconsider..

I walked out of the exam not knowing up from down, with zero confidence in any of my answers. But as we talked through the problems afterward, each one made more and more sense.

A large model, even at its lowest thinking level and using x100 less tokens, would have one-shot every problem. Instead, I iterated on every word, absorbed context from future questions to the current one, double checked, used examples, triple checked, wow.

I've never seen this type of thinking in myself ever. I'm so confused. I used to have a top-down approach. I look at a problem, think of possible solutions from the highest level, then start writing.

But now, I start writing without knowing where I'd even end up. Yet through pattern matching, was able to get to the correct result. This autoregressive behavior I exhibited was incredibly fascinating, and many standard deviations away from what I believe my normal thought process is.

How is it possible to write a solution but only understand your solution after you've written it?

This is so odd to me.
I feel like I trained a mini gpt model inside my brain. If my brain doesn't know where to start, a minigpt part of my brain, which feels completely detached from my brain, starts outputting continuously. My brain then makes sense of the output from the smaller model and completes a final polished and correct answer.

Wtf were the last few questions 😭

Hey everyone, I recently got a email saying I don’t have enough hours for my coop and that I won’t be able to get my coop credit.

Mind you my coop didn’t start till one month in and ended two weeks earlier. What should I do from here? Can I try to petition or make it a aoj?

I am very stressed out since if I don’t have this coop I won’t be able to graduate on time.

Thanks in advance

Hi! really random question, but in specifically rev east floor 1, are the bed frames wooden or metal? the website shows two different frames and i want to get a bed riser but itll really only work for a wooden frame. thank you!

For my last assignment in a course I was hit with a policy 71. I forgot to add a source that I used to my reference page (but the in text citations were there), and now my professor has sent it to the deans office, and my professor said that they would get in touch with me. But it’s been 2 weeks and the deans office hasn’t reached out to me. I was just wondering is there anything I can do.

I am staying in SJU, meaning I technically don’t have a meal plan since it’s just part of my residence fee. I understand a watcard uses flex dollars to pay for things at places affiliated with waterloo. Do I have to put money into it myself to use? and is it even worth it instead of just paying out of pocket with like my debit card?

Also, do students get discounts at places like Funcken or Melville (on architecture campus) which are on campus but technically not part of UW food services? (for melville is it only for arch students?)

edit: i’m kinda starting to feel like idek what a watcard does. I’ve already read the website but if someone can explain it in a different way i would appreciate it

I have back-to-back classes on Mondays and I’m wondering if these are doable in the 10-minute gaps:

PAS 2083 ends at 2:20 → STC 4019 starts at 2:30

STC 4019 ends at 5:20 → UTD 105 starts at 5:30

Google Maps says around 6 mins for PAS → STC and 9 mins for STC → UTD, but I’m not sure how accurate that is once you include getting in/out of the buildings

Has anyone done these walks between classes? Are there any shortcuts I should know about?