i wanted to recap some of the highs and lows from completing my first year of university. i've decided to break this down into three sections.
- my 1A term
- my co-op term
- my 1B term
my 1A term: sep to dec 2023
- i made friends! a combination of living on res, being in a small, cohort-based program, and attending all of the O-week activities made it super easy to meet new people. not making any friends was one of my biggest fears going into uni and i'm glad that this wasn't an issue at all.
- after a few weeks or so, i got really settled into being on campus and being away from my family. it was hard at first to live away from home but bi-weekly visits back to Mississauga was a really good balance. living away from home made me appreciate my parents so much more once i realized how much they had been doing for me.
- i got a co-op first cycle during my 1A term. this made it really easy to focus solely on my coursework for the remainder of the term. i got ranked first for 2/2 interviews, and i ended up choosing questrade for my first co-op. i got a job as a help desk technician which wasn't very aligned with my long term career goals, but i was pretty much desperate for any job during this time.
- unfortunately, i didn't join any clubs because i was pretty shy towards the upper-year students. this is something that i definitely regret, because it would have been a great experience to work in technical positions earlier on. i was technically on a design team but i quit after like two weeks lol.
- i got dean's list! it was a really big goal of mine ever since i started university and i was really relieved to have gotten it. it was honestly the biggest motivator for all of my studying throughout the term.
- i survived, lol. i know that a lot of people burn out, drop out, or transfer during their first year but i'm really happy with the path that i have chosen to pursue. while i had a lot of fun this term, i still remember the ecstatic feeling of finishing my last exam, and driving back home to get ready for christmas.
my co-op term: jan to apr 2024
- i worked my first full-time job. working full-time was a really big change of pace compared to being a student, and it was really challenging at first. but once i got used to my schedule, i realized that being able to come home in the evening and do whatever i wanted was such a blessing.
- i had really great co-interns. we were fully in-person so we spent all day together, and i even commuted with one of my co-interns on some days. we had a really great group dynamic and we were always laughing together, and going on little adventures around the office, or around the city at lunch time.
- my job was honestly pretty brutal. a lot of my work involved customer service, which was really headache-inducing. there was also a bunch of manual labor, but i didn't totally mind. i sincerely hated my commute though, which was 1h 45mins each way (and i worked in person 5 days a week...). we also really didn't like our managers and directors. questrade is honestly a fake company and the people are all dumb.
- i got a gym membership for the first time in my life lol. this felt like a big milestone and i enjoyed sticking to a workout routine.
- working such a terrible job was a rly big motivation to do more grinding and find better co-ops in the future. every day, my co-interns and i would stalk successful people on LinkedIn and we would dream about working more prestigious jobs at more prestigious companies. so, i started to learn more coding on the side and start building side projects during my spare time. my advice to anyone younger than me would be to gain as much experience as possible outside of school ASAP bcuz the market is rly competitive, and starting earlier would be really beneficial.
my 1B term: may to aug 2024
- i made a lot of new friends within my program. i think that in 1A, there were a lot of classmates that i had never spoken to, but in 1B i had pretty much gotten to know everyone. i have really grown to love the social culture in SYDE and its something that i'll continue to look forward to for every study term in upper years.
- i joined two intramural teams: ultimate frisbee and innertube water polo. the former was oddly competitive and i hate cardio so it was pretty hard for me. the latter was a complete joke, and we never won a game.
- my friends and i made an effort to go out a lot more and spent more time outdoors, since this was a summer term. every week, we would try to plan something fun, like seeing a movie, going out to a restaurant, or browsing uptown waterloo. it definitely took away from our study time but we just didn't care.
- i joined a few clubs. i ended up joining Blueprint and WAT.ai, and my experiences with both clubs have been great so far. a lot of the work that i do is very relevant towards my long-term career goals, and the people that i've met and have worked with have all been so nice and talented.
- the co-op search was absolutely miserable. i got a job during cycle 4 or 5, after taking like 12 interviews and receiving only two offers. i accepted a job as a developer for the university, which is definitely better than my previous co-op, but realistically isn't very impressive. this co-op search taught me a lot. i truly underestimated the value in practicing leetcode. i failed a bunch of technical interviews which made me spiral into a mindset that i wasn't good enough. this really took a toll on my mental health, and finding a job was on my mind 24/7. however, i've come to realize that the market is very competitive and recruiters expect way too much in junior applicants. in the end, facing so much rejection and taking so many interviews was very beneficial in the long run, and i think that my next co-op search will go a lot better than this one did.
- i got dean's list this term as well. truthfully, i was very surprised because my grades in 1B were a bit worse than my 1A term, since my friends and i took this term a lot less seriously. and our courses this term were much easier so i figured that everyone else would do better than me lol. i also found a co-op very late which made it even harder to prioritize my coursework.
- again, i survived 1B finals season lol. while my courseload was very light, there were a handful of courses that i never even touched. i was usually asleep during class, or not even in class. so, when finals season came around, i had to learn like eight weeks of content for 3-4 courses. the fact that i passed these exams was a miracle. i'm also really thankful for having such great friends to study with during this time.
overall, first year went pretty well. 1B was about three times as fun as 1A was, but i made a ton of core memories throughout my entire first year. a lot of upper year SYDEs say that 1B is the best term, so it kinda sucks that the best is now behind me, and there's not really anything to look forward to anymore. i guess i'm really looking forward to applying to exchange programs tho.
i plan on discussing my thoughts on waterloo's co-op culture in another blog.