End of the First Term

Term 1 is over, and I'm at home in England for Christmas at the moment. I got my results a few days ago, averaging 86% which I am very pleased with, with all modules above 80%.

My first time in Canada has been fun. I've enjoyed being part of the cross-country team, live with decent people and got on with my course mates. All engineers at Waterloo do co-op degrees meaning they spend a term at uni, then go work for a term, so my course mates will be all different next term.

The teaching at Waterloo has been mainly good, one lecturer was very poor (bad level of English) but that could, and does, happen anywhere. The weekly tutorial slot was used differently by each module. Some using it to go over problems, others to summarise the previous week's work, and the civil module used it as a bonus lecture period. Tutorials were in groups of 30 but typically only 10 turned up so you could get the TA (teaching assistant, a post-grad student) to go over whatever you needed help with and I think are a good idea to aid learning.
Something I like over Warwick was a high-level of assessed work. The civil course had weekly marked assignments, the others had much more marked lab/project work than at Warwick. combined with mid-term and end-of-term exams I much prefer this system than just a little assessed coursework and a big exam in June. It means I get nice Christmas holiday with no work or revision, the first since pre-GCSE. The module exams were typically 55-60% final, 25-30% mid-term and 10-20% coursework.

I've selected my courses for next term, much easier this time since I have a better idea of how the system works and how module level is indicated. Lectures begin on the 7th January and I fly back on the 3rd, spending a few days with my cousins in Sarnia before heading back to uni.

So far I'm glad I went on this exchange, it's been a change, but it will be nice to get back to Warwick next year.