University Notes

Taking high quality notes is crucial towards any student’s success in EngSci. I’m proud to say that I do in fact take notes! … some of the time. Needless to say, I am still working on the “high quality” part.

Anyways, here I provide a non-extensive collection of notes I’ve taken and labs I’ve written in EngSci courses, in the miraculous case that a fellow struggling EngSci thinks these are useful. If courses are missing, it means I either took the notes with paper and pencil, or just didn’t take them at all (oops).

YEAR 1

I took pretty much all of my notes with paper and pencil in first year. The pdfs linked below served more as course summaries that I made for myself to study for midterms and finals.

FALL

• ESC103 – Engineering Mathematics and Computation
• PHY180 – Classical Mechanics, Pendulum Lab

WINTER

• ECE159 – Fundamentals of Electric Circuits
• ESC190 – Data Structures and Algorithms
• MAT185 – Linear Algebra
• MSE160 – Molecules and Materials

YEAR 2

After my roommate Brian got me hooked on learning vim in the second term of second year, I began looking towards taking notes using LaTeX and vim (also largely inspired by a fellow EngSci legend known for his LaTeX notes – his are much better than mine). Figuring out how to make LaTeX and vim work together was really time consuming, but with the help of this guy’s articles and a lot of Googling, I finally figured it out.

FALL

• MAT292 – Calculus III (ODEs)
• PHY293 – Waves and Modern Physics, Labs:
  • Franck-Hertz
  • Wave Phenomena

WINTER

• BME205 – Fundamentals of Biomedical Engineering
• ECE259 – Electromagnetism
• ECE286 – Probability and Statistics
• PHY294 – Quantum and Thermal Physics
  • Course notes
  • Interference and Diffraction Lab
  • Millikan Experiment
  • Rydberg Lab

YEAR 3

Coming soon.

For those who are considering switching out of EngSci

Honestly, not a bad idea. If you know what you want to do with your life and it doesn’t involve taking quantum mechanics or learning about human physiology, switching into a core-8 engineering program at UofT is probably ideal. If your grades are genuinely going straight down the drain, it might also be good to consider switching. But if you’re like me and don’t really know what you’re doing with your life, wondering what the purpose of staying here is in the middle of night while cramming for midterms, just hang in there! There’s still something special about EngSci – the breadth, the reputation, the opportunities, the pride, and especially the people you meet along the journey.

Reddit posts and videos like the one I linked to in the first paragraph of this page often give people a bad impression of the program. While there is a sliver of truth in every joke, EngSci really isn’t as bad as the internet makes it out to be. You rarely hear about the people who genuinely enjoy this program because they’re spending their time being involved in school life instead of making reddit posts about it. Every once in a while, when I’m feeling down about how I pretty much failed a midterm or just trying to make it through a tough week of assignments and labs, I watch this video to help me keep pushing on :)