Best products from r/uwaterloo

Let me first of all congratulate you, as you should yourself, on recognizing that you are having some difficulties and for seeking some form of help. Admitting that to yourself allows to you do something about it.

Be kind to yourself. We are all human, and we all have our own strengths and weaknesses. Some people struggle with anxiety and low mood more than others, but that's ok. It doesn't make you any less of an amazing person, it just means that you have to find some healthy mechanisms with which to deal with it and try to nip it in the bud when you feel you are on the edge of the downward spiral. It's like learning to put a plaster over a sore heel before it becomes a blister, and then to change your shoes to something more comfortable whilst it gets better.

Sometimes you may fall down the spiral a little. That's ok too. It's like getting a cold. It sucks, but it's treatable and it won't be forever. You are stronger than you think and you have the power to pull yourself out of it (although it may not always feel like it). This will sometimes be harder than other times (some colds are worse than others), but you are strong, smart and resilient. Your brain is plastic enough that you have learned all the things you've learned since you were born, to get all the way to uwaterloo. Processes like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) use that plasticity to change the way you think about things and make you less anxious over time. There are self-guided books to help with this and sometimes courses offered by counselors/psychologists.

Find some things that make you happy. That sounds like a standard, throwaway line, but hear me out... I know this is not easy when you are feeling anxious - but think back to a time when you remember being happier and less anxious. What did non-anxious you enjoy doing? What relaxed non-anxious you? Do you have a cool photo of non-anxious you smiling and doing something you loved? One of the symptoms of anxiety and depression is that it sucks the motivation out of you and stops you remembering the joy of things. Do one of those things that you remember making you happy. At first it will feel like a grind, but over time you may find that the joy of those things starts to come back, if not slowly at first.

Do something that engages your senses. Anxiety can make you feel like you are stuck in the space between your brain and eyeballs. That's the space where overthinking happens - it's like having your eyes open but not seeing the world around you. There are a few things I would suggest to try and get yourself out of that space...

1. Sit in a space where there are people around. You don't necessarily have to engage with them. Hear their voices. See people coming and going. Feel the change in temperature when the door opens and closes. Notice things. Feel them. Smell the coffee being made.
   
2. Do some exercise. I don't just mean lift weights, although certainly do that if that's what you like. Do a sport that you enjoy. It doesn't have to be competitive. Go throw a basketball. Play soccer. Do yoga. Exercise also makes your body produce happy hormones.
   
3. Do some mindfulness training/meditation. There are many guided mindfulness meditations on youtube. There are also a number of books (e.g. https://www.amazon.ca/Mindfulness-Based-Stress-Reduction-Workbook/dp/1572247088/ ). Turn off all other phone notifications whilst you listen to them. The trick is to concentrate on your body - something the majority of people don't ever do in our fast-paced lives. It can really help alleviate anxiety. I believe counselling services also offer courses on mindfulness - this is well worth looking into.
   
4. When you are doing day-to-day things (e.g., taking a shower, washing dishes...), really DO them. Concentrate on how the water feels and how it sounds. Listen to the dishes clink against each other and how they sound different to one another. Smell the soap. Hear the bubbles popping.
   
5. Get out in nature. Remember how big and incredible the world is, and the infinitesimally small probability that it came to exist at all! Hear the birds tweeting. Watch Spring slowly taking over. Not too many thousands of years ago, out ancestors roamed the plains outside. We are still built for that environment and our concrete jungles can make us get stuck in our own heads.
   
   Life is a lot bigger than university, exams and interviews. Whilst getting rejected from interviews or not showing up for them is painful now (and I am in no way suggesting that it isn't), maybe future-you won't even remember these interviews in a few years time, so give present you some kindness and care.
   
   We can do our best to set ourselves up for success, but the world is full of randomness and things out of our control. Try not to stress about things you can't control. Be healthy, try your best (but not to the detriment of your well-being), do the things that make you happy and care for the people you care about.
   
   Please do not give up on seeking professional help. Continue to seek help from medical professionals. Ask your doctor for a referral to a psychiatrist if you can. Talk to family and friends if you can. Continue to try counselling services and the workshops they offer.
   
   I'm not a professional, but I hope some of my personal advice may have been useful to you. Another book that may be worth a read is: https://www.amazon.ca/Depressive-Illness-Curse-Strong-Cantopher/dp/0859699749/
   
   Do not hurt yourself. You are more important than you can possibly know. Look at the way you are feeling as a 'blip'.
   
   Try to remind yourself that you WILL feel better.

Edit: Here, let me grab your attention with some "bunk psychology" from le rebel media

Many of the links I'm posting are business-centric, which is supposedly cold and callous to common social issues. That's my point; even the beloved profit motive wants diversity. What you want to say is that it's all propaganda.

>Read Freud, Jung, Lacan, maybe even Zizek since you're a commie.

Yes, and what exactly, from their works, indicates an inclusive and skin-colour neutral approach to who you meet in society is regressive? Carl Jung? The guy who proposed that similar thoughts, images, mythologems, ideas and feelings are arisen from archetypes regardless of class, race, time period or location?

but yeah the psychology I mentioned sure is bunk

and yup, the openness to other cultures sure isn't a part of western success at all

Skeptics like you probably say diversity is only an artifact of success rather than a contributor, arguing that diverse populations flock to these places because they are rich or are becoming rich, but yea, nah. Not the case.

Look, it's perfectly fine to feel a sense of unity with those who share a similar background with you. But you're not for something, you're against something, and that is all non-white immigrants, and you play down the role they have had in Western society, the larger world, and in any individual's life, because of your trust in in-group bias.

You also hate integrated immigrants, that is, second-generation non-white, simply because they probably hail from a different culture. Lmao at "Whiteness/white purity/nationalism is responsible for the current western 'stable' society". The conservative backlash against immigration is nothing new. Before the 1920s in the US, it was Eastern and Southern Europe.

https://www.amazon.com/Strangers-Land-Patterns-American-1860-1925/dp/0813531233

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3856769/

People who believe fundamentally in social divisions like you lose track of what is actually real, and people like you who pretend non-white people aren't as valid as white people in the functioning of our current society, its past, its improvement, and in any person's social, cultural lives are wrong.

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/collaborating-across-cultures

http://www.npr.org/2014/03/21/292225798/does-diversity-on-research-team-improve-quality-of-science

obviously there can be conflict

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/cultural-disharmony-undermines-workplace-creativity

Honestly, so many of these ideas about "inter-cultural communication" is just common courtesy, openness, respect, and common ground.

>The best subjective understandings you'll ever have in life are not "facts", or even concepts that should be put into words.

Yes, and when my subjective understanding cannot be put into words, what can I do? How would I convey any of that to you? The facts and results give you a sense of how that understanding is applying through the broader public, as those are not subjective. What else can I show you? I've already talked about in general accessible terms what inclusivity and diversity is about, so I don't know what else you want from my comments.

You're asking for some "novel" wisdom from me, as if I need to build up on top of the inclusivity hegemony, its motivations and past analysis. You call yourself an intellectual yet you want me to explicate all of this to its bone? No thanks. To any layman, their "subjective understanding" is indeed good enough to understand what I've posted so far, so that is good enough for me. I'm not going to start going into post-structuralist theory just for you.

>I'm obviously not reading any of your articles

yea.

>I'm done with you now, it's sad to watch someone clutch onto Google as an argument.

The point isn't to teach you the philosophy behind this through these articles. I want to see how'd you debunk this general consensus people have come to regarding inclusion and diversity. Which so far is just "all of it is modern-age psychology, which is a joke". Our 1000s of year of wisdom have indeed lead us up to one of the most peaceful, advanced and productive times in history.

> I'm not going to bother addressing with a 10-foot pole

ahhhhh, of course, now I recognize who I'm talking to, lmao

>I am le post human, you are so primitive

I assure you what I've been saying is, distinctly, human.

I think your idea of seeking assistance is an excellent one. Most people don't realize the impact of mental health in tackling intellectually challenging tasks. An athlete knows that to perform well, they must take care of their physical health by working out, controlling diet, etc... Similarly, one with intellectual pursuits need to take care of their mental health, but often they are unfamiliar on how to do so. Sleeping well, eating properly, etc. are very important, and instead of a coach, as in the case of an athlete, counselling services, psychologists, psychiatrists, etc. can help in training for mental health.

Be honest when working with Counselling Services or psychotherapists. If CS hasn't been working well for you, explain to them why you think that is. They will provide you with a list of psychologists / therapists in the area. The University Health Insurance Policy (UHIP) covers 80% of the costs of a psychologist. CS will explain this to you in greater detail.

Other than that, I can recommend a few things to get in better (mental) shape.

• Hit the Gym. Working out is the best all-around fix for every problem in life. Visit /r/fitness and read the starter's list. Before you know it, you'll be sleeping well, feeling energetic and more motivated than you've every been in your life.
  
  
• Read books about things that you like. For example, if you're looking forward to a career in finance, read The Big Short. Also read some books that might help you get motivated. I recommend Talent is Overrated.
  
  
• Continue working with CS or a psychotherapist and get (mentally) fit. Even the faculty and staff at the University also take advantage of these services, because they know its importance.
  
  And remember, this is exactly why you're here in University! This is part of your education, and as you tackle these challenges, you will grow as a person. Good luck!

Yeah sure.

So right off the bat a good place to start (summary text if you want something simple with break down of the old arguments but written in Modern English and offering analysis) I would suggest Michael Sandel's Justice: A Reader, what's the right thing to do you can also watch the videos/discussions Dr Sandel has at Harvard's Justice Symposium Course (it's actually a great lecture series to just put on while you're doing something... http://justiceharvard.org/justicecourse/)

If you want a concise list of good books, I would suggest the following:

• The Republic (Plato)‡;
  
  
• The Prince (Machiavelli)‡;
  
  
• Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Nozick);
  
  
• Utopia (Thomas Moore)‡;
  
  
• The Social Contract (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)‡;
  
  
• Leviathan (Thomas Hobbes)‡;
  
  
• Politics (Aristotle)‡;
  
  
• Two Treatises on Government (John Locke)‡;
  
  
• Treatise on Property (John Locke)‡;
  
  
• On Liberty (John Stuart Mill)‡;
  
  
• The Communist Manifesto (Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels)‡;
  
  
• Reflexions sur la Revolution Francaise (Edmund Burke);
  
  
• Capital (Karl Marx)‡;
  
  
• Spirit of Laws (Montesquieu)‡;
  
  
• Natural Right and History (Leo Strauss);
  
  
• Modern Liberty: and the Limits of Government (Charles Fried);
  
  
• Concept Political (Carl Schmitt);
  
  
• The Constitution of Liberty (F. A. Hayek);
  
  
• The Wealth of Nations (Adam Smith)‡;
  
  
• The Road to Serfdom (F. A. Hayek);
  
  
• Freakonomics ();
  
  
• The Law (Frédéric Bastiat)‡;
  
  
• Economy and Society (Max Weber);
  
  
• The Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism (Max Weber);
  
  
• Politics as a Vocation/Politik als Beruf (Max Weber)‡;
  
  The stuff with a double dagger (‡) are some critical ones I would recommend beginning with. The list is a lot longer than this because if there's one thing people can do it's write about issues of their times, but they are good nonetheless.
  
  Good luck!!

After much experimentation, you have a few options:

1. On-campus
   

• EngSoc C&D: Though not world-class, the coffee is very inexpensive. It runs at about $1 per cup. It's less if you bring your own mug. A++ would recommend if caffeine boost is all you need. Cash only. Profits go to Engsoc.
  
• Mathsoc C&D: Similar quality to the EngSoc C&D, and around the same price as the EngSoc C&D. Cash, Debit, and Visa. Profits go toward C&D improvements (furniture & appliances).
  
• Science C&D: I've only stopped by once while it was open, and didn't buy coffee :(. Cash only. I assume profits fund SciSoc.
  
• ENV C&D: I've heard amazing things about the C&D, and it seems like it's run very well. Similar to Science, I've never had a chance to stop by, but will try to this term. They seem to be very entrepreneurial, and are one of the few non-school-run places on campus to offer catering (of limited size). Unsurprisingly, things are green/fair trade. Cash only. Profits go to improving the C&D.
  
• Arts C&D: I've never seen it open. ¯\(ツ)/¯
  
• UW Food Services (Various Locations): Coffee is consistent, both in high-prices and low-quality. Cash & Watcard everywhere, debit in some places. Profits go to the school.
  
• Williams, EV3: I've never ordered a latte, but they probably serve them here. Expect worse service & selection than the off-campus Williams, with prices ≥ off-campus. If you're choosing this, just walk to the plaza for less expensive food and improved service. They take cash, watcard, (and probably debit).
  
• 24H News, SLC: "Emergency Coffee" - don't bother, unless it's really necessary, and everywhere else is closed.
  
• Turnkey Desk, SLC: This is "Emergency Coffee" - don't bother, unless it's an emergency. Choose 24H News over Turnkey.
  
• Tim Hortons (Various Locations): Going to skip this, since it's probably well known to you.
  
  

2. Selected off-campus locations:
   

• Sweet Dreams: Despite being a tea shop, they have well-priced coffee, and awesome employees. Expect to wait a bit longer, since there's usually a line, and they use a french-press to brew the coffee after you order :'). They take cash/visa, and probably watcard.
  
• Williams, Plaza: Miles better than the one in EV3. They have better food selection than the on-campus location. Cash/visa/watcard are all accepted.
  
• Mel's Diner: Their coffee is ok, but they refill it as long as you continue to eat.
  
• DVLB: I've only been for scotch, but something tells me that I'll be holed up at DVLB for a few afternoons this term. It's a nice place to be, and they (apparently) have wifi.
  
• Second Cup: There's a second cup in the plaza. A friend worked there once, and swore to never go back. They may have what you want, but idk.
  
• Starbucks: There's a starbucks at Uni & King. Starbucks is Starbucks is Starbucks.
  
  Many places off-campus & within a reasonable walk serve coffee, but I don't know of any other notable options.
  
  At home, I use an incredibly inexpensive coffee maker: Aerobie Aeropress, with a Hario Hand Mill, both of which are highly-recommended by /r/coffee. I haven't been able to find an amazing place to buy unground coffee beans near campus yet, and I tend to buy beans when in Toronto.
  
  Hope this helps.

If you want to develop better software, then the following is what I recommend. I am going to use Java as my programming language of choice. I believe it's important to learn how to program well with one language first, learn key principles, and transfer the knowledge to other tools when the need arises. Google has a guide to technical development: https://www.google.com/about/careers/students/guide-to-technical-development.html.


 


1. Learn your language of choice (i.e. Java) to a beginner level.

a. Learn the basic syntax through a beginner friendly resource: https://www.tutorialspoint.com/java/.

b. Understand what is generally available to you in the standard libraries: https://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/api/.

* At this point, you would be able to program very basic software.


 


2. Learn about the third-party ecosystem for your language.

a. What IDEs are available for you to develop productively? https://www.jetbrains.com/idea/, https://eclipse.org/

b. What build tools are available for you to manage your projects effectively? https://gradle.org/, https://maven.apache.org/

c. What testing frameworks exist for you to test your code effectively? http://junit.org/junit4/, http://hamcrest.org/JavaHamcrest/

d. What are common libraries and frameworks that developers use to solve certain problems? https://github.com/akullpp/awesome-java (Most languages have a community-curated list of frameworks and libraries available to solve certain problems.)

* At this point, you will be introduced to the vast ecosystem of your chosen language. Hopefully, you can start experimenting with how to be productive as a developer through the use of general frameworks, libraries, and tools to solve basic non-trivial problems.


 


3. Learn software design patterns. Various solutions can be designed by using various common patterns ranging from various programming paradigms. Find a resource that covers the same topics as https://www.amazon.ca/Design-Patterns-Elements-Reusable-Object-Oriented/dp/0201633612.

* At this point, you will start understanding how to design basic, reusable software components.


 


4. Read Clean Code (https://www.amazon.ca/Clean-Code-Handbook-Software-Craftsmanship/dp/0132350882).

* At this point, you will learn how to name things, how to write good functions, how to write good comments, how to format your code well, and how to attempt designing certain systems.


 


5. Learn how to verify that you are writing good code.

a. You can follow a style guide: https://google.github.io/styleguide/javaguide.html.

b. You can use a code coverage framework to verify how well tested your code is: http://www.eclemma.org/jacoco/.

c. You can use a static code analyzer and linter to adhere to a style guide: https://github.com/checkstyle/checkstyle.

d. You can use a continuous integration setup to continually test your code: https://jenkins.io/index.html, https://travis-ci.org/

* At this point, you can tell yourself that you are writing well engineered code. It may not have the best performance, but the source code is adequately designed and maintained.


 


6. Learn a version control system because you want to be able to manage your projects: https://git-scm.com/.
* At this point, you are easily able to allow other people to review your code changes to verify you wrote good code.


 


7. Learn core computer science concepts. This includes algorithms and data structures: http://jeffe.cs.illinois.edu/teaching/algorithms/, http://opendatastructures.org/.

* At this point, you can start solving computationally complex problems with a toolbox of strong theoretical concepts. Do not be discouraged whether you would frequently apply these theoretical concepts because they help you learn techniques to comprehend and solve problems.


 


8. Find an area of problems that you want to specialize in, and pursue the knowledge and skills required to excel. It is important to remember that everyone sucks in the beginning, so just keep looking forward.

*. I specialize in distributed systems and databases. As a result, I read books and papers relating to concurrency, databases, consensus algorithms, and the like. By pursuing an area you are interested in, you learn various concepts and tools pertaining to that area. Recently, I was experimenting with various probabilistic filters for real-time streaming scenarios by adapting several research papers. I had to evaluate my implementations by writing various comprehensive tests and using micro-benchmarking tools.


 


I hope this helped? I want to stress that it is important to learn more of the engineering concepts and theory than the actual tools themselves. Tools come and go, so the tools I listed for my Java example may be bad. In context of myself, I followed these eight steps when I first started learning programming several years ago, and it has landed me very good opportunities: I worked in California for a big company, I got to edit a book that was published about a hipster programming language, I got free admission for some coding conferences, and I got to give a presentation at a meetup.

Alright, if you're going to make blanket statements about my motivation to post this, I'll bite.

For one, I'm not left. I'll also note tell you who I voted for but it wasn't the liberals. I'm more in support of the democratic idea that when more people vote, it makes the system less easy to corrupt and also keeps the leaders in check.

If you want to read a book about democratic processes and why you should vote when you can, and encourage others too, "The Dictators Handbook" is great and it's only like 22 bucks.

As u/blex mentioned, of course I'm not unbias as no one is. But if your problem with a post encouraging people to vote is that "liberals do it," it implies you support parties who want as fewer people to vote, which are often more corrupt parties or parties that are only acting democratically, and not truely are (see Russia and see the book I linked).

I hope you learned a little bit on why it's important to vote, and why you should encourage others to.

Thanks for the answer!

Glad to hear about Spivak! I've heard good things about that textbook and am looking forward to going through it soon :). Are the course notes for advanced algebra available online? If so, could you link them?

Is SICP used only in the advanced CS course or the general stream one, too? (last year I actually worked my way through the first two chapters before getting distracted by something else - loved it though!) Also, am I correct in thinking that the two first year CS courses cover functional programming/abstraction/recursion in the first term and then data structures/algorithms in the second?

That's awesome to know about 3rd year math courses! I was under the impression that prerequisites were enforced very strongly at Waterloo, guess I was wrong :).

As for graduate studies in pure math, that's the plan, but I in no way have my heart set on anything. I've had a little exposure to graph theory and I loved it, I'm sure that with even more exposure I'd find it even more interesting. Right now I think the reason I'm leaning towards pure math is 'cause the book I'm going through deals with mathematical logic / set theory and I think it's really fascinating, but I realize that I've got 4/5 years before I will even start grad school so I'm not worrying about it too much!

Anyways, thanks a lot for your answer! I feel like I'm leaning a lot towards Waterloo now :)

http://www-math.mit.edu/~rstan/ec/
I'll give you a brief about the book: It's really dense and probably will take you a while to get through just a couple of pages, however, the book introduces a lot of interesting and difficult concepts that you'd definitely see if you pursue the field.

https://math.dartmouth.edu/news-resources/electronic/kpbogart/ComboNoteswHints11-06-04.pdf
Is a Free book available online and is for a real beginner, basically, if you have little to no mathematical background. I will however say something, in Chapter 6, when he talks about group theory, he doesn't really explain it at all (at that point, it would be wise to branch into some good pure math text on group and ring theory).

https://www.amazon.ca/Combinatorics-Techniques-Algorithms-Peter-Cameron/dp/0521457610
This is a fantastic book when it comes to self studying, afaik, the first 12 chapters are a good base for combinatorics and counting in general.

https://www.amazon.ca/Concrete-Mathematics-Foundation-Computer-Science/dp/0201558025
I've heard fantastic reviews about the book and how the topics relate to Math 2 3/4 9. Although I've never actually used the book myself, from the Table of Contents, it appears like it's a basic introduction to counting (a lot lighter than the other books).

Regarding whether or not you can find them online, you certainly can for all of them, the question is whether legally or not. These are all fairly famous books and you shouldn't have trouble getting any one of them. I'm certain you can study Combinatorics without statistics (at least, at a basic level), however, I'm not sure if you can study it without at least a little probability knowledge. I'd recommend going through at least the first couple of chapters of Feller's introduction to Probability Theory and it's Applications. He writes really well and it's fun to read his books.

lived on the first floor of a UWP court during fall and spring term. highly recommend bringing a fan or two, especially a (reversible) window fan. had a small honeywell fan to circulate air around and a reversible window fan that fits in your sliding window.

i used my window fan to exhaust the air out in the morning or when it got hot. at night past 12:00 AM, the temperature would dip to below 20 degrees so i would use my window fan to blow air in to cool my room down by a huge factor. my room went from a sauna to a standard room with AC in 20 minutes. a window fan is very useful for a decent amount of temperature control in your room. very helpful for sleeping at night.

general ways of beating the heat would be to only go to your room to cook, shower, drop stuff off, or sleep. go to a place with AC (like grand commons or CMH) to study or do whatever instead. close all of your blinds and keep the lights off to keep your room as cool as possible. sleeping without a blanket became a necessity during the first couple weeks of september and all of july and august.

TL;DR - buy a reversible window fan

edit: formatting

I know this isn't a comment you want to read, but tbh dude, just buy this book if you haven't already read it.

I think you have a problem with being self-loathing because you're constantly comparing yourself to other girls. There's a good part in the book the really encapsulates your situation, and I think you'd benefit overall from reading it. It's $12 and it's a short read. Give it a shot.

For my own personal advice, when it comes to diet and exercise, your goal should be to develop habits, not to seek a specific weight. Focus on developing healthy habits (which it seems you are doing good). I find doing that makes me much happier rather than trying to obtain a goal hoping i'll be happier once I reach it.

hmm... As for me, i saw a lot of tech companies requiring the knowledge of c++, java and front-end development.
You could also learn either iOS development or Android development.
You definitely need to learn git.

Try "TeamTreeHouse" for 2-3 months, they have a lot of stuff there. Try some of the courses and then create some projects and put them on github to later on add to your resume.

And also, during interview when they give you some technical questions, you need to be ready for them.
https://www.amazon.ca/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X

Here is the good book for it.


GOod luck :)
Try to find a job and if you dont, try to learn as much as you can during this summer :)

Judging from your flair I assume you're SE; if not, then adjust my advice accordingly.

Of course I think that taking the courses is the best way to learn. That's why we offer the courses! But if you can't take the courses, here are a few points to keep in mind.

The kind of mastery that I'm talking about is beyond what you would need for practically anything in SE or even in undergraduate math. You only need this kind of hyper-fluency in rigour if you're planning to do a PhD in pure math or a closely related field such as theoretical CS. For everything else, MATH 135 (if learned properly) is totally sufficient. In fact, MATH 135 also teaches rigour and proofs, although the syllabus has been under frequent revision in the past couple of years as we (hopefully) converge upon an optimal solution, which means if you've taken it in the past couple of years or so, you might have been subjected to a less-than-perfect pre-beta version of the intended final product.

If you just want to brush up on your MATH 135 skills, I would recommend reading through How to Prove It, and actually doing all the exercises (no slacking). It's not as good as a Waterloo course, but it's the next best thing, and it gets you there with minimal effort (although still considerable effort -- remember, I said to do the exercises).

For MATH 145 style expert-level achievement, frankly, I don't know how to get there without a course or else some equivalent intensive experience such as a full-time undergraduate research term. If you go back and look at my course evaluations on MathSoc, students spent an average of around 15 hours per week on my MATH 145 course, and even then:

• these are the brightest students in Waterloo Math, and
  
• only about half of them, give or take, actually got to expert level (although all of them did reach the level of mere competence),
  
  and I just see no way for anyone with an SE workload to find an extra 15 hours per week for this stuff.

Asus zenbook is your best choice, it has amazing battery and really good performance, SSD, 8gb ram, i5 7th gen. It's on sale right now, definitley worth a look. https://www.amazon.ca/Asus-UX330UA-AH54-i5-7200U-Windows-13-3-Inch/dp/B01M18UZF5/

LOL it seems interesting to me. I'm reading https://www.amazon.ca/Design-Implementation-FreeBSD-Operating-System/dp/0321968972/ref=dp_ob_title_bk right now.

​

Maybe its good in theory, and not in practice.

S/O to /u/kw2002 for recommending
https://www.amazon.ca/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive/dp/0062641549/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1517184603&sr=1-1&keywords=the+subtle+art+of+not+giving+a+f+ck
like a month ago.

Pretty good book. If anyone wants my copy lmk.

Read this
It will help you pass the interview process.

But before that you need to have a strong resume to attract recruiters.
Build a personal project. Participate in algorithm contests(acm).

Don't pay too much attention to the other replies - if you really want to take Math 145/146 it's possible, it will just be a lot of work.

My marks were good in high school (but not 95+) and my score on the Euclid was terrible (in order to enrol without an override you need 80+ on the Euclid). The thing to know is these courses have heavy emphasis on proofs, so the summer before coming I worked my way through the first half of a book on proofs and ended up doing relatively well in these courses.

You can certainly do it, but you have to be really dedicated.

> how does one improve social skills?

Reading some books on how to deal with social anxiety may help. This one has pretty good recommendations. Mark Manson also has an easy to read book.

For myself, I enjoy stoic literature. It's good to know that even during times of hell, you can still find some inner peace in your mind. The point of stoicism isn't to imagine that bad things don't happen, but that you are much more capable of dealing with terrible situations than you would otherwise think.

I have this one https://www.amazon.ca/JETech-2-4GHz-Wireless-Keyboard-Windows/dp/B0173QNVT0/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2RYNNJ1Z87KNE&keywords=jetech+keyboard&qid=1565323202&s=gateway&sprefix=jetech+key%2Caps%2C153&sr=8-2

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Its cheap and reliable, much quieter than mechanical keyboards, I personally find the compact and quit much better for working in general. but you can find better at a higher price

I've had about 5 interviews with companies in the Bay Area, and in my experience all of them follow the same general sequence:

1. Resume screening. If they like you they'll ask for a phone or skype call
   
2. Three technical phone screens. Usually last an hour each, and usually 100% technical (very rarely they ask about your resume). Each interview is done by a different software engineer. After the third screening they talk to each other and discuss or vote on whether you're any good. This is the hardest part and most people don't make it past this stage.
   
3. Discussion with a high ranking engineer (e.g CTO). This is more of a get-to-know-you type thing and they usually go more into your resume here.
   
4. (Sometimes) Discussion with a non-engineer manager
   
5. If you make it here, buy a bigger wallet
   
   
   For the specific type of questions they ask, I recommend this book and /r/cscareerquestions
   
   
   edit: and the technical screenings are always live coding sessions using a shared document. That shit is nerve racking and I recommending practising before the interview.

Go find and read/memorize "Cracking the Coding Interview". It's the one book I've had consistently recommended to me by Software Engineers, hiring managers, and other co-op students :)

http://www.amazon.com/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X

I've had a 70 minute interview once, it was one long technical question with personal questions in between parts. Apparently this is the key to success for software interviews
https://www.amazon.ca/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

> The people in the BME program are exceptionally talented

https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Overrated-Separates-World-Class-Performers/dp/1591842948

Per previous suggestions, would you say the [Asus Zen Book] (https://www.amazon.ca/Asus-UX330UA-AH54-i5-7200U-Windows-13-3-Inch/dp/B01M18UZF5/ref=sr_1_1?m=A3DWYIK6Y9EEQB&s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1482451877&sr=1-1&keywords=ASUS+ZenBook+UX305FA) fits the bill? Not too expensive (for an Ultrabook, it's quite cheap) and has good reviews.

Here is a book that will help you with those tech questions during interviews: http://www.amazon.ca/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X

http://www.amazon.ca/Cracking-Coding-Interview-Programming-Questions/dp/098478280X