As the title states, I decided to resign from my job and go back to University for another undergrad. This was not something I thought about overnight but for a very long time since I was a sophomore. Terminating my employment with the company I work with isn’t due to any ill feelings to the team nor the company. I love working with my manager and with those in my team.
Though I enjoyed my studies in Computer Science, I never wanted to study Computer Science nor work in the IT industry as a profession since Highschool. I wanted programming to be a hobby and never for professional work. But, I ended up studying Computer Science despite never applying to the program and it turned out great.
However, I always wanted to try something new, to branch out to other fields outside of computers.
Goals of this POST
This is the first of a series of blog posts where I break down my thoughts and decisions for both myself and anyone interested. The goal is to understand and rationalize to myself whether the decision I made is foolish and figure what I want from this experience.
Here are my thoughts on how the series will be structure:
- Announce my decision to return to school <– Current Post
- Why would someone go back to school
- How did the Pandemic push Me to Make this Decision
- Why did I choose to study Math and Physics
- What are my Expectations and Goals from this
An Overview of the Program I am enrolled In
I’ve been accepted to Honours Major in Mathematics and Physics at Carleton University located in Ottawa. This means I’ll be spending the next 4 years studying Physics and Mathematics, two subjects I am very uncomfortable with. I won’t go into detail about why I would even consider going back to University nor explain why I would choose to study something I am not good at in today’s post. That is a post for another time.
What I will go over today is an overview of what the program entails from my understanding. While I do not know much about University Physics at the undergraduate level, I am a bit familiar with the realm of Mathematics due to my undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto Mississauga where I was only 2 courses short of graduating with a Minor in Mathematics.
The program is a 4 year double honours program and requires students to complete 21.0 credits as opposed to the regular 20.0 credits an average honours program requires. Enrolling in a double honours program or a combined honours means
pursuing a double major does reduce the student’s overall number of elective courses
Similar to UofT, CarletonU follows the same credit weight where the completion of a typical 4 month course amounts to 0.5 Credit. A typical 4 year program requires students to complete 20.0 credits (i.e. 40 courses). Some programs do require more such as the program I am enrolled in or in Engineering where it’s not rare for students to take 6 courses in some semesters to complete their degree on time without taking an extra semester (i.e. summer school).
While I could not find much information about the program, the Mathematics Program and Admission webpage describes the program as:
an elite program that allows you to combine intense study of Mathematics with modern Physics. It will also prepare you for advanced study in theoretical Physics.
Keeping this description in mind and taking a look at the program requirements this seems to be accurate. Many students outside of Mathematics and Computer Science are unaware of the breadth and depth Mathematics can be. Talking with those outside of the realm of Mathematics, they seem to have a misunderstanding of what Mathematics is and I don’t blame them. Highschool mathematics and general mathematics courses students take in first year such as Calculus for Engineers do not do a great job exposing students to the realm of Mathematics. There’s a lot of great videos explaining what Mathematics entails such as What I wish I knew Before Becoming A Math Major, The Map of Mathematics, and many more such as videos from 3Blue1Brown and Zach Star.
Since the Mathematics courses I took in undergrad were only for Math majors, they are not eligible for transfer to the program I am enrolled in. This may come as a surprise to others because how different could Math for Mathematic Major differ from Math for Honours. The key difference between the two is the analysis and theoretical depth component that is lacking in the regular math courses for the Math courses taken by Engineers or by Math majors.
A good illustration of the difference between a Math course for non honours students and a Math course for honours is to look at Calculus offered at UofT. There are many Calculus courses at UofT such as Math for Life Science, Math for Engineers, and Math for Business. Their focus is very different from each other. But within the Math department, there are different levels of first year calculus depending on the level of Mathematics the student wishes to pursue. For students in the Math Specialist (i.e. honours Math equivalent at CarletonU), students must enroll in Calculus with Proofs (MAT137). This math course is notorious for its difficulty. It’s so difficult for the average student that the department allows any students who perform poorly in the course to transfer to the less rigorous Math course (i.e. Calculus for Math majors) in the middle of the semester. This is unheard of in any course I’ve seen because usually if you do poorly, you’ll have to drop the course and wait for a semester or even an entire year to enroll in another calculus course. This isn’t even the hardest and in-depth first year calculus course the university offers from what I heard. Due to this difference in approach and depth, I am required to take all my Math courses again (with the exception of Mathematical Reasoning.
On the bright side, I am starting my degree with 3 Credits (6 Courses) out of 21.0 Credits (42 Courses) so I am not exactly starting from scratch. Though all the courses I have are non-core credits (i.e. not in Physics nor in Mathematics) with the exception of Mathematical Reasoning:
- 1 Course in Computer Programming
- 2 Courses Outside of Science and Engineering
- 2 Free Electives
- 1 Course in Math (Mathematical Reasoning)
This gives me the flexibility to fit 6 courses of my interest during the duration at the University (or 4 courses if I do not want to take more than 5 courses/semester). I have some courses in mind such as a course in Compilers, Distributed Computing and Graphics Programming. These were the courses I was very interested in taking but did not due to various reasons during my previous undergrad.
There are also some courses that overlap between the Mathematics and Computer Science departments I wish to enroll in but I’ll have to see if I can fit those in my schedule. There are times where I have considered switching my program to a Math major just to gain that flexibility in the Math courses I can take but I’ll wait and see how I perform in first year before making any decisions.
Summary
I am resigning from my job and returning to school for another undergraduate in Honours Major in Mathematics and Physics where I’ll be studying intensive Math and Physics for the next 4 years. While I do not know what I’ll do with my studies, I’ll be trying to explore and rationalize my decision in the next few posts and over the years. Only time can tell.
Some additional details are that I’ll be retaking almost all my Math courses since the Math courses I’ve taken are only for Math majors which are not rigorous enough for the Honours Program. Luckily I was able to transfer a few courses to cover the breadth requirements and the introductory computer programming course so I can make room to take senior-level Computer Science courses for fun.
Edits
2021-05-23: Mathematical Reasoning was transfered without any action on my part