And I’m back with more marks and university.

My report card will be looking quite fine. However, my most recent university admissions average just took a nose dive. That stupid algeo test brought my algeo mark down four percent, leading to a drop down to a 89.5 average.

I’m a little more relaxed about marks though. Based on what my English teacher has told me, English is looking up, and I expect to gain some marks that I lost there. Also, calculus is looking good too, although I usually disappoint myself there. Then there’s the possibilities in algeo, chem, and physics, though I wouldn’t hold my breath. Physics is kicking it up a notch, and algeo and chem are always a little uneasy.

However, I’ve realized that I’m not restricted to the January scrambling that everyone else is panicking over. Hell will freeze over before Waterloo starts giving out early admissions, so I’m guaranteed that I have until April before they take a serious look at my marks. Also, my average is good enough to score me an early admission into McMaster anyway.

I’ve received some form of acknowledgement from the universities now, that they know I’ve applied to them. In fact, U of T’s came in the mail last week and McMaster’s came in the mail today. All three have already e-mailed me.

In McMaster’s package, they included the Engineering viewbook. In it, it has a list of all of the second year programs that they have for Engineering, since first year is common. Since I didn’t get this year’s book, I had a flip through it.

Now they’ve got this new program going on called Software Engineering & Game Design. When I first saw this on the OUAC application, I thought it was pretty retarded and a foolish attempt to capitalize on the university game making degree program that is so common in other universities in the States. Reading the program propaganda however, made me think about it.

See, it’s a B. Eng program, like regular Software Engineering. The difference is that it’s focussed on games. The average person will scoff at the idea of something as childish as making games, but programming games is hard. There are plenty of things you have to consider. There’s physics, human-machine interaction, psychology, and others.

Basically, it’s creating software that’s much more demanding than your average text editor. Also, it’s not like you can’t make regular software if you do game design. It just means you have more to work with.

The program combines McMaster’s Engineering superness and McMaster’s Multimedia program in Humanities. So it’s also a blend of arts and engineering, which is something I think I would enjoy quite a bit. There’s also the option of staying one extra year to get a M. Eng.

What does this mean?

I’ve been thinking — Do I really, really want to go to Waterloo? Well, they do have the best Faculty of Mathematics and Engineering in the country. They do have an amazing program that combines the strengths of both of these two faculties. They have a really good co-op system. They’re well established and have a good reputation.

But how come, more and more, I’m entertaining the thought of going to another school, namely McMaster? Is it because it’s a more sure thing, getting in? Is it because it looks way better than Waterloo’s campus? Is it because Waterloo is a lot more competitive and cutthroat? McMaster’s not a bad school. It has a good reputation and good programs.

If I choose McMaster, it’ll be way easier. I’ll get in easier. I’m not saying I don’t need to work, but at least the stress over the competition won’t kill me. On the other hand, Waterloo has it all. It’s almost as if that Software Engineering program was made for me: mathy, computery, engineeringy.

I thought I knew what I was doing. Ever since that wonderful little stumble upon Software Engineering at Waterloo I thought I knew that that was the program for me. Now, with the average dipping and the rumours of working to death, I’m looking at other options. At the moment, I’m not ready to give in, but it certainly is an entertaining thought.

Tags: marks, McMaster, School, university, Waterloo

This entry was posted on Friday, December 9th, 2005 at 10:38 pm and is filed under School. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.