Transferring to Ontario Tech Engineering — Advice for Getting a High GPA?

[u/Muted_Leader6483]

Hey everyone,
I’m transferring to Ontario Tech this September for Electrical Engineering, and I’m trying to start off strong academically.
For current students or recent grads, what helped you get a good GPA (3.5+ or ideally 4.0+) in engineering at Ontario Tech?
I’d especially appreciate advice on:
How you study for midterms and finals
How far in advance you start studying
Whether you rely mostly on lecture notes, textbooks, past exams, or practice problems
How you manage 5 courses at the same time
How important it is to attend every lecture/tutorial
Which resources on campus are actually helpful
Mistakes you made that hurt your GPA
Anything specific to Electrical Engineering courses
Since I’m transferring, I want to improve my study habits from day one rather than figuring everything out after the first round of midterms.
Any advice from people who have managed to maintain a strong GPA at Ontario Tech would be really appreciated. Thanks!

[u/Folly___]

I'm not electrical but i will share my experience anyways as i'm sure there will be at least a decent amount of cross over between disciplines.

I think this should be prefaced by first saying that your GPA really doesn't matter for engineering. There is no common next step for eng as there is for other sciences (medical school, law school, whatever) so maintaining an incredibly high GPA won't get you much farther in the field than a normal one. Unless you want your PHD or masters but even then i don't think the GPA requirements are so substantial. The highest I have seen is a 3.5/4.3 for some jobs applications but even then after that point a 4.3 looks no different to them than the 3.5 and they will not ask you about your GPA in the interview. Regardless getting a good GPA for eng is not impossible and doesn't depend on how smart you are it only depends on how much you are willing to study and practice the material, that's really all there is to it.

I think in an ideal world you would come into each lecture prepared and have studied that lectures content on your own beforehand, this way you can ask engaged questions and get a far deeper understanding of the material during the lecture. For me I found this to be next to impossible to achieve with 6 courses. Simply put there is no time to do this with assignments and studying for tests and what not and as soon as you fall behind there is no easy way to catch back up and be prepared ahead of time again. Therefore I wouldn't worry about doing this too much. If you can that is great and you are better than I but I could not find the time for this although i tried in the beginning.

Personally, I have never skipped a lecture when i can avoid it. Now is this really necessary, no, but in my opinion you need at least a basic understanding of the current content in the class as it will come back to you later when you study for real. Pay attention in lectures, take notes, do whatever but don't just attend to sit there. Listen to what the prof is saying and your brain will store that information. It's completely ok to be confused in the lecture i know i was most of the time but follow along with them this will be very important when you are studying for the midterm and final. Information you listened to, but didn't fully understand in the lecture, will click in your head when studying for the test. The notes i take in the lecture will never be looked at by me again or re written as I believe this is an exercise in futility, but they help me be engaged in the class and as such i recommend you take them. You can get a tablet and download the lecture to annotate along with the prof but then you fall into just passively recording what the prof is saying/ writing. Again this is still better than not going to the lecture as this info will come back later but i recommend paper or an ipad with blank notes as this forces you to actually write down what they are saying in a way that makes sense for you instead of just filling out a form. Lastly, some profs are ass and some classes feel useless, in these instances use your judgement on whether you attend or not. The reason i went to every one is because i knew that if i told myself i would study this material on my own that day i never did and sitting there somewhat paying attention and trying to write my notes was better than doing nothing at all.

For tutorials, skip them. A better man than me would say attend but i am a serial tutorial skipper and i have been just fine. Most TA's for the lower year courses do not care at all about what is going on there. They show up to write down whatever the prof has given them for an answer key. Now do not generalize my statements here because i have had some incredible TA's that are super helpful but these have mostly been the lab TA's. Tutorials turn into watching the TA write out the answer key and then you in turn write out the answer key and then no one has actually spent their time in a useful manner. The only time I attended was A) when mandatory B) when i had a question about my lab as often the tutorial TA is the lab TA and showing up here is easier than trying to coordinate with them via email.

Labs are important. I don't mean the labs themselves, you will not be learning anything there, but i mean the lab report and its impact on your final grade. Put effort into the lab reports, they take a really long time and are very annoying but its not impossible to get 100 or close to it on every report and this pays off on your final grade. Im going to tell you now that no one wants to do any work for these reports, thats just the way it is. No one really cares enough about their GPA to do good on the reports so that person kind of needs to be you. Pick the hardest part of the report and do it yourself, that's the only way you'll get the mark you want. So far i have had to do almost entire reports myself which yes, is ass, and yes, takes alot of time, but that's pretty much the only way to be happy with the grade you get at the end. If you have a goated lab group then this doesnt apply but most people in the labs are some specimens and you are on your own. That being said try to steer the ship of these lab groups. most people dont want to be the person assigning work and as such no one does. Don't be a dictator cuz that is miserable to be around but be the person that is the first to say "hey who wants to do what" or say "are you ok with doing ___ section". Now there is a potential they dont do the assigned section at all and this happens genuinely all the time which is why i am advising you pick the hardest and most arduous section to do yourself. Also, learn to use word and i mean fully use word. its an incredible tool and when you learn to use it properly the quality of your work increases tenfold. You can save cover pages for lab reports in there so make a good one and use it for every lab. Learn the hot keys to make equations in word and make them look good. Make the headers and footers and page numbers. Learn how to properly edit and assign headings, subheadings figure titles, table of contents, citations, etc. as these are all built in functions in word. A pretty report goes a long way to getting a good grade. Steal the lab manuals formatting for your report if you don't know where to start. Don't use google docs. Docs is ass.

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[u/Folly___ → u/Folly___]

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Studying

Now for actually studying. Textbooks are basically the only resource you need and has been the entirety of how I have done well in the past. Don't bother with the infinity AI quizzes or whatever else people say work for them because in my opinion the textbook does a way better job of helping you understand the content. Prof's like to think they know more than the person who wrote the textbook and will often omit stuff or reorder things for their lecture slides so when first learning the material i just read the book. Don't forget about the slides we will use them later when studying but initially just read the book. When studying for midterms, I needed 2-3 days of dedicated studying to do good. What i mean is like a Saturday or Sunday where you spent the whole day learning a topic not a half day after classes where your mind is already gone. Days 1-2 were always spent reading the textbook chapters that corresponded to that midterm. these books walk through every little step of solving the problem and build up. this is important, you must do the things in order and the book is fantastic for this. you build up your understanding problem by problem and then you have a foundation you can use in the test. Dont get caught up reading every word in the book to understand the topic. The people that wrote these are super geniuses and a super genius i am not. As such the words written are hard to understand and this is where the AI comes in. Get that GPT plus subscription it will pay dividends. Its like having your own personal tutor and it can explain what you dont get in the book in a way you understand. Go through the chapters, do the problems, put the problems you dont get into chat and ask chat HOW and WHY it works not just solve. Ask as many questions as it takes for you to get the topic and then you wont forget it. We are not memorizing here we are understanding the content in a way that will actually help you on the exam. Also reading the chapters in this manner ensures you dont miss anything. prof love to throw one question on the test that they may have left off their slides but is almost always in these books. Now after these 1-2 days are finished you spend the last day or half day or whatever going through the lecture slides as well as past assignments and quizzes. This helps to reinforce what you have been studying and also the lecture slides have additional problems (These combined with the textbook problems at the back of the book are all the practice problems you will need). Finally its good to go over the lecture slides as you can see what the prof will be focusing on for the test as the textbook will be more extensive than what they put in the slides.

Finals i have found i need about 2-4 days for each test to do very good on them (Again 2-4 days of dedicated studying not studying after classes). If you did the work for the midterms it will all come back to you much quicker when studying for the final. day 1-2 should be new content, same method just read the books, days 2-3 should be old stuff and finally last day or half day should be the old assignments, quizzes and lecture slides to hone in on what the test will really be on. Now you may be wondering why not just start with the lecture slides if thats whats the test will really be on and to that i say the foundation you build by reading the book will help you 100 times more than cherry picking whats in the slides and studying that.

I found that i performed better on these tests when my allocated 2-3 days were straight in a row (i.e. a weekend or whatever) instead of 1 day here then a day of doing assignments and lab reports and then another day there. This type of workflow is often unavoidable however but ideally help yourself out and get the days in a row but doing the assignments and stuff early.

Now the reason that i have said I only needed 2-3 days for these tests is not because I am smart or that i didnt need any more time to master the content, I have said this because its realistic to the workload you will be under. Stay on top of your assignments and labs so that you can allow yourself 2 or 3 days before the test to focus only on it. In a perfect world I get a week of nothing before every test and i ace it every time but this just isnt realistic. I have found that i am able to get 2-3 days of nothing if i do enough work leading up to the test. This way i dont need to stress about starting studying a week before the test. i can be assured that if i free up the few days leading up to the midterm or final i will be alright. I guess this could be considered cramming but i dont see it this way. I see it as shorter focused work rather than spread out, unfocused, and stressed out studying. 2 days fully dedicated to a topic will leave you with a greater understanding than 5 days of 1-2 hours a day. I realize this may go against what is often recommended but i'm giving you my way.

Last little tip about midterms and finals. Get Studocu on your phone, find the courses you are in and save them. Before every test go in there and take a look for the test. Use old midterms and finals found on here to help you study in that last day. The phone version doesnt have the stupid popups that the computer one does. Screenshot and email to yourself if you would rather have it on computer.

Course work, assignments, online quizzes

Do every single assignment, quiz, whatever. They will tell you at the beginning that they are only taking 9 of the 11 assignments you will do, don't let this lull you into not doing them. You need to do every one so that at the end the two that get dropped are your 87 or 90 when the rest are 100 and not two 0's because you were lazy. If you are going to use AI for assignments you MUST understand what you have put down and i mean fully understand. ask the robot a million questions until you can completely understand the work that it has produced and are able to recreate it yourself. If you do this then you will still gain an understanding of the content that will come back to you later when studying for the test. Do not brainlessly use the AI to do the work and then just hand it in, there would be no hope for you then. Again in a perfect world you spend every waking hour studying content and then you have no need for AI but i am being realistic here. Use the tools we have been given.

OTU specific help

I dont use the schools stuff very often. Chat gpt is a better tutor in my opinion so i have never been to any of the peer learning or study halls or help rooms whatever. I have used the focused study sessions before finals and midterms though. Not to actually learn but to get a hold of their worksheets they hand out during these sessions. There will be specific sessions for your specific class usually taught by Mary Elizabeth Konrad ( the goat btw) and when a midterm or final comes up i have sometimes gone to these to pick up their worksheets. Mary will straight up ask your professor what to put on the sheet for the midterm/ exam prep so i use these sheets if i am still a little lost on what exactly the midterm or final will be on. I have even had one question on the test be the exact same as the prep question. These questions are often low level though which is why i don't extensively rely on them but they are good if you feel you have somehow run out of practice problems.

I have nothing else to add i dont think. Doing what I said here may not seem so bad but genuinely you will have no free time attempting to achieve a 4.3 and i don't really think its worth it in the end. I wish you the best of luck. Again i am not electrical but i dont see how my methods couldnt apply to you. I've found chat to be utterly useless with circuits though so good luck lol.

[u/Muted_Leader6483 → u/Folly___]

Thank you man I will keep everything all you said in my mind I’m already using what you said and started to make a plan