As of the fall of 2001, I'm an Honours Mathematics student here at the University of Waterloo. We don't really declare majors until 2nd year, but the plan is to double major in CS and Pure Math.
Frosh week was a mixture of good and bad. All the "this is what you need to survive first year"-type orientation stuff was genuinely useful, and all the profs that we met seemed to really care about helping us figure out this new place. We learned all about the Pink Tie:
The symbol of the math faculty here is a 40-foot tall pink tie. It hangs from the math building during frosh week. There's all sorts of lore attached to the tie, and the stuff that has happened to it over the years. You can see a picture of it here. Engineering also has a mascot: a big pipe wrench named "the rigid tool".
The sucky part of frosh week was all the cheering and forced enthusiasm for dorky activities. I'm all for dorky activities (hey, anything can be fun in the right company), but I want to do them in the company of people I already know and like, not a bunch of strangers so that I can feel both dorky and socially ackward. I forced myself to go to stupid stuff for a while, in order to meet people, but then I realized that all the people that I would be likely to have a lot in common with would probably dislike frosh week too and not show up.
I'm now living at Mackenzie King Village, UW's newest residence (old timers refer to it as Village 3). I live in an apartment with 3 other roommates: Sarah, Deana and Neha, awesome people. My room is nice and cozy, and has a view of Columbia lake. My window faces west, so I get to see the most amazing sunsets. I'm 5 minutes from the math building, which is very nice now that the weather has gotten colder. At the beginning of first term I lived off-campus, and had to bike 1/2 hour to get to school. Ick. Mike Antilla was my roomate, and he was cool.
in 1A:
in 1B:
The city of Waterloo itself is pretty different from Montreal. All my friends warned me that I would think that Kitchener-Waterloo would totally suck compared to Montreal, but I'm pleasantly surprised to find that it doesn't. Sure, it's a lot smaller, and you have to plan ahead if you want something interesting to do on Saturday night, but there's a lot of cool stuff here:
A definite feature is that I feel safe walking around at night here. I really enjoy that freedom, which most men take for granted, and I didn't feel particularly safe walking at night in Montreal outside of the major streets.
There's lots of nature. The campus here is beautiful, traversed by streams, there's Columbia lake north of campus where I can go biking. There's a dock I can sit on and watch the ducks and geese. There's a pair of herons that live there. There's big willow trees by the lake, extending their long branches into the water. You can see the sky at night, and the stars. I can see amazing sunsets from my dorm window. There's ducks and enormous flocks of Canada geese that graze here, and squirrels. I've seen some swans and herons in Waterloo park, and some rabbits.
Milly the duck. The C&D has sushi for 4$, and it's awesome. The student caf has Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Everyone is so friendly and helpful and eager to make friends. The people in my advanced classes are so clever. The Chrismas lights in Waterloo park. Grilled cheeses at Jane Bond. Bubble Tea 10 minutes from my dorm. CS students who actually know CS. Putnam prep has lots of people and free food. Rabits. The math building is always open. Mathsoc movie nights for 2$. All the cool talks by famous people. The PMC (Potato Mashing Club). Cooking with Megan. There's always someone to talk about math with. Walking around Columbia Lake. St Jerome's. How the profs seem to really care about teaching.