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Hello World!

What Is This Site's Purpose?​

Hey there! I'm Yazan and I'm a 3rd year Software Engineering student at Lassonde. The purpose of this personal project is to cover FAQs and advice from myself as a student, to prepare Software Engineering students to be successful in their degree such as courses, roadmaps, etc. Even if you aren't in Software Engineering, I'm sure there is some things here to take away.

Why Did I Make This?​

Engineering has an overwhelming number of courses you will take, including courses specialized for us that other non-engineering students will probably never take. Thus, there isn't much information on what to expect in these classes, other than the course code and name. I'm here to bridge this gap for my fellow engineering students.

I am hoping this to be a long-term project until I graduate, as I expand on more knowledge and experience moving forward. Just a disclaimer, this is an unofficial guide by me, which is unaffiliated with York University. So, expect the information here to be based on my own experiences.

Course Rating Criteria​

I'm going to rank classes similarly to this video from Tamer Shaheen, who ranks his mechanical engineering classes in a tier list. Similarly to his video, I will ask these four questions:

  1. How difficult is it to grasp the course content?
  2. How is the workload?
  3. Do you need to know the material for future classes?
  4. Is it useful in the real world?

I will however NOT be rating classes based on how tough the professors are. Professors run classes differently, so a manageable class might be harder than it needs to be (the opposite is also true).

Next, I'll categorize these classes using the following:

  • 😎 S-tier: Essential in the real world, ignoring difficulty.
  • 🙂 A-tier: Useful and doable.
  • 🤔 B-tier: Difficult, but worth the effort of learning.
  • 😒 C-tier: Not very useful but doable.
  • 😢 D-tier: Nice to know but not worth your time, just grasp the foundations.
  • 😭 F-tier: Difficult and completely useless.

My tier list is based on my experience and opinion, so take it with a grain of salt! This list assumes a student who graduated from an Ontario high school:

  • Taken a differentials course in high school
  • Taken high school chemistry and physics (mostly mechanics)
  • Know basic coding

I did this because most engineering students are domestic with the knowledge of the province's educational curriculum. Moreover, some students come from various educational backgrounds, so it's inefficient to rank these classes based on everybody.

For instance, if you came from an Ontario high school, then you probably have taken MCV4U (Calculus & Vectors), which does not cover integral calculus. However, there are those who come from abroad and have taken integral calculus in high school.

GitHub Repo​

If you find this guide helpful, consider starring it on GitHub!

Last updated: May 2, 2025