In a week, I'll be flying back to Toronto to continue my undergraduate studies. I've had a great productive summer and I felt like I got to do pretty much almost everything I wanted to do. But now, I'm about to start my third year and I've already registered for my classes. These are my expectations for my classes in this upcoming school year.

S Tier (Best courses I'll take):

Game Theory

Game theory is an awesome topic. As you may or may not know, I'm doing a Mathematical Applications in Economics and Finance Specialist and a CS Major for my undergrad. This means I take classes from the math department, econ department, and CS department. These classes aren't always super related to each other because of so. However, game theory is a study that happens to relate all three of these fields. It's based on math and its main applications are in CS and Econ. The only thing is that this course is not a require course and I might drop it for something else I actually need. It would be a shame if I drop it though.

Non-linear Optimization (Honorable mention)

The reason non-linear optimization is an honorable mention is that I don't know if I'm gonna take it yet. This was the class that I wanted to take the most going into my third year. However, when I went into my course enrollment, the course was already full and had an 80+ person wait list. I figured I wasn't gonna get into the course so I redid my entire schedule to put game theory in instead (game theory is the only course I'm enrolled in that I don't actually need to graduate). But just a few days ago, I discovered that they opened up a new section for this class. This is great news but I already redid my entire schedule around not taking this class.

I am expecting this class to be an absolute S Tier though. The method of Lagrange multipliers were the best thing I learned in my second year, and this class is basically an entire class on that and more. The professor seems great as well.

A Tier (Great courses):

Time Series Analysis

This class falls into the category of I don't know much about it yet but am super excited to learn about it. Time series analysis, from what I know, deals with the statistics of a series of events happening over time (hence the name). This seems like a super useful concept that can be applied in countless ways. It's also a co-requisite for the next class on this list making me think that they might be heavily related.

Mathematical Theory of Finance

I don't know too much about finance right now, but as a math person, this course title really captures my attention. I really want to learn more about finance, and being able to see it through a mathematical viewpoint is golden. As I've said earlier, this class requires non linear optimization as a co-requisite. Just simply thinking about all the Lagrangians that I might need to do in this class excites me way too much. Plus, this sort of implies that non linear optimization will have applications in finance, making both of these classes much more desirable.

Intro to AI

I've heard that this class talks about all the different algorithms used in AI. I already know quite a few of it from my curiosities in chess bots, but it'll be nice to get a proper introduction to these. The bad thing about this class is it probably won't help me much with getting a job since it doesn't seem to talk about machine learning, but it will help me into potentially making cool bots in the future.

Financial Economics

Again, I'm super curious in learning more about Finance. This class, I believe will give me a good introduction to the topic. This class also has the potential to be the most useful class that I'm taking this next year. It seems like the topics covered will be pretty applicable to my life.

B Tier (Good courses):

Algorithms

The reason I put algorithms in B tier is that it has the potential to be a very cool class, but also has the potential to be mostly about stuff I already know or can self study. I'm not sure if there will be a project component to the class or if it will be just lectures and tests either. I can see the class being very cool with a project component, but I can also see how the projects could end up feeling lame. If the class is just lectures and tests, I can see myself getting bored especially if I find all the algorithms easy and intuitive.

Probability

Ok, hot take but low key probability is better than statistics. In my opinion, statistics doesn't feel very rigorous and feels like just mostly guessing. Probability, on the other hand, feels way more rigorous and intuitive. I think probability will probably be a good course. It is probable that it'll end up being boring though.

Partial Differential Equations (PDEs)

I would put this higher if I had a good experience with my ordinary differential equations (ODEs) class in second year. Partial differential equations can tell us a lot about nature and models many real world situations very well. This class will also likely go well with all the finance courses I'm taking. The reason I put it in B tier though is that I didn't really learn much in my second year ODEs class. I'm afraid that I might not be very well prepared for this class or that this class will be too easy and boring.

Real Analysis

This class is an extension on my first year analysis course and my second year multivariable course. I can see it being a potentially exciting course, but I feel like it'll likely be mostly a repeat of those two previous courses. It also doesn't have a lot of applications in anything that I might be interested in. I'll give it a B Tier.

C Tier (Doesn't excite me but I'll do it):

Machine Learning

There's a chance that my opinions on this course goes on a 180 after taking it, but as of right now, the Machine learning course doesn't really excite me much. This is because I've heard that this course is just mostly about statistics that I've already learned in my second year. This makes sense since machine learning is just mostly stats. But I think it might be pretty boring going through weeks of statistics stuff that I already know and am not even that fond of.

Corporate Finance

Honestly, I don't know what this class is about. I don't know really what corporate finance is. I looked at the course description and its just a bunch of words that I don't know as of right now. This class might be great; I don't know. I'm looking forward to learning what it's actually about though, but as of right now, I'm not particularly excited about this.

Data Analysis

I'm not a big fan of statistics as you might've guessed. It feels pretty hand wavy and feels like magic to me. Data Analysis is just statistics on a bunch of data. Furthermore, I already know quite a bit of data analysis stuff. So this class might be boring to me or might feel like hand wavy magic.

Final Remarks

Above are just my expectations on the different classes that I'm taking. There is absolutely a chance that my S-Tier classes end up being my worst classes or vice versa. I just want to get my expectations out first, so that I can see how they hold up after taking all these different classes.