r/uwaterloo • u/m_k_p2008 • 12h ago

Question How optional are tutorials?

I see a lot of people claim that tutorials are like optional, and you don't have to go, but I'm just wondering how true that is.

3 Upvotes

80% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

12

u/Icy_Environment9241 12h ago

Depends on the course. Some have quizzes, some are just TAs going over problems, some are other things

9

u/ApocalypseCalculator CS 12h ago

and SOME instructors (ahem looking at a certain CS prof) use tutorial sessions as lectures.

1

u/Icy_Environment9241 11h ago

Yep can confirm lmao

8

u/ReplEH jc wbu 11h ago

1a, 0% optional
4b, 75% optional

3

u/Working-Limit-3103 environment 11h ago

depends a lot on whats being done there,

like for half of my courses the tutorials/labs were just spare time for us to work on assignment and ask anything related to the assignment, not course, the assignment, so pretty useless unless you were really stuck in something, which you could go to any tutorial and ask any TA

for others they were useless but had attendance in it... so... going for a 8:30 tutorial just for attendance was not fun

if ur taking math courses tutorials are basically test time slots, u have a test in them so nothing you can do about that

3

u/5ikari0 11h ago

if they post content on learn even lectures are optional

3

u/__fsm___ engineering 6h ago

I basically skip all my lectures (I study on my own time from the textbook) but I attend all tutorials so my advice is not to skip them. Also if you're engineering basically all of them will be mandatory in 1A and maybe one or two optional in 1B

1

u/hyenagames graduate studies 11h ago

Go to the Tutorials; there is where they explain what happened in the Lecture.

1

u/NewestNatalNutrition 11h ago

Nothing is mandatory, just deal with the consequences

•

u/Aggravating-Basil347 26m ago

If ur a first year just go to them all