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The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

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Re: The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

#11

Post by shazow »

fraserharris wrote: post #10
shazow wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, I came here to say the exact opposite--how the four-months-at-a-time thing doesn't make any sense to me because I've always experienced the vast majority of learning during the 4-12 month range of my employment periods. University of Toronto (my alma mater) does 18 month coop terms which make marginally more sense to me. I'm generally anti-coop for people who would have no trouble finding a job when they gradu…

Going by List of acquisitions by Google [1], and from my knowledge of the founders (which is not complete by any means): Reqwireless - UW founders BumpTop - UT founders Zetawire - Uvic / UT founder SocialDeck - UW founders Pushlife - UW founder PostRank - UW founders -- [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Google

Mhmm, though I'm certain this is not a complete list, and SocialGrapple was listed under USA until I corrected it. :P

Re: The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

#12

Post by redthrowaway »

shazow wrote: post #8
reso wrote: post #2

In my opinion, the engine of Waterloo's success is the university's unique co-op program. UW operates on a four-month rotating co-op system, each student does four months of school, then four months of internships, repeat for the duration of their degree. Many of us land in the Valley, or NY, or London, and bring what we learn back here. Most of my friends have multiple google/facebook/valley start-up internships on…

Funny, I came here to say the exact opposite--how the four-months-at-a-time thing doesn't make any sense to me because I've always experienced the vast majority of learning during the 4-12 month range of my employment periods. University of Toronto (my alma mater) does 18 month coop terms which make marginally more sense to me. I'm generally anti-coop for people who would have no trouble finding a job when they gradu…

>I'm generally anti-coop for people who would have no trouble finding a job when they graduate without coop.

I don't care how good a coder you are when it comes to personal projects, or how well you do in ACM comps, the skills you gain from working on large-scale projects are invaluable to employers. True, the top 5% of CS students might have no trouble finding work anyway, but co-op can turn the next 30% from risky hires into pretty (relatively) sure bets.

Re: The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

#13

Post by potatolicious »

shazow wrote: post #8
reso wrote: post #2

In my opinion, the engine of Waterloo's success is the university's unique co-op program. UW operates on a four-month rotating co-op system, each student does four months of school, then four months of internships, repeat for the duration of their degree. Many of us land in the Valley, or NY, or London, and bring what we learn back here. Most of my friends have multiple google/facebook/valley start-up internships on…

Funny, I came here to say the exact opposite--how the four-months-at-a-time thing doesn't make any sense to me because I've always experienced the vast majority of learning during the 4-12 month range of my employment periods. University of Toronto (my alma mater) does 18 month coop terms which make marginally more sense to me. I'm generally anti-coop for people who would have no trouble finding a job when they gradu…

UW alumnus here, IMO the PEY makes very little sense to both the student and employer. From the employer side, you're committing yourself to 18 months of full-time employment for someone who is an unknown value - I've heard this from multiple employers that the four-month terms are more attractive, since it's not nearly as damaging to make a bad hire. Worst case scenario you let the kid sit around and twiddle their thumbs for the last month or two. Long terms lead to more conservative hiring, leading to less placements overall.

From the student side, co-op isn't just about learning how it is to work in-industry, but also to gain a breadth of experiences and find out where you want to be (or more cynically, where you stand a chance). I had 6 co-op terms spread over 5 companies, and it's been a huge career accelerant - I started off working at a no-name code shop, which paved the way to a brand-name code shop, which convinced someone at a highly algorithmic code shop to take me on for 4 months, and that finally got the Big Boys (Goog, Facebook, Amazon, MSFT, etc) to take me seriously enough to hire me. I simply could not have achieved the end result after graduation if I was limited to only a single co-op term.

The way I see it, UW's co-op system takes your first few years of ladder climbing and compresses that into, well, almost no time at all. I've been able to bypass a great deal of the drudge work right off the bat simply by having good names and solid reviews on my record.

Re: The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

#14

Post by nano81 »

shazow wrote: post #8
reso wrote: post #2

In my opinion, the engine of Waterloo's success is the university's unique co-op program. UW operates on a four-month rotating co-op system, each student does four months of school, then four months of internships, repeat for the duration of their degree. Many of us land in the Valley, or NY, or London, and bring what we learn back here. Most of my friends have multiple google/facebook/valley start-up internships on…

Funny, I came here to say the exact opposite--how the four-months-at-a-time thing doesn't make any sense to me because I've always experienced the vast majority of learning during the 4-12 month range of my employment periods. University of Toronto (my alma mater) does 18 month coop terms which make marginally more sense to me. I'm generally anti-coop for people who would have no trouble finding a job when they gradu…

What does an 18 month co-op give you that graduating earlier and starting work doesn't?

The thing I liked about 4-8 month co-ops at UW was that I didn't necessarily know what I wanted to end up doing. This way I got to try working in a whole bunch of situations to find what I ultimately enjoyed most. I did co-ops in southern California, Silicon Valley, NYC, and around Canada. I worked for startups, big companies, and even the government. I hopped around in different industries too: semiconductors, fuel cell research, mobile devices and internet. Ultimately by the time I graduated I had tested the waters of industry in a variety of ways, gained a ton of life experiences, gotten really good at having a big impact at work in a short period of time, and had an offer to return full time to my last (and favourite) co-op employer.

Re: The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

#15

Post by AlexBlom »

shazow wrote: post #8
reso wrote: post #2

In my opinion, the engine of Waterloo's success is the university's unique co-op program. UW operates on a four-month rotating co-op system, each student does four months of school, then four months of internships, repeat for the duration of their degree. Many of us land in the Valley, or NY, or London, and bring what we learn back here. Most of my friends have multiple google/facebook/valley start-up internships on…

Funny, I came here to say the exact opposite--how the four-months-at-a-time thing doesn't make any sense to me because I've always experienced the vast majority of learning during the 4-12 month range of my employment periods. University of Toronto (my alma mater) does 18 month coop terms which make marginally more sense to me. I'm generally anti-coop for people who would have no trouble finding a job when they gradu…

Another issue with the 18 month coop is that, at least from the UW students I speak to, most go with startups. All of the UW students I personally speak to are receptive of doing a coop with a startup.

It is significantly harder for startups to commit to 18 months of anything. Having any form of structured work environment, guaranteed capital, or even if they will still be around.

On the flipside, I find less of the UT students are willing to coop with a startup vs. a larger firm.

(This is just my experience, so chalk it up how you like. Clearly, it may not be indicative of the students as a whole).

Re: The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

#16

Post by mdkess »

The tragic thing is that software companies in Waterloo don't pay that well. Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc. are offering new college grads around $100k salary, while companies such as RIM and OpenText in the Waterloo region pay maybe $60k, so all of the talent in the region leaves. Having gone through Waterloo's co-op program, I found that Canadian software companies tend to be very management heavy, which is not what an ambitious college graduate is looking to get into. There is a lot of potential, but there are some big cultural problems that I think need to be fixed.

Re: The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

#17

Post by rll »

reso wrote: post #2

In my opinion, the engine of Waterloo's success is the university's unique co-op program. UW operates on a four-month rotating co-op system, each student does four months of school, then four months of internships, repeat for the duration of their degree. Many of us land in the Valley, or NY, or London, and bring what we learn back here. Most of my friends have multiple google/facebook/valley start-up internships on…

I went to Waterloo as well and absolutely loved the 4-month co-op terms and would have hated being limited to a single 18-month term with a single company. You get to try a little bit of everything. I did big companies (BNR, NT in Toronto), a smaller Toronto startup and mid-size (Novatel in Calgary) and after freezing my a in Alberta for a winter term went to southern Brazil for my next two terms.

Re: The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

#18

Post by _napw »

shazow wrote: post #8
reso wrote: post #2

In my opinion, the engine of Waterloo's success is the university's unique co-op program. UW operates on a four-month rotating co-op system, each student does four months of school, then four months of internships, repeat for the duration of their degree. Many of us land in the Valley, or NY, or London, and bring what we learn back here. Most of my friends have multiple google/facebook/valley start-up internships on…

Funny, I came here to say the exact opposite--how the four-months-at-a-time thing doesn't make any sense to me because I've always experienced the vast majority of learning during the 4-12 month range of my employment periods. University of Toronto (my alma mater) does 18 month coop terms which make marginally more sense to me. I'm generally anti-coop for people who would have no trouble finding a job when they gradu…

Before graduating from Waterloo, I had the opportunity to work in three different countries (Canada, USA, Japan), on everything from web services to embedded C. While I was a good student, and I doubt that I would have had any trouble finding a job with or without co-op, getting the breadth of experience was incredibly valuable - this would be something much harder to get after graduating.

I generally dislike competition of school brands (ie. Waterloo vs. Toronto), because I am fairly certain that education is 95% work ethic. The co-op program I firmly believe is exceptional, however.

Re: The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

#19

Post by canuc »

I'm a recent UW grad and though I think there is huge value in the co-op program I think the main driver is the University's tech-driven culture. Just go to Davis Center (Waterloo's tech library) for an hour and it will be hard not to get swept up in a discussion about new technologies, innovative new applications and interesting points of view. Even the humanities curriculum has a tech twinge; I graduated with a BA in Economics being able to code concisely, and use an arsenal of open source tools to solve problems the are discounted as being "too mathy/techy" by other economics programs.

You are going to see a whole lot more creativity coming out of Cambridge as well. The architecture program has created some of the most talented designers in the world and the admin are doing some great new things to have students apply those skills to UX.

Re: The Invention of Waterloo (Canada’s Technology Triangle)

#20

Post by reso »

shazow wrote: post #8
reso wrote: post #2

In my opinion, the engine of Waterloo's success is the university's unique co-op program. UW operates on a four-month rotating co-op system, each student does four months of school, then four months of internships, repeat for the duration of their degree. Many of us land in the Valley, or NY, or London, and bring what we learn back here. Most of my friends have multiple google/facebook/valley start-up internships on…

Funny, I came here to say the exact opposite--how the four-months-at-a-time thing doesn't make any sense to me because I've always experienced the vast majority of learning during the 4-12 month range of my employment periods. University of Toronto (my alma mater) does 18 month coop terms which make marginally more sense to me. I'm generally anti-coop for people who would have no trouble finding a job when they gradu…

My error, I believe this was true at one point, however. We do account for the majority, however. Fraser's post below me gives a near comprehensive list.
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