91–100 of 158 posts
No mention of Chamath Palihapitiya or Eric Migicovsky. I think the title and intent of this article are spot on, but like so many things Business Week, the reporting doesn't hit the important datapoints. Why focus on BlackBerry, which certainly deserves mention, but totally ignore two huge successes that support the thesis of the article.
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Isn't it pretty hard to get Canadian citizenship if you're American? Like, even with highly sought after skills in tech I've heard it's near impossible.
Among the "rich" countries, Canada is one of the most open in the world to skilled immigrants.
As far as I remember UW is one of the only universities in the continent to offer a course to build an actual real-time operating system, from the ground up. I learned so much in that course. Co-ops rule, but for non-coops the so-called "big three" courses are pretty famous as well. I've had countless interviews where an interviewer asked me if I'd taken at least one of the three courses.
That course taught me how to make software.
Tuition is $12000 now? I graduated from Mac in comp eng in 1996 and I think it was getting to around $3000 then. Definitely worth it, but if you told me at the time I would have thought $12000 was crazy. I graduated with no debt though.
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There is a positive cycle that happens, no doubt, but I think it's more than this. McGill also gets great students, but my experience with Waterloo alums has been better.
Unlike Canada's two other highly reputable schools (U of T and McGill), Waterloo's reputation derives largely from the quality of its graduates over the last few decades, not from the fact that at one time they were the only university in their respective regions. Old money vs. new success. I say this as a U of T grad. The McGill that earned McGill's reputation hasn't existed since people were going around in horse-d…
Your point also suggests that it takes more than reputation to thrive.
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What's special about UW students/grads, and what do you attribute it to?
It's the co-op program. Students trade independence during summers for year-round schooling that has them gaining 2 years of work experience at up to 6 different organizations by the time they graduate. And the reputation of the program is such that, if you've got the ability, you'll get opportunities at the biggest tech players. On top of the work experience, you'll have a wealth of experience applying to literally…
The COOP office here is too afraid of looking bad by sending 1st years into COOP, so they only make it available starting 2nd year. If they'd understand better the nature of our industry and would let us start COOP earlier, it would be much better.
I guess it might be a consequence of being in Ottawa; the city is very government-employed, and thus the university has a very conservative and byzantine feel. Things move so slowly here and it's always a heavy admin process to change something. w.r.t to CS/SEG students, that impacts COOP and the material we're taught (which is deprecated).
A step in the right way is that they've now made COOP mandatory for everybody in Software Engineering, and made it start on the first summer (total of 5). I don't understand why it wasn't like that to begin with.
All in all, sometime I wish I was at UofW to be in a more interesting setting. But again, it's not so much about your university than about what work you do on your own.
Waterloo is a sleepy, postindustrial city of 100,000, a little less than 200 miles northeast of Detroit. Ummm ... Waterloo-Kitchener-Cambridge form the K-W region (these 3 blend together with indistinguishable border) of ~ 1/2 Million peoople. Hardly "sleepy" the region is know as Canada's Tech Triangle and has a vibrant corporate and startup economy. While it is 200 miles northeast of Detroit, it may as well be 2000…
Common, anyone who has even driven through Waterloo knows it's sleepy... No one says "shit, I really want to go to Waterloo". That's like saying people want to go to London (Ontario)... That's just not a thing
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It's the co-op program. Students trade independence during summers for year-round schooling that has them gaining 2 years of work experience at up to 6 different organizations by the time they graduate. And the reputation of the program is such that, if you've got the ability, you'll get opportunities at the biggest tech players. On top of the work experience, you'll have a wealth of experience applying to literally…
Definitely agree. The co-op program actually increases time to degree a little bit (three terms), because a “normal” 4 year university degree is 1/3 summer term, while Waterloo students alternate co-op term and academic term after their first two terms (I’m glossing over some details, but this is more or less how it used to work). A = academic; S = summer (most universities); C = co-op (Waterloo) Most unis : AASAASAA…
the system you gave is correct, but there is a little nuance to it. when you are on your academic term, around midterm time you have to find your job for the next term (assuming you don't continue your previous term's job). so during midterms you are studying like mad and interviewing like a pro to make next term work. its not easy, but you become extremely adept at interviews (trial by fire) and editing your resume. Also you get used to shrugging off rejection.
funny is if you get the Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, or Facebook job. Your next term you can pretty much get a job at any of the others.
another scary tidbit at UW, is the level of talent around you. I can't tell you how many times my mind has been blown away by another person's ability to make some impossible assignment/task look like a cake walk. so its really hard to be arrogant at UW. I remember feeling like I can leap tall bounds in a single stride, but everyone else seems to just fly.