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University of Waterloo: Silicon Valley's Canadian Feeder School

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Re: University of Waterloo: Silicon Valley's Canadian Feeder School

#141

Post by canistr »

DrSbaitso wrote: post #126
reso wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having done > 70 interviews in my time at UW, most companies don't understand or care about the difference between Soft-eng and CS programs. I'd highly recommend CS over Soft-eng, unless you like pain.

That may be true, but for a Canadian a big advantage of taking software engineering is that it makes it much easier to work in the US later. An engineering degree lets you easily qualify for the "engineer" category of the TN visa, but with a CS degree it's considerably harder.

The degree doesn't matter if your employer is hiring you for a position with "Engineer" in the title. This works both ways between Canada and the US.

Re: University of Waterloo: Silicon Valley's Canadian Feeder School

#142

Post by stan_rogers »

kohanz wrote: post #36

The funny thing is, at least when I attended UW (early 2000's), is that its domestic profile was not as strong as its recognition in the US would suggest. Many Canadians would mention more established schools such as U of T and Queens before Waterloo. However, when I went for my first internship in California (NVIDIA, with about 20 fellow UW students), I found out that most people there couldn't name a single Canadia…

Funny... it was the place for math and CS (in both the math and engineering schools) in the '70s. Hell, you'd have to have been blind to miss the Waterloo-sponsored math contests in high school (only the Society of Actuaries sponsored any other HS contests in those days, and that one was only for Grade 13 students in Ontario). If you did math or wanted to get into the computer world, you wanted to go to Waterloo, the same way that engineers wanted to go to Queens. I find it rather hard to believe that UW fell off of the map in the intervening period.

Re: University of Waterloo: Silicon Valley's Canadian Feeder School

#143

Post by gotrecruit »

toblender wrote: post #51
richardlblair wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't take these things too seriously. At the end of the day it's about how good you are. You might have more of a grind to the top, but it's attainable.

I agree, I got rejected from Waterloo as well, but I did fine going to U of T.

i'm a little confused though. UofT is supposedly the #1 engineering school in canada, though it does not have the same startup reputation as Waterloo, but you're saying if Waterloo denied you, you still stand a good chance making it to UofT? I'm planning to apply to UofT and UBC as well, so this is pretty good news to me.

Re: University of Waterloo: Silicon Valley's Canadian Feeder School

#144

Post by Zenst »

pg wrote: post #73
guyzero wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like all great schools what makes the students great is selection bias. Waterloo has a great reputation, so it gets the first pick of the best students. The great graduates give the school a great reputation. Lather, rinse, repeat. (Not that I'm complaining as I was part of the system and have benefited greatly from it. Co-op is a very, very big deal. But the professors and the school itself is not appreciably differ…

It's not just how good they are. They have a different attitude from students from elite US universities. More practical, less arrogant. I'm not sure whether it's a Canadian thing or a Waterloo thing though.

Most students get taught cutting edge technology and approach and that is always a few years ahead (less than it used too be) and with that are completely lost once they go into the real World. A system that exposes the student with reality so that they can understand the good reasons for bad choices with all that go with it then they have less attitude.

Thus you avoid, new people fresh out of education telling people they need to drop there old system and redo it and bookabibble-C as it is just the greatest for things that in reality are never used in the company.

I left edication as a COBOL programmer and could code lovely Jackson Structured Programs, totaly unaware of the GO TO verb even existed in COBOL, could do lovely variable writes with PIC X OCCURS DEPENDING and yet reality was use GO TO it is the site standard and faster code. Luckly I was young enough to not argue and learned the reasons behind it, though I only did a intense 2 year corse at college and no univercity. Had I went further before I entered employment then my attitude would of been more of an issue for me.

With that you can look at education as a drug, if left without any grounding work experience then the reality of what they see and what is needed can go adrift. That and a 5 minute fix could be charged as many thousands of income and a 5 hours fix can be charged at pennies, customer perception and with that another aspect we all learn. With that the best engineers can and do often make the worst people to put a value upon their work. Though that is another level.

Re: University of Waterloo: Silicon Valley's Canadian Feeder School

#145

Post by iza »

FD3SA wrote: post #120
pg wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just how good they are. They have a different attitude from students from elite US universities. More practical, less arrogant. I'm not sure whether it's a Canadian thing or a Waterloo thing though.

Having attended UWaterloo's CS program as well as other institutions, in addition to completing many courses from elite US universities (MIT, Harvard, Stanford, etc.), I've come to an interesting conclusion. Elite US schools have an unparalleled reputation built upon hundreds of years of pedigree, and as such, there is incredibly fierce competition for entrance. Once you are admitted to an Ivy, the hard part is behin…

U of T is equally brutal.

Re: University of Waterloo: Silicon Valley's Canadian Feeder School

#146

Post by DonPellegrino »

vation wrote: post #128
kohanz wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that no other Canadian schools have a co-op program that is as established and has the same scale and reputation. With those attributes come top quality employers, more responsibilities on the job, etc. (generalizing, of course). From the Waterloo co-op website [1]: 17,300 co-op students enrolled over three semesters in more than 120 programs. 4,500 employers hire Waterloo co-op students. [1] http…

Also, Waterloo engineers take at least six co-op terms starting as early as January of freshman year, which is much more and much earlier than other schools.

ETS also makes students do a co-op after only one term and considering that 90%+ of the students there come from a CEGEP degree (technical degree) and have already completed 2 co-op terms, I can safely say that UW isn't alone.

Re: University of Waterloo: Silicon Valley's Canadian Feeder School

#147

Post by DonPellegrino »

abrichr wrote: post #135
herge wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has debs working in Montreal and Toronto.

Got a source for this? All I know about is the marketing office, where Hinton now works some months of the year since the acquisition of DNNresearch. [1] [1] http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/google-buys-university-of-...

The Montreal office is on Ste-Catherine, near Place Ville-Marie. Afaik they work on Chrome.

Re: University of Waterloo: Silicon Valley's Canadian Feeder School

#148

Post by prostoalex »

kitcar wrote: post #14

For anyone wanting to hire students from Waterloo / looking for work in the area: https://uwaterloo.ca/jobmine/employers / https://uwaterloo.ca/hire/ http://waterlootechjobs.com/en/ http://www.techjobswaterloo.com/ http://www.communitech.ca/

And if you want to have a lengthy conversation with CS majors at Waterloo, bring up Jobmine. Jobmine is healthcare.gov of UW.

Re: University of Waterloo: Silicon Valley's Canadian Feeder School

#149

Post by fudged71 »

FD3SA wrote: post #120
pg wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just how good they are. They have a different attitude from students from elite US universities. More practical, less arrogant. I'm not sure whether it's a Canadian thing or a Waterloo thing though.

Having attended UWaterloo's CS program as well as other institutions, in addition to completing many courses from elite US universities (MIT, Harvard, Stanford, etc.), I've come to an interesting conclusion. Elite US schools have an unparalleled reputation built upon hundreds of years of pedigree, and as such, there is incredibly fierce competition for entrance. Once you are admitted to an Ivy, the hard part is behin…

University of Calgary engineering sounds very similar.

Re: University of Waterloo: Silicon Valley's Canadian Feeder School

#150

Post by netvarun »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #121
pokoleo wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cribbed from a recent Quora answer of mine: The Waterloo (CS/Eng) intern ecosystem is immensely strong. First year students generally work at the best companies that they can, often taking smaller startups where they are able to learn the most. There's a steady transition to final co-op terms, where most classmates end up working in Silicon Valley, Redmond, NYC, and their own startups. It's a great place to be if you…

The other more famous UW also does this: Google has a habit of hiring lots of UW graduates (see Jeff Dean), who then go on to hire other UW graduates...and also a very good co-op program with many willing local companies (most notably, Microsoft, but also Intel in Portland).

No, Jeff Dean is not from UW. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Dean_(computer_scientist)
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