University of Waterloo: Silicon Valley's Canadian Feeder School

"Please refrain from feeding RT students. We are NOT monkeys." The sign on the real-time lab's window used to read.

As a fellow UW CS grad, I'd like to say this is pretty on the button, except for the fact that I wouldn't say it's trivial to get into as you need very high marks and more, at least in the year I entered, which was the double cohort (grade 12 and 13 graduating at the same time). My buddy had a 99 average in OAC (grade 13) in every math and science course, made top finals in Canada for every UW math contest, and did a whole slew of other impressive things and was still rejected for Computer Engineering, and this was and is still one of the smartest guys I know. Later that summer they did grant him entrance luckily, but it was ridiculous that you needed such high marks to get in. From a CS perspective though, the minimum marks required were like 10-15 points higher than the next top school from what I remember.

UW CS was the most brutal experience of my life and after 1 day of frosh week I realized every one I met was smarter and more accomplished than me. You get the pride and confidence beaten out of you so quick it's not funny. I powered through and hated every minute of it, but I didn't want to give up, I wanted to make it and show the world I could beat UW; it was the enemy. Many people I knew quit or disappeared after 1 year or 2nd year, I wanted to quit, I had many crises, but I brute forced through, clawing to the minimum required average to stay in the program. I was lucky to know at least a few others who were doing the same, which helped me feel not so alone. You swallow your pride and do everything you can to stay afloat, even while others around you take 1 extra full course a term while doing a double major with no effort and you wonder why you are so stupid or what planet everyone is from. We didn't get reading week, we got reading days, sometimes only day. You never got a summer break, only co-op, which was like a vacation compared to school, but it was the most useful thing of all I think. Everything was theory, it was so abstract and real world useless at the time that it bended your mind, this bugged me the most as an entrepreneur. By the end the work isn't easier, you are just better at managing your time and knowing how to defeat the non-stop barrage of assignments. You realize you should make more friends because some of the people that you always hated for having every answer first on the newsgroups, even outsmarting the TAs, was the guy who would be the top engineer at the best firms in no time, or that you can hire them and be unstoppable. The non-stop shifting between co-op and school made it feel like you were doing 3 years of experiences per 1 year, so time felt so distorted and you grew that much faster. Having the courage to move to a new city every 4 months and relearn everything also changes you. You knew what kind of experience having a job was and how disjointed it was from school. You learned what you didn't want to do, you started using your schooling to try and improve work places, and by the end you felt very comfortable with your skills and your knowledge of how the real world works. Pretty much everyone I knew had a job offer almost a year before graduating.

I think anyone else from UW would say the same thing, but during and for years after, being idle for more than an hour or two made you feel really really guilty, like you knew you should be working or making progress, and if you don't lose that feeling, you can accomplish great things very quickly. A weekend of relaxing was more stressful and unnerving than anything. I think most people leave Waterloo after they graduate because they hate it so much, it was so brutal that the city itself becomes an incarnation of what you experienced. It's getting better now, but damn did I hate everything for a long time. I beat it though, and I'm proud to say I survived.

I stuck around in Waterloo because I was an entrepreneur and I knew it was the best place to start a business. I volunteered and ran entrepreneurship organizations, tried to start my own companies and made a huge network. I flipped from hating Waterloo to loving it, and 10 years later I'm still here and running a funded startup. I wished Velocity and the Communitech Hub and all the other great stuff going on now was here back when I was in school, but so glad it's here now. The smarts, determination, experience and energy of these student entrepreneurs combined with the guidance and support of the programs makes for a very fierce advantage.

IHTFP

IMO it really doesn't matter what University you go to as long as you finish. The degree is just a way to show employers you can endure a taxing 4+ years.

Waterloo has co-op, 4 months school, 4 months work. This is really good for getting a feel for where you want to work. But the amount of time at the company isn't all that much. Depending on the company they may be reluctant to give you anything big to work on as you will be gone soon.

U of T has PEY, professional experience year, 12-16 months of internship. I really enjoyed my year off, made what I learnt at school make sense. When I came back to school after a year I was much more committed. The downfall is that for a few summers you maybe doing odd jobs to get by.

In terms of education, I think it really depends on the student. But talking to my buddies that went to Waterloo, the classes are smaller and it sounds like they actually care that you pass.

At U of T you get so much thrown at you that you have to learn what is important and only focus on those things. Pass or fail is up to you as it is super competitive.

Best of luck!