Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

University of Waterloo Students Win Facebook's Hackathon

velocity.uwaterloo.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 121 posts

Re: University of Waterloo Students Win Facebook's Hackathon

#71

Post by cbhl »

stevenameyer wrote: post #35
kitcar wrote: post #33

As someone interested in recruiting from Waterloo, but not from the school/area - where are the best places to make job postings / network?

Well if your looking to hire Co-ops from the university here is the link https://uwaterloo.ca/jobmine/employers

Be wary the CECA has been known to give smaller employers sub-optimal advice. You'll want to get someone who understands the process to help you through it. If top students don't understand the benefits of working for your particular organization it's possible that they'll pick a safe job at a Google or Microsoft over you, and you'll get a mediocre student (or worse, none at all) after the first round of matching.

Re: University of Waterloo Students Win Facebook's Hackathon

#72

Post by jasonli »

meangeme wrote: post #37
kitcar wrote: post #33

As someone interested in recruiting from Waterloo, but not from the school/area - where are the best places to make job postings / network?

The university has it's own job site for co-op students, Jobmine. You can find more info here, https://uwaterloo.ca/hire/

Definitely visit that link if you're looking to hire Waterloo co-ops. As a Waterloo co-op myself, Jobmine is the most important resource we use to find jobs.

Re: University of Waterloo Students Win Facebook's Hackathon

#73

Post by kineticflow »

MikeKusold wrote: post #70
speg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say this. I finished w/ $40k in the bank but the experiences gave me so much more.

How many years did it take for you to earn your B.S. with all the constant co-oping?

An example schedule for an Engineering student is:

Year 1: School, coop, School

Year 2: coop, School, coop

Year 3: School, coop, School

Year 4: coop, School, coop

Year 5: School, school.

4 years and 8 months. Order may vary slightly.

Re: University of Waterloo Students Win Facebook's Hackathon

#74

Post by cbhl »

AYBABTME wrote: post #12

Congrats on the win, and cool publicity... but how can I get in there at 12k$ a year, plus a rent and food and other expenses. How much will it pay off, versus my education at the University of Ottawa? Given that I learn much more by myself, reading reference books, taking online courses with coursera, doing projects by myself. Is there any return on investment that I could expect from an education there, instead of…

I'm of the opinion that you learn way more by actually doing things at a start-up, small business, or Facebook or Google, and that Waterloo is great for giving you the opportunity to do that. Sure, the lectures are useful for theory of computing and algorithms, but if you're here wanting to learn how to program or how to write SQL, you're wasting your money and time.

That said, the last UOttawa student I knew who transferred to Waterloo failed their first term here, so don't do it just because people on HN said so.

Re: University of Waterloo Students Win Facebook's Hackathon

#76

Post by cbhl »

sgreenlay wrote: post #47
tetester wrote: post #44

"Show me the gender distribution of my friends" - 178.72% Male

178 is the number, and 72 is the percentage. Unfortunately the comma is easy to mistake for a period.

Sounds like an i18n nightmare waiting to happen; in some locales, the comma is the period and vice versa.

Re: University of Waterloo Students Win Facebook's Hackathon

#77

Post by nobodysbusiness »

MikeKusold wrote: post #70
speg wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to say this. I finished w/ $40k in the bank but the experiences gave me so much more.

How many years did it take for you to earn your B.S. with all the constant co-oping?

It takes an extra 8 months to get your degree. Your 4-year degree basically turns into a 5-year degree.

Re: University of Waterloo Students Win Facebook's Hackathon

#78

Post by paulfedory »

cbhl wrote: post #68
otoburb wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For folks who don't quite understand the difference, the 4-month alternating co-op program at Waterloo is distinctly different from the long-term 12-16month co-op employment program at University of Toronto (aka Professional Experience Year). Both have obvious strengths and weaknesses when looking at the employment time horizon vs. employment variety. When I applied to both schools in the mid-90s I viewed the longer…

You're counting the months of employment experience, but you're omitting other things like the amount of interview experience (six co-op cycles means six times to get an interview at Google, Facebook, etc.) and opportunities to refine your resume.

This. I can't tell you how useful it is to have learned to be completely comfortable doing interviews. Through my co-op experiences, I've probably done 25 to 30 interviews at all sorts of companies, and different styles of interviews. And all this before I graduated. Very useful!

Re: University of Waterloo Students Win Facebook's Hackathon

#79

Post by michaelrlitt »

OmarIsmail wrote: post #54
supersaiyan wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree on the second part, I can get interviews with google/microsoft/facebook, etc, basically the big tech companies. But its far more difficult getting interviews from start ups in SV

Not sure what term you're in but startups - particularly the smaller 2/3 team ones, can't absorb more junior developers. But if you're in 3A and above you should be strong enough to hit the ground running. There's also immigration issues. To get a J-1 visa the host company needs to meet certain requirements. In any event as a Waterloo alum currently doing a YC-backed startup in SF, we'll be posting jobs in the next c…

To follow up on Omar's comment - there are some YC startups operating in Canada ;)

Some of those startups know lots of silicon valley companies looking to vet through the crowd of international talent. Working somewhere local is a great place to start.

Re: University of Waterloo Students Win Facebook's Hackathon

#80

Post by guyzero »

tetester wrote: post #44

"Show me the gender distribution of my friends" - 178.72% Male

While Waterloo often does seem to be about 178.72% male, parts of engineering are at parity (chem eng was 50/50 a few years back) and there are entire other faculties with lots of lovely people for you to make friends with.
Post reply on HN