7 ms·

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

by pg 13y ago

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.

eigenvector 13y ago
Elite US universities essentially select for hyper-competitive people. If you weren't hyper-competitive at ages 14-17, you won't be getting in. This isn't the case at Canadian schools where basically any talented student can attend a top school provided they aren't inordinately lazy.
duncanmcdowell 13y ago
I think it's more of a Canadian thing than a Waterloo thing. Ironically it's the same Canadian conservative attitude that investors often complain about (not shooting for the moon) that is responsible for the more pragmatic, practical attitude of entrepreneurs here. Waterloo is special because it has three great academic institutions and a culture of entrepreneurship that stretches back many years and encompasses everything from textiles to brewery and distillation industries.
- 9oliYQjP 13y ago
  I just commented and have pretty much the same opinion that you do. I've often wondered if this practical opinion on has anything to do with Canadians having to shovel the snow. Hear me out... In the U.S., there are dramatic weather and natural disasters that bring communities together. Floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, earth quakes. We don't have these extremes. But what we lack for in extreme weather, we make up for in volume. In Canada, we just have snow that has to get shovelled often. That means waking up a few times a week in your neighbourhood to shovel snow and side walks. Folks that don't do it are shamed and pressured into doing it. But even if they hold out, somebody just shovels the damn snow, because we're all the better for it. There is nothing more annoying than walking 90 m down a perfectly shovelled sidewalk and then having to walk 5 m along icy packed snow because some jerk refused to pitch in. With snow, when everybody pitches in their share of effort, entire cities can function. That has a profound impact on how you see government programs. "If I pitch in my bit, and everybody pitches in theirs, our health care/education/transit system can be pretty good". Moreover, when you actually see cities dig out from underneath snow, you debunk the myth that people are lazy. Most people, and a vast majority at that, pitch in and get things going. Again, this contributes a great deal toward our mindset on social programs.
adamtait 13y ago
It's a Canadian thing. You'll find grads from all the Canadian universities are humble and practical. Being a top university with grads in high demand, it's actually amazing that Waterloo grads haven't gotten a reputation for being more arrogant. I know I was at one point in my life.
- 9oliYQjP 13y ago
  As a Canadian I'd argue that this is a cultural trait that can easily be adopted by other countries. It is also a cultural trait we Canadians are rapidly losing. The reason Canadian universities produces these types of grads is because our universities are much more accessible to our citizens. It reflects our practical outlook on social programs like education, health care, and transit. Go on the TTC subway during the day and you'll find suits going to work on Bay St., kids going to U of T, and Tim Horton cashiers too. Get sick and you'll often have access to the same doctors that wealthy people do (though this has more to do with your geographic location... it's better to be in a big city). You don't have to have a certain surname to get into Waterloo. You'd be much better off just scoring well on the Fermat Contest. When nobody gives a shit what you have, and it's what you do that gets you places, you tend to be more modest. We have a long list of financial tools to make school happen for students that have the talent and will to go. We also have a fairly strong set of public school systems that get students to university's door. Again, these schools are accessible. One of the sadder things about Google's founder success is that more parents want to emulate this success for their kids by keeping them away from Canada's otherwise pretty good public school system. It will quickly deteriorate if more parents pick up on this trend to send their kids to private or Montessori schools.
  - JL2010 13y ago
    "You don't have to have a certain surname to get into Waterloo. You'd be much better off just scoring well on the Fermat Contest. When nobody gives a shit what you have, and it's what you do that gets you places, you tend to be more modest." Well put. UBC grad here, living and working in the valley now but if I ever wanted to raise a family I would think strongly about moving back to Canada purely for the great accessibility to quality public education.
FD3SA 13y ago
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 behind you, and you can get on with your courses. Uwaterloo is the the reverse: it is almost trivial to gain entrance, but surviving the devastating curriculum is another matter entirely. Elite US schools have the best teachers in the world in my opinion, as the quality of their online lectures have shown. However, it appears that the assessment difficulty is similar to a top level Canadian schools (UofT, McGill, etc.). This is the crucial difference between UWaterloo and every other university. UWaterloo assessment is brutal. In every way that an assessment can be made hard, it is done so. The tests are purely theoretical, making rote memorization useless. Furthermore, they are very long, putting slow and deep thinkers at a disadvantage. On top of all this, there is an extremely strict system of producing completely new exams and assignments, while making sure previous years' materials are not released. Combine this with an uncompromising curriculum in terms of breadth and depth, and you have one of the most rigorous CS programs in the world. Now you can argue whether all of this is unnecessary (whiteboard vs terminal coding), but the truth is, the sheer difficulty of the challenge tends to weed out the uncommitted. The reason why UWaterloo grads are humble, is because they have had their egos beaten out of them. Without exception, every UW Math/CS undergrad is one of the smartest people in their high school/town/province. They come to UW, and within the first year, they have a serious confidence crisis as they are failing courses and getting marks they've never seen before (50s 60s 70s). Once this occurs, they either quit, or swallow their ego and just focus on learning the material and preparing for the exams. There is no psychological foundation for arrogance, as even the best and brightest suffer failures repeatedly. To summarize: UWaterloo is war. Your morale suffers, your friends fail and leave, and you lose all hope. But the few who survive are battle-hardend engineers by the end. Unofficial UW motto: "Cry in the dojo, laugh in the battlefield." Addendum: Co-op terms are a refreshing break from this academic war zone. I was always amazed at how simple, straightforward and fun actual work was in comparison to the ruthlessness of the curriculum. Addendum II: Couldn't resist adding this hilarious interview with Elon Musk regarding his time at Queen's (another good Canadian school). He decided against UWaterloo, but for entirely different reasons: http://queensu.ca/news/alumnireview/rocket-man http://queensu.ca/news/alumnireview/rocket-man
Zenst 13y ago
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.

by pg 13y ago

eigenvector 13y ago

Elite US universities essentially select for hyper-competitive people. If you weren't hyper-competitive at ages 14-17, you won't be getting in. This isn't the case at Canadian schools where basically any talented student can attend a top school provided they aren't inordinately lazy.

duncanmcdowell 13y ago

I think it's more of a Canadian thing than a Waterloo thing. Ironically it's the same Canadian conservative attitude that investors often complain about (not shooting for the moon) that is responsible for the more pragmatic, practical attitude of entrepreneurs here. Waterloo is special because it has three great academic institutions and a culture of entrepreneurship that stretches back many years and encompasses everything from textiles to brewery and distillation industries.

9oliYQjP 13y ago
I just commented and have pretty much the same opinion that you do. I've often wondered if this practical opinion on has anything to do with Canadians having to shovel the snow. Hear me out... In the U.S., there are dramatic weather and natural disasters that bring communities together. Floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, earth quakes. We don't have these extremes. But what we lack for in extreme weather, we make up for in volume. In Canada, we just have snow that has to get shovelled often. That means waking up a few times a week in your neighbourhood to shovel snow and side walks. Folks that don't do it are shamed and pressured into doing it. But even if they hold out, somebody just shovels the damn snow, because we're all the better for it. There is nothing more annoying than walking 90 m down a perfectly shovelled sidewalk and then having to walk 5 m along icy packed snow because some jerk refused to pitch in. With snow, when everybody pitches in their share of effort, entire cities can function. That has a profound impact on how you see government programs. "If I pitch in my bit, and everybody pitches in theirs, our health care/education/transit system can be pretty good". Moreover, when you actually see cities dig out from underneath snow, you debunk the myth that people are lazy. Most people, and a vast majority at that, pitch in and get things going. Again, this contributes a great deal toward our mindset on social programs.

adamtait 13y ago

It's a Canadian thing. You'll find grads from all the Canadian universities are humble and practical. Being a top university with grads in high demand, it's actually amazing that Waterloo grads haven't gotten a reputation for being more arrogant. I know I was at one point in my life.

9oliYQjP 13y ago
As a Canadian I'd argue that this is a cultural trait that can easily be adopted by other countries. It is also a cultural trait we Canadians are rapidly losing. The reason Canadian universities produces these types of grads is because our universities are much more accessible to our citizens. It reflects our practical outlook on social programs like education, health care, and transit. Go on the TTC subway during the day and you'll find suits going to work on Bay St., kids going to U of T, and Tim Horton cashiers too. Get sick and you'll often have access to the same doctors that wealthy people do (though this has more to do with your geographic location... it's better to be in a big city). You don't have to have a certain surname to get into Waterloo. You'd be much better off just scoring well on the Fermat Contest. When nobody gives a shit what you have, and it's what you do that gets you places, you tend to be more modest. We have a long list of financial tools to make school happen for students that have the talent and will to go. We also have a fairly strong set of public school systems that get students to university's door. Again, these schools are accessible. One of the sadder things about Google's founder success is that more parents want to emulate this success for their kids by keeping them away from Canada's otherwise pretty good public school system. It will quickly deteriorate if more parents pick up on this trend to send their kids to private or Montessori schools.
- JL2010 13y ago
  "You don't have to have a certain surname to get into Waterloo. You'd be much better off just scoring well on the Fermat Contest. When nobody gives a shit what you have, and it's what you do that gets you places, you tend to be more modest." Well put. UBC grad here, living and working in the valley now but if I ever wanted to raise a family I would think strongly about moving back to Canada purely for the great accessibility to quality public education.

FD3SA 13y ago

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 behind you, and you can get on with your courses. Uwaterloo is the the reverse: it is almost trivial to gain entrance, but surviving the devastating curriculum is another matter entirely. Elite US schools have the best teachers in the world in my opinion, as the quality of their online lectures have shown. However, it appears that the assessment difficulty is similar to a top level Canadian schools (UofT, McGill, etc.). This is the crucial difference between UWaterloo and every other university. UWaterloo assessment is brutal. In every way that an assessment can be made hard, it is done so. The tests are purely theoretical, making rote memorization useless. Furthermore, they are very long, putting slow and deep thinkers at a disadvantage. On top of all this, there is an extremely strict system of producing completely new exams and assignments, while making sure previous years' materials are not released. Combine this with an uncompromising curriculum in terms of breadth and depth, and you have one of the most rigorous CS programs in the world. Now you can argue whether all of this is unnecessary (whiteboard vs terminal coding), but the truth is, the sheer difficulty of the challenge tends to weed out the uncommitted. The reason why UWaterloo grads are humble, is because they have had their egos beaten out of them. Without exception, every UW Math/CS undergrad is one of the smartest people in their high school/town/province. They come to UW, and within the first year, they have a serious confidence crisis as they are failing courses and getting marks they've never seen before (50s 60s 70s). Once this occurs, they either quit, or swallow their ego and just focus on learning the material and preparing for the exams. There is no psychological foundation for arrogance, as even the best and brightest suffer failures repeatedly. To summarize: UWaterloo is war. Your morale suffers, your friends fail and leave, and you lose all hope. But the few who survive are battle-hardend engineers by the end. Unofficial UW motto: "Cry in the dojo, laugh in the battlefield." Addendum: Co-op terms are a refreshing break from this academic war zone. I was always amazed at how simple, straightforward and fun actual work was in comparison to the ruthlessness of the curriculum. Addendum II: Couldn't resist adding this hilarious interview with Elon Musk regarding his time at Queen's (another good Canadian school). He decided against UWaterloo, but for entirely different reasons: http://queensu.ca/news/alumnireview/rocket-man http://queensu.ca/news/alumnireview/rocket-man

Zenst 13y ago

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.