7 ms·

The Cost of Waterloo Software Engineering

95 points by psobot 12y ago

aaronbrethorst 12y ago
After 5 long and difficult years, I’m extremely proud to say that I’m a Waterloo grad Every Waterloo grad I've ever met has gone through their coop program, which adds an extra year to their undergrad degree: https://uwaterloo.ca/find-out-more/co-op/how-co-op-works https://uwaterloo.ca/find-out-more/co-op/how-co-op-works
- philip1209 12y ago
  I'll add that their starting salaries reflect this, though.
- ska 12y ago
  If I recall correctly it is required for all engineering degrees, and quite popular in programs like CS as well. From the hiring end, it works well. These graduates are typically very competent.
  - jagger27 12y ago
    It makes me a little jealous as a Carleton student.
    - alanctgardner3 12y ago
      uOttawa grad here: is there any co-op option at Carleton? It wasn't very popular at uOttawa, to the point that my employers were getting Waterloo grads because they couldn't find anyone local. There's a lot of cool companies in the capital (not just Shopify!), I'd recommend trying to find a position while you're still a student.
      - cbhl 12y ago
        While not a 1:1 replacement, you could consider applying to jobs for the summer on your own. I've met a lot of people in California from the University of Toronto who've done so.
  - ChrisArchitect 12y ago
    legendary coop program, good placements, defacto part of being waterloo eng/CS student. Carleton has coop for sure, just not nearly as strong. But back in the dotcom boom/silicon valley north/nortel era of late 90s/early 2000's...it was good because the region was super strong.
seren 12y ago
It might be obvious to American readers, but I had not idea that University of Waterloo mentioned here was in Canada, and not in Belgium.
- recalibrator 12y ago
  Yes, in Ontario Canada. It's home of BlackBerry (the smartphones company) and a hotbed for startups. Google has an office downtown in downtown Waterloo.
  - jacobparker 12y ago
    It is in downtown Kitchener; the city beside Waterloo. (That doesn't change the semantics, here.) (Waterloo's downtown is branded "uptown". Urg.)
- hackerboos 12y ago
  Or a district in Liverpool, a train station in London or a song by Abba.
Terr_ 12y ago
Dang, I was honestly expecting a Napoleonic analogy for software-design / project-management
- seren 12y ago
  I was also expecting some death march story. Interesting nonetheless.
1971genocide 12y ago
I find HN fetish with UoW to be interesting , which has been my data point to be very skeptical about believing everything I read here. 1) UoW has a really low requirement for entry, of my class many students went to study at UoW most of them had average to below average grade, compared to Oxbridge UoW has a joke of an entry requirement, I later learned they have a very high dropout rate after first year - which explains things, but I think is disingenuous to their students. School should be a place of learning not a lab for natural selection. 2) I drew a spreadsheet for Unis across the global all from singapore,UK,US and Canada. Any engineer graduating with an average GPA working full time for 1 year and having done internships in uni will have earned more money than what this links shows. 3) The strong internship requirement means students who cannot find one within four months of joining uni is likely to fail his semester even if he is academically gifted. My UoW friend failed a year due to this stupid requirement, in most other universities it will not be an end to your stay if you fail to get a job within the first 4 months. 4) UoW has really bad reputation in the academical world and ppl doing basic research ( look up UoW ranking ) 5) Their fees are only competitive if you are from canada, they are much more expensive for international students compared to elite universities in the UK. 6) Universities historically should have weak ties with industries. The reason for this is independence. I know for a fact that UoW has strong ties with microsoft in the past and used to push .NET stuff on their students ! how do you expect a university to be intellectually honest if they are attached to a corporation ? I could add more but I am running out of time.
- jarek 12y ago
  Waterloo's technical programs would be at home at a very strong polytechnic. It's not Oxbridge and never will be. "University" is a misnomer but English-speaking Canada doesn't use "technical university" or "polytechnic" and "college" means something else. Weak ties with industries are important for theoretical research but a joke for programs like mechanical engineering.
  - 1971genocide 12y ago
    As far as I see it waterloo doesn't advertise itself as a polytechnic, however it might be a fault of their marketing department. I do not think I am mistaken with their intentions, why doesn't UoW charge similar rates (fees) as other polytech rather than charging the rates of MIT/Oxbridge ? They offer 4 years bachelors degree similar to the ones offered by any other top universities. I disagree that mechanical engineering should be put in the same ranks as electricians/auto-mechanics.
dkhenry 12y ago
Drexel University has a similar program requiring five years to complete. However the co-op's are for six months at a time which is infinitely more useful to both the student and employer then more frequent shorter co-op's.
- peeters 12y ago
  There's always a balance to be struck. Very often, students will do 2-6 terms in the same place. The difference is that the part that exceeds 4 months only happens if it's a good fit for both student and employer. Compare that to some places that do an entire 16 month co-op at once in the middle of your program (e.g. McMaster). I've heard horror stories of people knowing in the first 3 weeks that they were going to hate working there, but were basically obligated to work there for another 15 months to get credit. You can put up with almost anything for 4 months. That, and it's much easier to schedule classes to be shared by non-coop students and coop students when the terms align (non-coop do 8 months school, 4 months summer, etc).
- aianus 12y ago
  How does that work given that standard school terms are 4 months long and the lcm of 6 and 4 is 12? You'd have to bunch up consecutive co-ops or else have dead time to resync with the rest of the school. Edit: fail math x2
  - dkhenry 12y ago
    At Drexel the school terms are three months. So each co-op is two terms. The normal cycle is two three month school terms one six month co-op.
- boyaka 12y ago
  University of the Pacific had the six month co-op 5 year program as well (was required in my time but I believe there are some alternatives these days). My manager in my first internship would actually hire from our school and Waterloo, normally 3 from Waterloo and 2 from our school. He made an exception the year I went and we ended up with just 1 Waterloo and 4 from my school...thankfully for me! I became good friends with the Waterloo student working in our department. The interns throughout the company (a few other Waterloo students, some other schools too) would hang out together at lunch every day. Another Waterloo student rotated in while we were there as well. The four of us from my school lived in an apartment in the same complex as the Waterloo student, who had three Waterloo roommates working at different companies. We got together for quite a few activities and dinners outside of work and got to hear stories from their friends about the other companies they were working at. I agree that six months is a lot better to really get involved in the work and accomplish something, but the short duration internships certainly kept them on their toes. Also, as stated elsewhere in this thread, they do have the ability to double up their time at one of their positions. I was pretty envious of the huge amount of connections they have and the fast, relentless pace of their program, but not so much of the fact that they have no breaks!
Pxtl 12y ago
I went through an EE co-op in UofGuelph, another university in the area. It was harder to get positions without the local prestige of the Waterloo brand, but it was still a great experience that convinced me that I liked software more than hardware.
why-el 12y ago
I can testify that this (systematically alternating between school and work throughout your undergraduate studies) makes you a better engineer. I learned about it when I moved to Germany, and it shows in some of my colleagues who chose to do it. This is not an option in a lot of countries, including my own (Morocco). The closest thing to this system that I did was to convince my computer science department to let me take a long pause from school (January to September) and move to Brazil where I found a good tech company that paid me for my ridiculously long internship. I came back with a very clear idea of my strengths and weaknesses when working on large and critical software systems, and I designed my last semester around these new insights. Granted, most people achieve similar goals through traditional internships routes, but it helps to be able to see you work live on beyond summer and be able to identify medium term regressions, follow on on other use cases, and account for the fact that other people will be taking up the torch soon.
neilxm 12y ago
The Case for and against U Waterloo I did my undergrad as well as my master's in Mechatronics at UWaterloo. Thought I'd pitch in to shed some light on two of the key themes of this conversation, Co-op and Academic research. 1. Co-op - The Waterloo 4 month alternating Co-op program has its pros and cons. On one hand you get the chance to go out and sample a bunch of different kinds of jobs (if you proactively choose to do so), travel, fund your own education without drowning in student loans and get a taste for what engineering outside the classroom might be like. Currently with a large number of start-ups in Waterloo a lot of Co-op students work with start-ups which, for this forum, should undoubtedly be a good thing. On the other hand, the obsession with co-op chips away from the culture of learning that a University should harbor. I remember freaking out about jobs, interviews and my resume from the 3rd week of classes in first year. It seems to be a common theme here. You spend most of your actual time on campus, preparing to get off campus and it creates less of an impetus to pursue deeper learning and research. That being said, as with everything in life, you get out of it what you put into it. 2. Academic Research - Most schools, In my opinion, have good pockets and bad pockets. The fact that the model of scientific research worldwide is pretty broken is well known. Industrial partnerships drive research because that's where the money is. At least until we all become millionaires and donate money back to our Universities for no-strings-attached research :D It also depends on the professor. Some professors choose to fund themselves off government grants that give them less money and more freedom while others choose to work with large companies like GM on industrial research projects. You need to find the professor that aligns with your interests. I was lucky enough to work on robotic path planning and multi-robot cooperation without any industrial interests breathing down my neck but that doesn't always happen of course. The good thing about a Waterloo master's is that it is guaranteed to be fully funded by the University and, based on merit, you can choose to do either a course-based master's or a thesis-based master's. This is unlike American universities because we drive our own research for the entirety of our program. Being just a master's student I've published as a first author in most of the major robotics conferences and journals (ICRA, IROS, JFR, TRO, WAFR) and not many master's students in other Universities have the opportunity to do that.

95 points by psobot 12y ago

After 5 long and difficult years, I’m extremely proud to say that I’m a Waterloo grad Every Waterloo grad I've ever met has gone through their coop program, which adds an extra year to their undergrad degree: https://uwaterloo.ca/find-out-more/co-op/how-co-op-works https://uwaterloo.ca/find-out-more/co-op/how-co-op-works

philip1209 12y ago
I'll add that their starting salaries reflect this, though.
ska 12y ago
If I recall correctly it is required for all engineering degrees, and quite popular in programs like CS as well. From the hiring end, it works well. These graduates are typically very competent.
- jagger27 12y ago
  It makes me a little jealous as a Carleton student.
  - alanctgardner3 12y ago
    uOttawa grad here: is there any co-op option at Carleton? It wasn't very popular at uOttawa, to the point that my employers were getting Waterloo grads because they couldn't find anyone local. There's a lot of cool companies in the capital (not just Shopify!), I'd recommend trying to find a position while you're still a student.
    - cbhl 12y ago
      While not a 1:1 replacement, you could consider applying to jobs for the summer on your own. I've met a lot of people in California from the University of Toronto who've done so.
- ChrisArchitect 12y ago
  legendary coop program, good placements, defacto part of being waterloo eng/CS student. Carleton has coop for sure, just not nearly as strong. But back in the dotcom boom/silicon valley north/nortel era of late 90s/early 2000's...it was good because the region was super strong.

seren 12y ago

It might be obvious to American readers, but I had not idea that University of Waterloo mentioned here was in Canada, and not in Belgium.

recalibrator 12y ago
Yes, in Ontario Canada. It's home of BlackBerry (the smartphones company) and a hotbed for startups. Google has an office downtown in downtown Waterloo.
- jacobparker 12y ago
  It is in downtown Kitchener; the city beside Waterloo. (That doesn't change the semantics, here.) (Waterloo's downtown is branded "uptown". Urg.)
hackerboos 12y ago
Or a district in Liverpool, a train station in London or a song by Abba.

Terr_ 12y ago

Dang, I was honestly expecting a Napoleonic analogy for software-design / project-management

seren 12y ago
I was also expecting some death march story. Interesting nonetheless.

1971genocide 12y ago

I find HN fetish with UoW to be interesting , which has been my data point to be very skeptical about believing everything I read here. 1) UoW has a really low requirement for entry, of my class many students went to study at UoW most of them had average to below average grade, compared to Oxbridge UoW has a joke of an entry requirement, I later learned they have a very high dropout rate after first year - which explains things, but I think is disingenuous to their students. School should be a place of learning not a lab for natural selection. 2) I drew a spreadsheet for Unis across the global all from singapore,UK,US and Canada. Any engineer graduating with an average GPA working full time for 1 year and having done internships in uni will have earned more money than what this links shows. 3) The strong internship requirement means students who cannot find one within four months of joining uni is likely to fail his semester even if he is academically gifted. My UoW friend failed a year due to this stupid requirement, in most other universities it will not be an end to your stay if you fail to get a job within the first 4 months. 4) UoW has really bad reputation in the academical world and ppl doing basic research ( look up UoW ranking ) 5) Their fees are only competitive if you are from canada, they are much more expensive for international students compared to elite universities in the UK. 6) Universities historically should have weak ties with industries. The reason for this is independence. I know for a fact that UoW has strong ties with microsoft in the past and used to push .NET stuff on their students ! how do you expect a university to be intellectually honest if they are attached to a corporation ? I could add more but I am running out of time.

jarek 12y ago
Waterloo's technical programs would be at home at a very strong polytechnic. It's not Oxbridge and never will be. "University" is a misnomer but English-speaking Canada doesn't use "technical university" or "polytechnic" and "college" means something else. Weak ties with industries are important for theoretical research but a joke for programs like mechanical engineering.
- 1971genocide 12y ago
  As far as I see it waterloo doesn't advertise itself as a polytechnic, however it might be a fault of their marketing department. I do not think I am mistaken with their intentions, why doesn't UoW charge similar rates (fees) as other polytech rather than charging the rates of MIT/Oxbridge ? They offer 4 years bachelors degree similar to the ones offered by any other top universities. I disagree that mechanical engineering should be put in the same ranks as electricians/auto-mechanics.

dkhenry 12y ago

Drexel University has a similar program requiring five years to complete. However the co-op's are for six months at a time which is infinitely more useful to both the student and employer then more frequent shorter co-op's.

peeters 12y ago
There's always a balance to be struck. Very often, students will do 2-6 terms in the same place. The difference is that the part that exceeds 4 months only happens if it's a good fit for both student and employer. Compare that to some places that do an entire 16 month co-op at once in the middle of your program (e.g. McMaster). I've heard horror stories of people knowing in the first 3 weeks that they were going to hate working there, but were basically obligated to work there for another 15 months to get credit. You can put up with almost anything for 4 months. That, and it's much easier to schedule classes to be shared by non-coop students and coop students when the terms align (non-coop do 8 months school, 4 months summer, etc).
aianus 12y ago
How does that work given that standard school terms are 4 months long and the lcm of 6 and 4 is 12? You'd have to bunch up consecutive co-ops or else have dead time to resync with the rest of the school. Edit: fail math x2
- dkhenry 12y ago
  At Drexel the school terms are three months. So each co-op is two terms. The normal cycle is two three month school terms one six month co-op.
boyaka 12y ago
University of the Pacific had the six month co-op 5 year program as well (was required in my time but I believe there are some alternatives these days). My manager in my first internship would actually hire from our school and Waterloo, normally 3 from Waterloo and 2 from our school. He made an exception the year I went and we ended up with just 1 Waterloo and 4 from my school...thankfully for me! I became good friends with the Waterloo student working in our department. The interns throughout the company (a few other Waterloo students, some other schools too) would hang out together at lunch every day. Another Waterloo student rotated in while we were there as well. The four of us from my school lived in an apartment in the same complex as the Waterloo student, who had three Waterloo roommates working at different companies. We got together for quite a few activities and dinners outside of work and got to hear stories from their friends about the other companies they were working at. I agree that six months is a lot better to really get involved in the work and accomplish something, but the short duration internships certainly kept them on their toes. Also, as stated elsewhere in this thread, they do have the ability to double up their time at one of their positions. I was pretty envious of the huge amount of connections they have and the fast, relentless pace of their program, but not so much of the fact that they have no breaks!

Pxtl 12y ago

I went through an EE co-op in UofGuelph, another university in the area. It was harder to get positions without the local prestige of the Waterloo brand, but it was still a great experience that convinced me that I liked software more than hardware.

why-el 12y ago

I can testify that this (systematically alternating between school and work throughout your undergraduate studies) makes you a better engineer. I learned about it when I moved to Germany, and it shows in some of my colleagues who chose to do it. This is not an option in a lot of countries, including my own (Morocco). The closest thing to this system that I did was to convince my computer science department to let me take a long pause from school (January to September) and move to Brazil where I found a good tech company that paid me for my ridiculously long internship. I came back with a very clear idea of my strengths and weaknesses when working on large and critical software systems, and I designed my last semester around these new insights. Granted, most people achieve similar goals through traditional internships routes, but it helps to be able to see you work live on beyond summer and be able to identify medium term regressions, follow on on other use cases, and account for the fact that other people will be taking up the torch soon.

neilxm 12y ago

The Case for and against U Waterloo I did my undergrad as well as my master's in Mechatronics at UWaterloo. Thought I'd pitch in to shed some light on two of the key themes of this conversation, Co-op and Academic research. 1. Co-op - The Waterloo 4 month alternating Co-op program has its pros and cons. On one hand you get the chance to go out and sample a bunch of different kinds of jobs (if you proactively choose to do so), travel, fund your own education without drowning in student loans and get a taste for what engineering outside the classroom might be like. Currently with a large number of start-ups in Waterloo a lot of Co-op students work with start-ups which, for this forum, should undoubtedly be a good thing. On the other hand, the obsession with co-op chips away from the culture of learning that a University should harbor. I remember freaking out about jobs, interviews and my resume from the 3rd week of classes in first year. It seems to be a common theme here. You spend most of your actual time on campus, preparing to get off campus and it creates less of an impetus to pursue deeper learning and research. That being said, as with everything in life, you get out of it what you put into it. 2. Academic Research - Most schools, In my opinion, have good pockets and bad pockets. The fact that the model of scientific research worldwide is pretty broken is well known. Industrial partnerships drive research because that's where the money is. At least until we all become millionaires and donate money back to our Universities for no-strings-attached research :D It also depends on the professor. Some professors choose to fund themselves off government grants that give them less money and more freedom while others choose to work with large companies like GM on industrial research projects. You need to find the professor that aligns with your interests. I was lucky enough to work on robotic path planning and multi-robot cooperation without any industrial interests breathing down my neck but that doesn't always happen of course. The good thing about a Waterloo master's is that it is guaranteed to be fully funded by the University and, based on merit, you can choose to do either a course-based master's or a thesis-based master's. This is unlike American universities because we drive our own research for the entirety of our program. Being just a master's student I've published as a first author in most of the major robotics conferences and journals (ICRA, IROS, JFR, TRO, WAFR) and not many master's students in other Universities have the opportunity to do that.