
University of Waterloo: Silicon Valley's Canadian Feeder School - gdilla
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-31/university-of-waterloo-silicon-valleys-canadian-feeder-school
======
pg
There is something special about Waterloo. We noticed it a couple years ago.

~~~
redthrowaway
What's special about UW students/grads, and what do you attribute it to?

~~~
kohanz
It's the co-op program.

Students trade independence during summers for year-round schooling that has
them gaining 2 years of work experience at up to 6 different organizations by
the time they graduate. And the reputation of the program is such that, if
you've got the ability, you'll get opportunities at the biggest tech players.
On top of the work experience, you'll have a wealth of experience applying to
literally hundreds of jobs, being interviewed, both technically and non-
technically, perhaps as many times as you will _for the rest of your career_ ,
and all of this while working alongside and competing with very bright peers.

~~~
theorique
Definitely agree.

The co-op program actually increases time to degree a little bit (three
terms), because a “normal” 4 year university degree is 1/3 summer term, while
Waterloo students alternate co-op term and academic term after their first two
terms (I’m glossing over some details, but this is more or less how it used to
work).

A = academic; S = summer (most universities); C = co-op (Waterloo)

Most unis : AASAASAASAA

Waterloo : AACACACACACACA

Essentially, Waterloo students get 8 academic terms and 6 co-op terms in 14
4-month terms. As others have mentioned, the history and structure of the co-
op program means that students are getting industry experience very early on
in university. The extra few terms seem like a small price to pay for that
experience.

Most other (US / Canada) universities focus their teaching in the fall and
winter terms so that a student will get 8 academic terms and 3 summer terms
(where you’re much more on your own in terms of finding a summer job).

~~~
eumenides1
I went to waterloo, I wanted to add a little more insight to your comment.

the system you gave is correct, but there is a little nuance to it. when you
are on your academic term, around midterm time you have to find your job for
the next term (assuming you don't continue your previous term's job). so
during midterms you are studying like mad and interviewing like a pro to make
next term work. its not easy, but you become extremely adept at interviews
(trial by fire) and editing your resume. Also you get used to shrugging off
rejection.

funny is if you get the Google, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, or Facebook job.
Your next term you can pretty much get a job at any of the others.

another scary tidbit at UW, is the level of talent around you. I can't tell
you how many times my mind has been blown away by another person's ability to
make some impossible assignment/task look like a cake walk. so its really hard
to be arrogant at UW. I remember feeling like I can leap tall bounds in a
single stride, but everyone else seems to just fly.

~~~
gdilla
This. Thought i was smart in high school. Got the highest score in the
descarte math course. Went to waterloo and got my ass whooped. Always below
average. My time at Waterloo made me feel dumb. I mean, things were just
effortless for them. I was just a late bloomer, I tell myself.

------
stickhandle
_Waterloo is a sleepy, postindustrial city of 100,000, a little less than 200
miles northeast of Detroit._ Ummm ... Waterloo-Kitchener-Cambridge form the
K-W region (these 3 blend together with indistinguishable border) of ~ 1/2
Million peoople. Hardly "sleepy" the region is know as Canada's Tech Triangle
and has a vibrant corporate _and_ startup economy. While it is 200 miles
northeast of Detroit, it may as well be 2000 ... Detroit has no influence
whatsoever. More accurate would be to say it is ~50 miles from Toronto.

~~~
richardlblair
Common, anyone who has even driven through Waterloo knows it's sleepy... No
one says "shit, I really want to go to Waterloo". That's like saying people
want to go to London (Ontario)... That's just not a thing

------
kitcar
For anyone wanting to hire students from Waterloo / looking for work in the
area:

[https://uwaterloo.ca/jobmine/employers](https://uwaterloo.ca/jobmine/employers)
/ [https://uwaterloo.ca/hire/](https://uwaterloo.ca/hire/)

[http://waterlootechjobs.com/en/](http://waterlootechjobs.com/en/)

[http://www.techjobswaterloo.com/](http://www.techjobswaterloo.com/)

[http://www.communitech.ca/](http://www.communitech.ca/)

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

------
abali
Waterloo's rep really hit home to me when at the end of our YC interview, PG
still hadn't seen our demo and when we asked why, he said, "You're from
Waterloo right? It works."

------
guyzero
Oddly once upon a time (back in '94) we were a feeder for Canadian high-tech
and Microsoft, but very few students ended up in the Valley, at least not
fresh out of school. In the intervening 20 years Canadian high-tech has stayed
flat at best while the US has taken on more and more Waterloo grads every
year. The increases in UW engineering & CS enrollment over the past 20 years
are basically all going to the US (in my anecdotal opinion).

~~~
drpgq
As an Ontarian this is a little sad, although I'm sure there's places in the
US where the same thing happens. Certainly though I think companies should
think of setting up engineering locations in KW. You can get quality people
for way less money than you would have to pay in the Valley.

~~~
jsnk
I wish American software giants would open more offices in Canada. Canadian
software industry is still in a sorry state right now, but there's a lot
talent in the country. American companies can pay lower wage to Canadian devs
than US and they will still attract top talents from other Canadian companies
because developers are lowballed hard here.

~~~
memracom
Hear, hear.

Google really needs to take a hint from BufferBox. If they can set up parcel
delivery sites everywhere, what about setting up small to medium sized offices
in every major city so that people don't have to relocate to work with them.
Start with Vancouver. Mozilla has an office here in Vancouver and near as I
can tell its only function is so that local people can work close to home on
one or another of the Mozilla projects.

In my opinion, this is the future of work. Small hubs colocated with other
small hubs, so that you are not working remote alone, but with a handful of
coworkers in a larger office environment that has many businesses sharing a
building and the overhead things like receptionists, room booking, coffee
rooms, etc.

~~~
herge
Google has debs working in Montreal and Toronto.

~~~
abrichr
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-...](http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/google-buys-university-of-toronto-
startup-1.1373641)

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

------
kohanz
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 Canadian school, but if they could, it was UW.

I also remember a poker dealer in Vegas seeing my friend's iron ring and
guessing "Waterloo?".

~~~
solox3
According to Google's top hit, Waterloo also happens to be "the top poker
university": www.pokerlistings.com/blog/top-5-poker-universities

~~~
paulgb
One alumnus the university tends not to brag about is Calvin Ayre, founder of
the bodog online poker empire.

------
memracom
Former Waterloo student here...

It's a shame that more Waterloo folks don't stay in Canada and build their
businesses here. Unlike when I was at UW, nowadays there is plenty of
investment money available in Canada and significant tech hubs in Vancouver,
Toronto and Waterloo itself. Not to mention the fact that even in less major
Canadian cities (or the US Midwest) there actually is a tech scene happening
and people are starting new businesses. It is no longer necessary to move far
from home to build a tech business.

~~~
throwaway1979
Every time I've looked into it in detail, I feel Canada's VCs/angels are
essentially bankers. Too much risk minimization going on (at the expense of
the entrepreneur). What I find is a travesty is that the recent govt of Canada
investment in developing startup activity will most likely go to these
glorified bankers to help them further reduce risk.

Look at how much YC has spent on its startups ... my memory might be faulty
but when I heard pg give the number it was around 6 million. If the govt of
Canada did a program similar to startup Chile where they would invest in
people's startups for a few months, THAT would have been a game changer for
the smart Waterloo and UofT grads. Squandered opportunities ...

~~~
redthrowaway
You're right on the money. Bay St likes resources, not startups. The company
I'm currently working for was started by a couple of fresh UVic grads in 2005
and they went through 60 VCs before they found one who both had a worthwhile
network, and seemed legitimately interested in funding a startup that had
positive cashflow from day 1 and partnerships with tech titans.

------
ryguytilidie
Pretty simple really.

They throw their students into the deep end and have them do multiple
internships versus my public school in CA where I was the exception to the
norm for doing an internship at all.

These people come out of school with the abilities of someone 2 years out of
school but with the same freshness and excitement of other new grads.

------
adamtait
I'm very proud of my time at Waterloo. The school surrounded me great students
and (some) great professors who were constantly challenging and rewarding. I
wouldn't be the person I am now, and wouldn't have had the same great
opportunities had I gone to another school.

As always, these stories about 'Canada's hidden talent pool' slide into a
discussion about the 'brain drain'. Many of classmates from the class '07
ended up in the bay area, Seattle/Redmond, NYC or Boston. I'd estimate greater
than 50%. In fact, I'm one of them. While I may not be living in Canada, I
still stay connected to my home. I have many friends who have moved to the US
after school only to return to Canada when they're ready to settle down and
have a family. Canada remains a great place to live; I just wish we could
decrease the cost of doing business between Canada & the US lower, and
convince more Americans to move up north.

~~~
pyrocat
Isn't it pretty hard to get Canadian citizenship if you're American? Like,
even with highly sought after skills in tech I've heard it's near impossible.

~~~
auctiontheory
Among the "rich" countries, Canada is one of the most open in the world to
skilled immigrants.

~~~
niuzeta
it's getting harder. slowly but definitely.

------
bct
In my experience Canadians don't perceive the same differences between
universities that Americans do.

Fewer differences between our universities is a plausible explanation. So is
the possibility that Americans perceive differences that don't exist.

------
gjmulhol
No mention of Chamath Palihapitiya or Eric Migicovsky. I think the title and
intent of this article are spot on, but like so many things Business Week, the
reporting doesn't hit the important datapoints. Why focus on BlackBerry, which
certainly deserves mention, but totally ignore two huge successes that support
the thesis of the article.

~~~
acchow
Business Week isn't real journalism. No surprise here.

------
brandonb
The Waterloo students I've worked with have been absolutely amazing and have
tons of programming experience. They do co-ops year-round. If you're running a
startup, I'd recommend putting a post on Jobmine, which is their online job
matching tool: [http://uwaterloo.ca/jobmine/](http://uwaterloo.ca/jobmine/)

The next deadline to post a co-op is January 15, for students working in
summer 2014.

(You can technically post now for the "continuous cycle" of Jan-Apr co-ops,
but I think most students are already matched so you'll get fewer results.)

------
scosman
"Most years, we hire more students out of Waterloo than any university in the
world" -Bill Gates

I think we topped Google one year too, but couldn't find a source.

~~~
DrewAllyn
We tend to trade back and forth with Stanford for top at Apple too.

------
parasubvert
The Waterloo CS co-op program got me down to the Valley in 1998. I wound up
dropping out in 2000 to move to New York (I don't recommend this lightly, but
it didn't harm my career and likely helped it due to timing).

It was a great program in that it actually tried to teach programming
alongside classic CS (this was before the SoftEng degree), and forced you to
get out in the real world as soon as possible. The biggest problem was that
(due to the grind in years 3 and 4) most of my peers who graduated CS wound up
hating computers and couldn't wait to get into management. Also, graduating
tends to take 5-6 years due to the work terms. I left in 3B so didn't quite
have those scars.

------
leot
More evidence for Waterloo's "specialness" can be found here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lowell_Putnam_Mathemat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lowell_Putnam_Mathematical_Competition)

Its teams have finished among the top five 18 times since 1968, twice as many
times as Stanford (though far fewer times than MIT, Princeton, or Harvard).
This with a budget that's dwarfed by the schools who dominate the competition
(and can afford expensive international recruitment). Waterloo had its heyday,
interestingly enough, around the time that RIM was founded: beginning in 1978
it placed in the top five eleven of the following sixteen years.

~~~
yureka
Another is the schools consistently high placement in the ACM's ICPC:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACM_International_Collegiate_P...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACM_International_Collegiate_Programming_Contest)

------
richardlblair
Waterloo is really great at making it _easy_ to hire co-ops. This is a huge
part of its success. I've heard hiring managers say they prefer UW students
over other schools simply because the co-op process at UW is so _easy_ for
them.

~~~
patman_h
I'm not sure to what extent hiring managers have to interact with the software
that powers the co-op process (Jobmine), but as a student who has used it to
secure 5 terms of work, Jobmine is definitely up there on my list of the worst
designed/most frustrating pieces of software to use. Jobs for CS students are
good and plentiful, so its still worth sludging through the system. Looking
forward to the replacement, if it ever comes (startup idea?)!
([http://www.bulletin.uwaterloo.ca/2011/feb/25fr.html](http://www.bulletin.uwaterloo.ca/2011/feb/25fr.html))

~~~
canistr
For students it's easy to criticize Jobmine as users of it. But given the even
worse (or in many cases, non-existent) co-op application systems at other
schools, Jobmine is light years better.

I remember working with some Waterloo alumni from the 80s/90s and they spoke
of the chaos of the application and ranking process when everything was done
on paper. I personally can't even fanthom how UW managed to do any of this
(although obviously there were less than half the number of students then to
what we have today).

------
BenoitEssiambre
This is anecdotal but one of their students once told me that Waterloo puts
more emphasis on mathematics compared to other universities. It's not that
students there necessarily take more math courses but that most courses try to
integrate math and teach the mathematical aspects of their material, even
courses outside of science. Their wikipedia page states that "Waterloo created
the first Faculty of Mathematics in North America" so I guess it's a tradition
for them.

~~~
jrsmitchell
Waterloo does have a strong Math tradition. But further to that, for a long
time the Computer Science degree at Waterloo was a specialization under their
Bachelor of Mathematics degree. So you had to fulfill all of the requirements
of the Math program and graduated with a "BMath". You were also offered
interesting minors like "Combinatorics and Optimization" where you would get
deep into Cryptography, Graph Theory and so on.

I can't say how it compares to other schools, but certainly many of my
memories of CS at Waterloo were working feverishly through difficult math
assignments so I could get back to the lab. ;)

------
zeruch
We have been using co-ops from Waterloo for some time and have subsequently
hired several full time. Some greta people there (even if they eat that weird
abomination, Poutine)

------
gotrecruit
is Waterloo the only university in canada with similar startup culture and
recognition from tech companies? i was unfortunately denied admission recently
to Waterloo, and I'm planning to try UBC and UToronto. UBC in particular has a
special program for people like me - college graduates seeking a second degree
in CS, which sounds really good but I keep hearing these things about Waterloo
which makes me feel really sad about not making it there.

~~~
richardlblair
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.

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

~~~
gotrecruit
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.

~~~
toblender
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!

------
hoverkraft
Currently working with a Waterloo intern and I can personally attest that he
is the bomb.

------
niuzeta
As far as I remember UW is one of the only universities in the continent to
offer a course to build an actual real-time operating system, from the ground
up. I learned so much in that course. Co-ops rule, but for non-coops the so-
called "big three" courses are pretty famous as well. I've had countless
interviews where an interviewer asked me if I'd taken at least one of the
three courses.

~~~
mingfli
Plus you got to play with trains.

~~~
usernew1817
when they're actually working...

------
rohitv
Being an engineering student at University of Waterloo has been a great
experience so far. Co-op is one of the main reasons why I chose UW as it is
certainly rewarding. The knowledge and experience that I have gained through
1.5 coop terms (currently on co-op) has been simply amazing. It also helps pay
the tuition and reduce, if not completely take away, the debt after
graduation. Besides the university, the Kitchener-Waterloo region is a great
place to be in for technology and start up enthusiasts. The R&T park right
beside the university and the Tannery Complex in Kitchener are home to many
great companies/startups. It is compelling to overhear conversations about
reversing linked lists,javascript mvc/mv* frameworks, monetizing apps while
eating at a local restaurant. Having 2 years of experience at possibly 6
different companies helps stand out from graduates from other universities.

------
drpgq
Tuition is $12000 now? I graduated from Mac in comp eng in 1996 and I think it
was getting to around $3000 then. Definitely worth it, but if you told me at
the time I would have thought $12000 was crazy. I graduated with no debt
though.

~~~
canistr
It's roughly $6000/term (for engineering, cheaper for CS students though) not
including paying for food + housing (an additional $1600-3000 depending on
where you decide to live on or off-campus). I'm in the boat of Waterloo grads
who graduated with no debt. But I would hazard a guess that the majority of
engineering students have little to no debt. And the students who do co-op in
the US most definitely earn more money than what's required to pay for school.

~~~
ChronosKey
I study Software Engineering at Waterloo right now; I paid 7600 this term
including tuition, incidental fees, co-op fees, etc. but not including food or
residence.

~~~
canistr
I ignored incidental fees from my figure. Strictly the tuition cost.

Also factoring in the point that tuition for engineering is making a major
hike (I think it was 5%?) and a lot of students get the 30% tuition cut from
the provincial government (although this doesn't apply to 4B students).

------
caval
If you are a tech/software company you should definitely consider taking on
Waterloo co-ops. There is a lot of competition between the students to get the
best jobs. This results in students that go above and beyond in their work to
distinguish themselves for the next round of interviews for their next co-op
job. On top of that, having this kind of ambition on your team can rub off on
the rest of the team boost the teams productivity.

------
toblender
Canada still has plenty of talent. U of T has strong CS/Engineering programs.
Only a few of my buddies are in the valley.

~~~
potatolicious
My anecdotal experience is different - almost every software type I went to
school with at Waterloo is now in the US somewhere. I know exactly 3 Canadians
I went to school with who are still in Canada.

------
CurtMonash
It goes all the way back to Watcom Fortran.

That eventually got absorbed into Powersoft, which was bought by Sybase, with
the star being the DBMS that turned into SQL Anywhere, which became the
ostensible reason for SAP's acquisition of Sybase.

(That story is of course oversimplified ...)

------
Oculus
Does anyone know if companies view soft-eng grads vs. compsci grads from uw
differently? The school says it's the same, but I'm hoping to hear some first
hand experience. Asking as a prospective undergrad next year :)

~~~
reso
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.

~~~
DrSbaitso
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.

~~~
ppymou
I don't think it's that much harder as CS can easily apply under the computer
analyst category for the TN visa.

~~~
minwcnt5
CS grad here, I've obtained multiple TN's and it's no different. You just have
to avoid telling the agent that your job involves "programming". It's just a
technicality really, the language was drafted at a time when terminology was
different.

------
borisjabes
This is something big tech companies have known since the dot-com era (Amazon
& Microsoft have been recruiting from Waterloo heavily for over a decade).

------
stox
UW has had a great CompSci program for decades. WATFOR has celebrated it's
50th anniversary.

------
resu
I find it very strange that they picked BufferBox instead of Thalmic Labs.

~~~
kcbanner
Why?

