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Microsoft Invests in the University of Waterloo
saforrest writes "Say goodbye to independent academia. In a presentation by Microsoft on Wednesday at the University of Waterloo, a new joint initiative was announced which involves the addition of a mandatory course on C# for all electrical and computer engineers. 'Completion of this course
will be mandatory for students entering the E&CE
program.'" Microsoft's press release is available.
No such requirements are present in the Computer Science program.
I'm really surprised this isn't affecting the new Computer Science faculty that's opening at Waterloo next year. I imagine it's only a matter of time until they fall too though..
Waterloo does not have, and is not getting a Comp Sci faculty. They have a mathematics faculty, one of a few in the world. That in turn had a Computer Science department, which has now become a School of Computer Science. They are also now starting to offer a Bachelors of Computer Science, although the old Bachelors of Math with a major in Computer Science will still be available. The new B.CS will be less math intensive, and more open to specialization in various areas.
-Rob
-Rob Ewaschuk
By Ryan Chen-Wing on Wednesday, August 14, 2002 at 12:33 p.m.
MS Ca Pres Clegg and Dr. Dave sign agreement At 10:00 today Microsoft Canada Co. President Frank Clegg announced $2.3 million funding that will facilitate three projects in the areas of academic research, education solutions, and curriculum integration. UW President David Johnston, UW's Director of ICR Vic DiCiccio, and MS Canada's Director of Education Sector George Kyriakis spoke as part of the announcement.
The aim of the research project is to develop equation recognition for new Tablet PCs that, in addition to having the functionality of laptops, have a screen which is touch sensitive to styli.
Clegg said that Tablet PCs are set to be released 7 November this year. He said he couldn't say for sure what the retail price will, "It would be great if we could get it down to the price of of a regular laptop."
Clegg and Dr. Dave discussing the Tablet PC The education solutions project will allow students to access lab equipment and simulators. A press release says that 8,000 course students in E&CE will benefit from this.
Under curriculum integration, first-choice applicants to UW's E&CE program will be allowed to take a new pre-university programming course in C#, E&CE 050. Completion of this course will be mandatory for students entering the E&CE program. C# is a new programming language developed by Microsoft.
The existing course E&CE 150, an introductory course to programming, will change from using C++ to C#.
DiCiccio commented on changing curriculum under the agreement, "E&CE weighed all the aspects of it and was comfortable with the change...UW is really sensitive to curriculum decisions it makes." He also joked, "$2.3 million isn't enough to sacrifice curriculum."
DiCiccio, Johnston, Clegg and Kyriakis At the end of the press conference, Clegg and President Johnston signed the agreement using an Acer Tablet PC. The announcement was made at UW in the Davis Centre's ICR Corporate Partner Lounge, which is also known as the fishbowl or the wine-and-cheese lounge. About 100 people attended.
The funding is part of the Microsoft Canada Academic Innovation Alliance, a $10 million dollar fund administered over five years that will accept proposals from acredited universities. A press release describes the four categories of the fund, academic research, education solutions, curriculum integration and industry outreach.
Kyriakis said, "We believe we should create ties between the business community and the academic community to ensure that innovation happens into the future." He added, "What we're doing at Waterloo is just fantastic."
All projects under the alliance will incorporate Microsoft technology. Clegg said, "We think that is the value that we provide."
Microsoft Canada President Frank Clegg has agreed to answer the 10 best questions posed by uws readers about the Microsoft Canada Academic Innovation Alliance, and its impact at UW. So, post your questions. uws editors will select the 10 best and send them to Mr. Clegg, then post his responses.
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
Guys, this is an ancient practice dating from when IBM and alums would give away mainframes for market share and also writeoffs, all the way through to Apples in the classrooms to hook the little monsters on GUIs. This is so old hat, it's just a knee-jerk reaction story. Move along, nothing new to see here.
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
I've read the article on UWStudent.org, and while I don't know anything about E&CE050, as a computer engineering student at UW, I have taken E&CE150 not too long ago and I can definitely say that the focus is not really on the specific language used, but things like algorithms, data structures, sorting/searching, root finding.
The second course of the set - ECE250 - is titled Algorithms and Data Structures and is taught in Java, and in either case, you are expected to pick up the language and start using it without any hand-holding. There's one hour tutorial at the start of the course that explains the language used (it was C++ for me), and after that, it's just TA's helping people during lab hours.
I don't think this is as big a deal as it sounds...
I'm in the computer engineering program at U of W, and never have I been forced to use a specific development environment. They tell you what platform they will be testing your code on, so you better make sure the end product works on it, but other than that, you have complete freedom.
Also concerned about this is the UW Federation Of Students. See their official release (warning, PDF) here.
(.RTF version)
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Darryl Ballantyne
http://www.darrylballantyne.com
hey, at UWS we use open source/free software. :-) it's a LAMP box.
paul
(uws sysadmin type)
Waterloo, Canada is named for Waterloo, Germany (it was founded by German people and it used to be called Berlin before WW2 when people made them change it).
Napolean's battle of waterloo took place in Belgium, not Germany, therefore a Napoleon joke is not required.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
http://wwwtor.activate.net/microsoft/Aug14-02/incl ude/forms/proceed.htm
I suspect University of Waterloo is has a pedagogical philosophy more along the lines of a community college and scimps on theory.
Suspect again. U(W) has very rigorous theory requirements. See here for the Electrical & Computer Engineering degree requirements.
.sig this!
Agreed -- fortunately, that's exactly what the course does.
Most of the problems that Java 125 people had when moving to 225 (before it became a Java class, too)
225 was *never* a Java class. It has been in C++ since at least as far back as Fall 1995.
That's what 223 was for, originally. It was a software lab that transitioned you from Scheme in the 125 intro to the C++ you'd need for 225 data structures. They got rid of 223 before moving 225 to Java, and that caused a hell of a lot of problems (they should've kept 223, and left 225 in C++, but oh well).
You have no idea what you are talking about.
Firstly, again, 225 was never taught in Java.
Second, the department had the people who took 125 in scheme take 223 right away and then move to one version of 225. The people who took 125 in Java were sent straight to a different version of 225 that taught a bit of C++ at the start of the course. The only people who went through hell were the people who took 125 in scheme but decided not to heed the warning or take note of what was going on, and instead waited a while before taking 223/225, meaning that by the time they decided to do so, 223 was gone and 225 was quickly teaching C++ to Java-familiar students instead of having 223 around to provide a semester-long instruction in C++.
Please get your facts straight when discussing UIUC in the future.
Regards,
Jason Zych
Instructor (and former TA), 125/225