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.

Comments

Nooooooo!

[__aaaaxm1522]

*sigh* I had hoped that the mathematics & Comp Sci department at U of W knew better. But who am I kidding? When I went there, we used to joke about how U of W's secondary campus was located in Redmond - given the large # of UW CompSci co-ops and graduates that worked there.

Ah well, at least my old Physics department is underfunded (wait... RIM is investing $150 million in a new Physics research institute @ the U of Waterloo? DOH!)

Waterloo always had close ties with industry. Now they appear to have an umbilical cord.

Re:Nooooooo!

[rruvin]

The Electrical and Computer Engineering program has nothing to do with the Faculty of Mathematics or the Computer Science program. It is a part of the Faculty of Engineering.

No such requirements are present in the Computer Science program.

Buying mandatory classes?

[Skyshadow]

It seems to me that the big at-fault party here is the University.

The fact that this University is willing to sacrifice any sort of appearence of propriety in order to squeeze a few bucks out of Microsoft is as pathetic and outragous as if they were to let the parents of poorly-performing students buy their way in with large cash donations.

Of course, the latter example happens all the time, but at least they don't brag about it in press releases.

Anyhow, it seems to me a horrible idea to set this sort of prescident. What's next? Coke gives a few bucks to the football team and suddenly all students have to undergo a session about the crisp, refreshing taste of Coke, Diet Coke and Sprite? The music industry buys the U a building and, next thing you know, all students are required to buy $300 of Britney and N'Sync albums for their music appreciation courses?

Universities should be about education, not indoctrination. Unless these are the best languages for teaching the foundations of computer programming (and they are not), they shouldn't be required.

Re:Buying mandatory classes?

[locust]

No the people at fault are the provincial government of Ontario, and the people of Ontario. The University of Waterloo is a government funded institution. Over the last 5 years the government has slashed education spending so that people in the suburbs (905) could get thier tax cuts, while balancing the budget. The people of ontario elected these people twice. Its gotten so bad in the school boards that auditors have recommended to the department of education that the province take over three (elected) boards (ottawa, toronto, and hamilton (? not sure about hamilton)) because the members of those boards refuse to implement any further province mandated budget cuts.

--locust

Re:Where's the Problem?

[dillon_rinker]

First they came for UW, and I didn't speak up because I didn't go there...

It's a good deal for both sides.
Deals between hospitals and insurance companies for managed health care are good for both sides. But are they good for the patient? Deals between the military and arms contractors are good for both sides. But are they good for soldiers & taxpayers? Hypothetical deals between congressmen and lobbyists ("hypothetical" because there is, of course, no quid pro quo) are good for both sides, but are they good for voters and citizens?

Is this deal good for the students of UW? THAT is the only question that matters.

Proprietary and Acadamia just don't mix

[tutal]

There is a reason why serious academic institutions do not overwhelmingly adapt Microsoft. Primarily it is the cost both in dollars and also in loss of academic freedom that comes with the restrictive licensing that comes with many proprietary applications. One of the founding tennants of higher education is that information should be freely and intensely pursued. Sure some "MIS" programs may just be an advanced MCSE/CCNA course, but most real computer science programs could not afford such a narrow scope. CS by definition is much more broad than software developement, MIS, EE, or networking; rather it is the culmination of all of the above with other studies mixed in.

Any CS program that concentrates too heavily on one thing (ie programming in C# or Java for that matter) really short changes its students and limits the potential that they can achieve. A much more broad approach, while not churning out top notch Java developers, produces excellent problem solvers who are able to quickly learn and adapt to the ever-changing technology world. Looking back on my undergrad experience I think that playing around on the HP-UX and AT&T UNIX (R) box helped me break out of the mold and learn much more effectively.

So?

[captain_craptacular]

If the CS department is worth a 1/2 a crap it doesn't really matter what language[s] they teach the classes in. The students should come away with a good solid foundation of general programming knowledge. Languages come and go, if a CS grad needs to know one they should be able to buy the reference and compare to their base of knowledge. Note: I'm not saying CS grads should be guru's in whatever language they choose after a day, but they should be able to get by.

Re:Academic Integrity

[Skyshadow]

Admissions have always been dirty, but at least in the past you didn't have classes being bought and sold.

Beyond the fact that C# isn't by any stretch the best language to teach concerning the basics of computer programming (and as such is a disservice to the students at large), this also sets a horrible prescident. Maybe Putnam can buy this U a new administrative building and get a new mandatory lit class added -- "Lit 203 -- The Works of Tom Clancy"

Re:why this is a bad idea

[dillon_rinker]

This sort of thing won't be happening much longer; they'll soon be running SQL Server 2000 and IIS 5.0 atop Windows 2000. The load likely will never be too high, but if there is are a lot of hits, performance will degrade much more grace*** STOP: 0x0000000C (0000000A, 0xFAADFF0D, 00000008, 00000000) UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP

The myth of Waterloo

[AdamBa]

OK, just have to weigh in with my opinion on the exalted status of Waterloo within Microsoft. What explains Microsoft's fascination with Waterloo graduates? Read on (hint: it has to do with the interaction between how Waterloo does it co-op program, and how Microsoft does its interviews).

[This is an excerpt from chapter 2 of my book.]

"Waterloo is considered the premier engineering school in Canada, and is most famous for its co-op program, in which students alternate school trimesters with work trimesters for five years. By the time they graduate, students have accumulated six different four-month work assignments. Some students wind up spending three or four of these co-op terms as Microsoft interns and then hire on full-time when they graduate. "Co-op" and "intern" mean the same thing in this case--one is the Waterloo term and one is the Microsoft term--but because of how the Waterloo schedule works, Waterloo co-ops will show up for Microsoft internships not only during the summer, but also from January to April and September to December.

Waterloo students have a reputation at Microsoft for being the crème de la crème among interns. In fact, for a while Waterloo interns were given special email addresses. While interns from all other schools had email addresses that started with "t-" (to visually distinguish them from full-time employees), Waterloo interns were given the unique prefix "w-". In the world of Microsoft that was high status indeed. Having grown up in Canada and knowing many people who went to Waterloo, I will state that there is nothing particularly magical about Waterloo students. Waterloo certainly does attract some of the best engineering students from all across Canada, but the admission standards are unquestionably lower than at the Ivy League universities, MIT and other top U.S. schools. Waterloo does a fine job of educating its students, but the curriculum is the same standard engineering courses offered elsewhere.

Despite this, Microsoft will happily turn down honors graduates from top U.S. schools, while drooling over Waterloo students. Why is this? It is because of the co-op program. But what is it about the co-op program? First of all, let's separate the students who did co-op terms at Microsoft, and lump them together with students from other universities who did internships at Microsoft. Those students are treated differently from others interviewing--Microsoft does recognize previous work experience at Microsoft as a valid input to the hiring process. One of the main goals of the whole internship program is to conduct extended, real-world evaluations for future full-time employment. If you have worked as an intern at Microsoft in the past and gotten good reviews from your boss, that is considered prima facie evidence that you will do well as a full-time employee and will factor into your interview after college. In fact it may become harder and harder for others to get full-time jobs at Microsoft, because hiring former interns carries so much less uncertainty.

But what about the students who have not interned at Microsoft before? Microsoft interviewers love to hear about specific tasks that were worked on by the candidate, with clear goals and results. Waterloo co-op jobs are great for this, so they give the students much more to talk about during interviews. This gives the Waterloo students a huge advantage over those from other schools, without indicating that they are likely to do any better once they are hired. The real ability they have is the ability to interview well at Microsoft.

I once asked a former Microsoft recruiter what she thought about Waterloo. Her first instinctive reaction was "a top school for technical candidates." But after thinking about it for a bit, she commented, "Outside of Microsoft, I've never heard of Waterloo."

Microsoft used to have a very bad attitude towards universities in general, viewing them merely as (imperfect) training grounds for students. Graduate degrees, with the exception of MBAs, were viewed as a waste of time. One senior manager, discussing recruiting students who were considering graduate school instead of Microsoft, once said, "We fully know how bogus [graduate school] is." This has improved recently (Microsoft now gives grants to schools without trying to dictate exactly what the money will be used for), but the bias against theoretical work and in favor of applied work still remains. Trying to figure out the relevance of a school project during an interview is hard--it is too dissimilar from the work done at Microsoft. Much easier to discuss co-op terms with a Waterloo candidate, and much less risk to recommend "hire" on one. So the myth of Waterloo persists."

- adam

Re:The myth of Waterloo

[Stu Charlton]

(Disclaimer: I'm a former Waterloo CS student. Left for my career without graduating around the beginning the dot-com bubble, still employed, no regrets.)

I agree with your assessment that there's a mythos behind UW students that seems to be carried among other companies as well, particularily in professional service firms, whether smaller ones or larger (like Accenture). But this mythos isn't entirely without basis.

I would generalize your observation to include my own experiences interviewing and working with UW co-ops and graduates: many UW students often *do* interview better than most other graduates and/or interns. And they often do generate better-than-average results. Over the past 2 companies I've worked for on the U.S. west coast and the east coast -- management fell in love with UW students.

I would attribute this to what some might find surprising: many CS and Eng students at UW have very good communication skills relative to their peers in other schools. The co-op program requires them to be good, since they have to work in between heads-down course work. Naturally every class has legendary high-mark/anti-social students, but they wind up being professors anyway *grin*.

A secondary reason for UW student's success at Microsoft and PSFs is that UW tends to hammer programming skills into CS students, even if it kills them (as anyone who's taken Operating Systems will attest to).

Being relatively professional speakers, the best UW co-ops are usually both confident & technically savvy enough to be placed on the front-lines to do real work -- whether in front of a client for a contract, or @ Microsoft with the culture of debating ideas.

Usually the UW co-ops and/or graduates I have known have been better than many full-time employees at client sites. But not perfect. I find UW grads, like all grads, have a lot of learning to do in placing systems work in business context. There's also a general lack of both high and low-level design skills, and an overemphasis on tricky algorithms and/or cleverness. The cynic in me believes this makes them fit right into Microsoft, which until .NET rarely considered elegance an important facet of keeping software costs low. The only grads that have design skills and/or good business skills usually are self-taught.

So, in summary: there is a myth around waterloo students, but not entirely unwarrented. They're more experienced programmers than most regular interns from other schools, and often they can be better communicators.

Re:The myth of Waterloo

[btempleton]

How many people are as famous as Dijkstra or Stallman? (Not that my mother would know either of their names!)

And how many famous poeple do you know the alma mater of?

A lot of guys from my time at U of Waterloo have done stuff to get noticed. People like Mark Tilden get written about. Ever heard of RIM? Built almost entirely by UW people, and I know their names and went to school with many of 'em, so you might not.

Some for the people who founded Mortis Kern, who were also the people who wrote Coherent, pretty well known in Unix circles.

Know Tom Duff and Bill Reeves? They're pretty famous in computer graphics circles. You see their names on the credits or a lot of movies from ILM and PIXAR. Late 70s waterloo folks again.

Walter Banks, one of the founders of Byte magazine? Scott Vanstone, pioneer in eliptic curve cryptography. (he taught me crypto.) And as the article suggests, though MS doesn't make its programmers into stars, a ton of Microsoft's code is from UW grads.

And you know, I'm not as famous as Stallman but I'm not that unknown myself in the online world.

And this is just the guys from my time around 1980. Lots of other folks after us went on to great things, but I don't necessarily know what school they went to.

Of course, UW is a young school, just coming up on 45 years of age. It got famous for WATFOR when it was only 10 years old. It takes a lot of time and reputation to get to the level of those other schools.

Is it the best school in the world? Who knows, but I know when I started hiring people years later, few I found from various U.S. schools were as good as the friends I had who were the best from Waterloo.

Re:why this is a bad idea

[paulschreiber]

there's now a static version of the page that is being updated every 10-30 minutes. i've also tweaked the mysql connection pool size.

hey, at UWS we use open source/free software. :-) it's a LAMP box.

paul
(uws sysadmin type)

Job Interviews in 4 Years...

[unsinged int]

4 years from now a bunch of grads will be heading to interviews...

Grad: "I know C#! Hire me!"
Industry: "C#. Check. What else do you know?"
Grad: "Huh? Like what?"
Industry: "Well, what did you learn in some of your other courses?
Grad: "I know how to design a web page so that it only works under Internet Explorer."
Industry: "Hmm..okaaaay. What type of degree did you say you have again?"
Grad: "I have a copy right here..."
Industry: "That says MCSE. That's not a diploma."
Grad: "No, it is. There's some fine print at the bottom. See?"
...

C# is OK, the decision is not

[g4dget]

I think it's fine to teach C# in an introductory CS course. Java is required at many universities, and it is no more open than C# (in fact, C# has an open standard).

What is not acceptable, however, is for grants from a company to be tied to the use of its products in the curriculum. And, in fact, while C# is fine technically and educationally, Java would still be a more useful language for students to learn.

Decisions like this really call into question the academic integrity of a university; potential students of U. of Waterloo should take notice.

Re:The Other UW and Microsoft

[Wraithlyn]

"I suspect University of Waterloo is has a pedagogical philosophy more along the lines of a community college and scimps on theory."

Not at all... Waterloo is VERY heavy on theory. It's not rated one of the top Canadian universities year after year for behaving like a community college. You learn theory in class, and you learn practical on your co-op terms... last time I heard, UW had the largest co-op program in the entire world. It's a pretty good mix, not to mention it helps you pay your own way.

Just don't venture into the psych building, or the 6th floor of the math building without a compass and a ball of string, or you'll never get out alive.

EULA Shrinkwrap 4 University of Waterloo Degrees?

[meehawl]

I can't wait to see what sort of scary EULA madness will eventually and inevitably be shrinkwrapped over the University of Waterloo's degrees. Just imagine the happy faces at graduation as they peel back the shrinkwrap on their degrees. And when MS move to a new licensing model, will all the version 1.0 University of Waterloo degrees be de-activated unless graduates pay a re-activation fee? The mind boggles.