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Canadian University Puts Tech Whiz Kids in 'Dormcubator'
jades writes "The University of Waterloo (Canada), sometimes billed as the 'MIT of the North' is establishing a residence 'incubator'. Meant to challenge 70 of their very top students in the tech and business fields, students will live together and work on 'the future of mobile communications, the web and digital media'. It's called 'VeloCity', and it launches in Fall 2008 after renovations are completed this summer."
As a UW student it's true that UW isn't the most engaging atmosphere, it's full over no-fun over-achievers (the best party I can find on some Friday nights is the math homework party). But one thing is does have is great academics and international performance. It is definitely regarded as the best university in Canada for computer science, and possibly the best in north america. Many tech companies (Microsoft, Amazon, RIM, etc.) hire more UW students than any other university. It has the worlds highest cumulative score in the ACM competition. So although it's lacking in student engagement in many respects, calling in the MIT of the north probably isn't the worst title. At the very least it's as well respected in Canada as MIT is in the US.
Submitted anonymously because I'm gonna get modded down for bragging. Slashdot user taylortbb if you want to reach me.
I'm going to have to agree. Waterloo isn't a bad school for engineering and comp sci. But it's not significantly better than any of the other accredited schools. As someone who has hired a lot of people in my career, I wouldn't even put Waterloo in the top 5 of the schools I aimed for. Mostly that's because the less well known schools have a lot of good people, but they are in less demand and thereby easier to hire. In fact the two best Canadian programmers (in terms of pure talent) I've met came from Calgary and Carleton.
In Canada, my opinion is that there isn't a good undergrad program for comp sci at all (I'm willing to be convinced, though). But all of the accredited schools are adequate. I'm not qualified to comment on engineering. However, my understanding is that Waterloo primarily achieved it's engineering reputation by being one of the first (if not the first) Canadian engineering department to really embrace a coop program. Now almost every school has one.
If anybody is interested in further reading, the campus newspaper did a story on this a couple of months ago, as well as the engineering newspaper.
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
I just want to know what chuckle-head thinks that University of Waterloo is significantly further north than MIT. Pretty sure that Boston and Toronto are roughly at the same latitude.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Gotta love the article saying how they got applicants from "As far away as Wilfred Laurier" (a university that is literally a block away from UW) and UofT (90 minutes away by the 401). In any case, seems like UW's looking at ways to turn their new company budding into a formal process of sorts.
Well, I have an MMath in CS from Waterloo. Let me tell you that UW is nothing like MIT or any other top notch university. UW's achievements are almost exclusively on the undergrad teaching level, and while that is great if you are an undergrad and want to be taught, it doesn't put UW anywhere in the same league as a true research university like MIT (or UofT, UBC, and McGill in Canada).
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada - 43 28'
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA - 42 36'
Most people forget that southern Ontario dips well south into the great-lakes basin.
2 blocks is considered far away?
"Evil will always triumph over good, because good is dumb." - Dark Helmet (Spaceballs)
Hi, I'm one of the students selected for this "dormcubator" thing, and I've had the chance to talk to many of the other students, as well as the organizers themselves. The focus of this initiative definitely wasn't to look for brainiacs with high grades - my marks suck. More focus was put on having an existing portfolio and history of pursuing extracurricular projects - building your own roomba on the side, for example. These are guys who have not only the smarts, but also proven their ability to work.
As a UW student who's looked at many other Canadian co-op programs... I urge you to look more deeply into UW's co-op. I hate to be a braggart, but I do not exaggerate when I say that UW's co-op is leaps and bounds beyond ANYTHING any other Canadian university has, despite their best efforts. The level of support, organization, and opportunities you get with UW co-op far exceeds any other school.
With many other schools I feel as if the co-op is another thing to strike off their list "yep, we've got that too", whereas at UW you really feel that the school strives to make it part of its identity, and the results speak for themselves. We place a ridiculous number of students in jobs every term, incredible satisfaction and success rates from both employers and employees, and heck, companies come interview students on *our* campus...
Note: I'm one of the selected students for this VeloCity thing, so I may be biased. To answer some of your questions...
The problem I have with this Velocity thing is: who pays and who benefits?The residence component is paid by the residents, barring a small (
Beneficiaries is everyone. In the worst case scenario nothing of real value comes from this, and nothing happens, money down the drain. In the best case scenario we're talking about massive new employment opportunities in the region, and potentially tens of thousands of high-tech jobs (the type the gov't likes) created in the region. The KW region is trying to justify a lot of infrastructure upgrades right now, and having the employment numbers to back it up won't hurt.
I hate to get all Ayn Rand about this, but... smart people don't work in a vacuum. Larry Page and Sergey Brin didn't make those billions by themselves - they bootstrapped a company that now employs tens of thousands of people worldwide. Supporting initiatives like this isn't being elitist, it's forward-looking, and ultimately benefits everyone.
I hate the idea of university admins having the power to pick winners.The group of students were picked by VeloCity's organizers, which, FYI, were also students.
I went thorough Computer Engineering at that university. Generally the top students in the first and second year that got by memorizing the textbook didn't do well in the upper years when you had to time manage and think for yourself. It was generally the creative types that could think on their feet that became the top students.
Given that the article says they are upper year students, I'd say that very likely they are also smart.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.