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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.
That's funny, I never heard of MIT before, I've always heard of it as "The University of Waterloo (Canada) of the South."
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but known as the "Dorkubator"
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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.
Waterloo has always fancied itself an industry supplier of productive bodies. My brother the EE went there and benefited from their work-term model. He got lots of practical experience which helped him land a job, although he took longer to get his degree than me.
I did an ME at the U of T. (Funny that the article calls Waterloo "MIT North", because U of T profs liked to call MIT "U of T South". Which is all very embarrassing, like stop with the MIT comparisons for heck's sake.)
The problem I have with this Velocity thing is: who pays and who benefits? Seems to me a chunk of everyone's tuition will go toward it, while only some will be in a position to get in. And those who can get in will be the ones who can deal with the extra work load.
In a perfect world, it would be the more clever who could handle the added work. In reality, it is the ones who have external support, like whose parents live not far away, or who come from richer families, that can focus on the work. The poor slobs who have 2 pair of pants for 4 years and who eat leftover mac & cheese for 5 days in a row wouldn't fit in.
I have no problem with elitism, it's a central component of hereditary capitalism, our beloved system. But not when the winners are being subsidized by the losers, that just strikes me as wrong.
I'm obviously biased, but I like the U of T approach: classical. Give everyone the same education and chuck them all into the market and let life sort them out. I hate the idea of university admins having the power to pick winners.
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It realy "grinds my gears" to see bright people waste their valuable time on Web/Social/Communication applications. If one thing in the world is currently going well, it's that field. That field has been developing well, there are plenty of bright minds working on it, no need to direct more geniuses that way.
Let them work on REAL challenges. Like better engines (we've been using the same combustion engine for 100 years now), better flight (which as not progressed much since WW2 jets), new energy sources (we never went beyond nuclear, which was 60 years ago). Why not let them work on wireless power, on indoor agriculture, desalinization technologies ? REAL challenges, not some hyper-popular niche that doesn't suffer from the lack of talented people.
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What is the average air speed VeloCity of an unladen geek?
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I have been trying to get the state of Colorado to offer various X prizes for needs of the state. For example, one of the suggestions was to come up with a means of stopping Pine beetles, which are devastating literally 100 of millions worth of lodge pole and other pines. I figured that ppl, roughly students, would go into the woods and look for lodge pole trees that appeared to survive the beetles. Once they do that, they could then look for what is different. What is amazing is that now a company in Mass (from MIT), has a way to stop them. They found it by following the method that I suggested. It appears that Colorado will spend somewhere between 10-100 millions to save just a fraction of the lodgepole pines. I suspect that other states will spend similar amounts or more.
All in all, Gov. CAN help fund ideas. The Canadian approach will help lead to companies with loads of ideas AND ppl to try and incubate them. My suggestion would only have costs iff an idea was worthy. Hopefully more universities will pick up the idea of integrating ppl, rather than separating them (and perhaps offer incentives).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Waterloo is only ONE degree north of Cambridge, and not too far west. On a global scale, they're in the same place.
These are "top students", not necessarily smart ones. There's usually a difference. There's little in this world in which the only way to succeed is true intelligence; hard work, organization, and time investment can almost always substitute (and are usually more important).
ResidntGeek
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.
when asked, "how's your University", most of them just shrug and say "meh, it's alright, its a University." You're right on the first point, noone ever calls UW the "MIT of the North". As far as being just another university though, I'd have to disagree. I think UW is one of the strongest technical universities in the world. One of the things they like to brag about at UW is their results in the world ACM programming contest. (For reference, UW placed ahead of MIT 10 years in the last 15.) More anecdotally, having worked with graduates from all around the world, I'd really have to say that UW tends to produce more effective software engineers than other schools.
I can see how your friends might have mixed feelings about the place though - the administration can treat people quite poorly, and life as an undergrad can be stressful. As an alumni, I'm glad to have gone through it, and I'm glad not to be there
As for the original story, I'm glad to see UW doing something like this. Developing UW spinoff companies wasn't something that most of us considered, but this could really encourage that sort of thing. I think that's good for the school and the economy in the long term.
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Speaking as someone in a Computer Science department in the UK, I'd put Waterloo near the top in terms of perceived reputation internationally (as would my head of department, who I discussed the university with a couple of weeks ago in reference to some historical parallels). That said, I'd put MIT in the same league as Cambridge for computer science - did some really great stuff a few decades ago, a few interesting things recently, but survives mostly on inherited reputation and marketing these days.
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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...
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.
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