It’s been quite a while since I’ve posted on this blog, for a variety of personal and some professional reasons. I’ve kept the site alive and functioning (I think?) in the meantime, since the stats show that there continues to be about 100 visitors per day. I guess there is some interest and value in the old posts.
I do intend to start posting again on some sort of regular basis. There are all sorts of topics about engineering (chemical in particular), education, academia, and maybe even admissions, that I have long had plans for. If there are any specific topics of interest to visitors let me know in the comments. See you later!
A Professor in Waterloo Engineering 
I am a grade 11 student right now. I am now starting to choose my grade 12 courses. I have more than eight courses I want to choose, so I am thinking of taking a course in summer school (say SPH4U, SCH4U, or ENG4U depending on what they’ll offer). Will this negatively impact my application in the future? I’ve read the posts and some comments, but that was from 10 years before, and I’m sure things have changed. It would be greatly appreciated if you can answer these questions.
It would also be great if you could talk about admissions in general. Thank you!
Generally it’s been OK in the past, and I’m not aware of any changes to that or anything on their websites about it. But I haven’t been involved in admissions for 5+ years so this is not first-hand knowledge. There are lots of circumstances where students have to take a course in the summer, so there was never a policy against it in the past. It’s more concerning when required courses are repeated, as is still discussed on the admissions website https://uwaterloo.ca/engineering/academic-course-requirements
Thank you very much!
Hello,
I hope you are well. I was wondering if in the past UWaterloo had any different admission procedures for students in different provinces (I am aware of adjustment factors, but I was wondering if admission averages for out of province students tend to be lower, or if there is certain quotas to meet, etc). I understand you have not been part of admissions for many years, but I would still like your input.
No, all Canadian (and permanent residents) were considered on the same basis no matter where they were from. The adjustment factors helped “even the playing field” between provinces, but there were never any quotas.
Nice to see a bunch of posts here, and hope you are enjoying your retirement.
One thing I was wondering about, as I was giving an exam in the huge M3 lecture room (M3-1006) in Spring 2022, was: just how bad is the fact that the CO2 concentration in that room was in the range of 2500ppm?
Just the other day, I was also looking for a post that I thought that you had written about engineering as a liberal education (or was it Bill Bishop who wrote that? I thought it was you).
Thanks. That’s interesting, I’ve never noticed CO2 levels that high, but then again most rooms don’t have the sensors. Indoor air concentrations that high are definitely an indicator of inadequate ventilation. Typically ventilation should try to keep levels below 1,000 ppm (ASHRAE). At higher levels, there are studies that report reduced cognition in people exposed for some time (one for example tested 2,500 ppm https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3548274/) . Not a helpful situation for exam-writing!
I don’t recall or see a liberal education post in the past. Interesting idea though.