Choosing a university and program is an important task, and one useful tool is a visit to campus, if possible. As my colleague Prof. Stubley has said, you should pick a campus where you can see yourself belonging; you’re more likely to be successful there. So coming to campus and looking around, and meeting some faculty, staff, and students will help determine if you get that feeling or not. We have a variety of ways and times for visiting.
Why Do We Care About High School English?
Although Grade 12 English (or something equivalent) is one of our admission requirements, we sometimes get applicants who question what it’s good for, and why should it hurt their chances of admission if they got low marks in that subject. After all, engineering is just about physics, calculus, problem-solving, writing code, designing bridges and other hardware, …, isn’t it? Continue reading
UW Engineering Shadow Program
This is a great way to experience Waterloo engineering…well worth a day off school.
Engineering Girls at University of Waterloo
For those of you who are considering UW Engineering, have you heard about the UW Engineering Shadow Program? It is handled by the Engineering Student Ambassadors Team and we would love to spend a day with you for you to experience a day at the University of Waterloo as an Engineering student.
The days available are typically from 8:30AM to 4:30PM from Mondays to Fridays. There are students available from all engineering programs and you may request a specific ambassador although it will depend on the ambassador’s availability. You can find the profiles of our ambassadors here.
Shadow days for the Fall term (September-December) are reserved for grade 12 students only. Starting in the Winter term through Spring/Summer (January-July), shadow days will be available to grade 11 and 12 students.
If you are interested, definitely register now. It will be a great…
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I want to be an engineer. What will my salary be?
Here is a slideshow from the Globe & Mail, showing interesting facts about engineering careers, including salaries and projected future demand. It’s fairly generic, but might be useful to look at.
Related articles
Comparing Software to Computer Engineering
Another installment from Prof. Patrick Lam, the Associate Director of Software Engineering. A previous one compared Software Engineering to Computer Science. With these various posts, you should have a good overview of the differences and many similarities between the three programs. Note: for Waterloo you can only apply to one of Software or Computer Engineering. If you’re interested in Computer Science too, you need to submit a separate application for that program.
Comparing the BSE in Software Engineering to the BASc in Computer Engineering
Summary: Waterloo’s Software Engineering (SE) and Computer Engineering (CE) programmes are both CEAB-accredited Engineering programmes. After the first year (which is quite similar), Software Engineering takes a deeper and more Computer Science-centric view of the material and focuses less on hardware, while Computer Engineering provides a broader overview of material and includes more hardware content. You must have experience with writing programs to be admitted to (and to succeed in) Software Engineering.
Employment outcomes from SE, CE, and Computer Science (CS) are broadly similar. What you get out of a university education depends less on your specific courses and more on what you put into your courses, your interaction with peers, and your work experience. However, the programmes do differ. To help you choose which programme is the best fit for you, here are some of my personal observations about culture and courses. Continue reading
What do engineers actually do?
Some great real-life examples of what an engineer might do!
life as a woman in engineering
We solve problems… like…
Why is a factory conveyor breaking annually when it was designed to last 10 years? Is the same part failing every time? Is the part defective? Or is there a design flaw? Is it run and maintained correctly?
How thick should the glass be on the on the latest, greatest smartphone? Consider tradeoffs across multiple design parameters including drop tests, cost, weight, manufacturing capability, and clarity.
Customers are returning appliances all made between March and June for a burnt plastic odor. What is the source of the odor? Are all the products leaving the factory today going to have the same problem? Or was it confined to a single lot? What countermeasures can be put in place to eliminate the problem?
A plastic extrusion process is consuming 50% more energy in one plant compared to another. Figure out why and reduce energy usage.
Use stress analysis…
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An Engineer’s Life (with 2 weeks experience!)
Some good advice and observations from a new Electrical Engineering student. Nice writing too!
Hello people! How y’all doing?
First of all, I got a new computer for school (Yayyy!). This is my first blog post in this new computer, so I thought I should talk a little about the necessity of getting a new computer for Engineering. I would not say that you really need a new computer for Engineering, but sometimes you do need to run software like AutoCad, programming compilers and so on. If you feel that your computer is very slow with multitasking, or that it has poor battery life and portability, I would probably start saving up for a new computer. Not something fancy for sure, but something that is able to manage everyday work and still handle some rigorous software needs. (My new computer, by the way, is a i5 core with 8 GB RAM and 1 TB HDD).
How’s Engineering, you ask? If I were to answer…
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Engineering Economics
All engineering programs in Canada are required to include content on “Engineering Economics”. At Waterloo, students in most programs take MSCI 261 Engineering Economics: Financial Management for Engineers. I also include some capital and operating cost estimation in the CHE 480 course I teach (Process Analysis and Design).
These are not your typical economics courses, like ECON 101, looking at consumers, outputs, markets, money supply and all that stuff. Engineering economics is much more project-oriented, so it teaches techniques for comparing different options. For example, given certain capital and operating costs and lifespans, is it better to purchase Machine A or Machine B? To illustrate, let’s compare the costs of 4 university engineering programs, namely: Waterloo stream 8, Waterloo stream 4, Toronto-PEY, and Toronto-regular. Continue reading
Looking at Admission Essays
I came across these examples of admissions essays at Johns Hopkins University a while ago: http://apply.jhu.edu/apply/essays.html
They are interesting, engaging, witty, nicely written. But frankly, I’m glad we don’t make our applicants submit essays. I think I much prefer our Admission Information Form. Much more brief, to the point, quicker to read (sort of what an engineering report should be).
I know from other reading that there are various concerns with these college admission essays. How much of it is the work of the applicant, versus parents or admissions consultants? Was it purchased or plagiarised from somewhere? (There is a Turnitin for Admissions service that some universities use to check for that.) Does a good essay translate into a good engineering student? Lots of questions, and not so many answers.
Some of our applicants complain about having to fill out our AIF. I suspect that they would like submitting an essay even less.
Things People Say About Co-op
Engineering Five building at the University of Waterloo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
One of Waterloo Engineering’s major features for the past 50+ years has been the co-operative education system (“co-op”), where students alternate every 4 months (more or less) between academic classes on-campus and relevant work experience somewhere out there in the “real world”. In our system, Engineering students get 6 work opportunities, therefore 6 x 4 months = 24 months of work experience before graduation. There are various websites available giving more information and other details, including this one or this one. Over the years I’ve heard a number of comments and questions about co-op, and thought it might be useful to summarize some of the common and interesting ones here.
A Professor in Waterloo Engineering 