The “Ranking Web of Universities” or Webometrics ranking was recently updated. I have never noticed it in the past, so it’s new to me. The first thing to say is that it is a university-wide ranking, and not specific to Engineering. In the sub-section for Canada, Waterloo ranks #11, and #198 worldwide. Not bad I suppose, but as usual let’s look at what it is actually measuring. Continue reading
college admissions
University Rankings: Round 1 – ARWU
The first set of university rankings has been released for this academic year. This is the ARWU (academic ranking of world universities) put out by Shanghai Jiao Tong University. I’m going to focus on the rankings of “Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences” category, since that’s most relevant to my interests, and they can be found at this link. Since prospective students and parents sometimes spend a lot of time and effort pondering on the meaning of these rankings, let’s go through them together. Continue reading
About Engineer Stereotypes
Here’s a nice post about engineering stereotypes, and the importance of adapting to change. In Engineering Education, we might refer to this as “lifelong learning”, but similar idea. When we talk with prospective students, it’s important to dispel these old stereotypes, so thanks to the author!
My August column in Mechanical Engineering magazine.
The overplayed stereotype always had something to do with a socially inept engineer sporting a short-sleeve white shirt and slim black tie, big horn-rimmed glasses, and a pocket protector overstuffed with BIC pens. He always seemed to be working alone in some lab trying to figure out a way to calculate a new formula.
I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but that guy is gone and with him the stereotype of who engineers are. If you think I’m kidding, you haven’t been paying attention. Hopefully, most of you are part of the transformation. If you’re not, look around you and see the young woman sitting a few feet away; she’s the new project manager. To her left, the guy with the tattoo is just home to Seattle from Bolivia and wants to go back to help build a new plant for a burgeoning…
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Repeated Courses and Why We Care
Admission to our Engineering programs requires the completion of certain Grade 12 courses (or equivalents in various other school systems), specifically Functions, Calculus, English, Chemistry and Physics in Ontario. For many years we have discouraged the idea of re-taking any of these required courses to boost marks and get a competitive edge for admission. In recent years, this has taken the form of a penalty of around 5% points off the overall average of the required courses if one or more are repeated (the higher grade is used). The net effect is that unless the repeated course(s) add at least another 30 percentage points to the total, repeating a course is not worthwhile for competitive advantage in admissions. In many cases, repeating course(s) will knock the application out of the competition completely. Other universities seem to have a range of approaches, from accepting repeats without question to ignoring the improved grade completely. So, we’re somewhere in between. But why use this penalty approach? Continue reading
A Professor in Waterloo Engineering 