University of Waterloo

Computer vs Software vs CS

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What is the difference between Computer Engineering, Software Engineering, and Computer Science?  This is a perennial question and generates a lot of interest from potential applicants.  I had a post on this topic (and there is some very good discussion in the comments section that follows).

Some of our incoming first year engineering students have recently produced a nice blog post on the differences.  Since they recently went through the process of researching, comparing and contrasting the programs, it provides a unique perspective from an  applicant’s point of view.  Have a look at their post and blog here.

Note that at Waterloo, if you have interest in Software Engineering and Computer Science, you can apply to both and potentially have two different offers .

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey to speak at University of Waterloo

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Here is an interesting development, for those on-campus in September.

Jack Dorsey

WATERLOO, Ont. (Wednesday, August 14, 2013) – Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter and one of the youngest tech executives in Silicon Valley, will address students and local entrepreneurs at the University of Waterloo this fall.

Dorsey, who launched his second successful startup, Square, in Canada last year will tell a 675-strong audience about entrepreneurship and how Square created a culture that inspires anyone to be an entrepreneur and leader.

The 36-year old will also meet some students and entrepreneurs at a private lunch to discuss entrepreneurship and see firsthand the quality of Waterloo students.

“Jack Dorsey started a new communications movement when he launched Twitter and changed the world for millions of people. He’s continued to blaze the technology trail with Square, which is starting to transform how we make payments. ” said Pearl Sullivan, dean of engineering at Waterloo. “Waterloo is recognized as a leader in technology and innovation. We are very honoured that Jack Dorsey is making our University the first stop on his Canadian visit. We live and breathe entrepreneurialism here at Wat

via Twitter founder Jack Dorsey to speak at University of Waterloo | Waterloo News.

A Guide to University Nomenclature

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For new university students the academic world is probably rather confusing, partly because it is large, complex, and uses terminology that secondary school students have not likely encountered.  Here’s my quick reference guide to some of that jargon.  It’s somewhat specific to Waterloo, but many North American universities use something similar.  (In the interest of brevity, I’ll gloss over some details and hope that my colleagues don’t mind.) Continue reading →

Switching Engineering Programs

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A prior post dealt with transferring into Waterloo Engineering from some other program or university.  More frequently, the question is “can I switch to X Engineering if I start in Y Engineering?” (where X and Y are two of our own engineering programs).  This is an “internal transfer” process, so no OUAC application is necessary and there is a bit more flexibility.  But it is also potentially more confusing, so let’s look at some scenarios. Continue reading →

Interesting Engineering Student Stories

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Haven’t had much time for writing posts lately, being busy with admissions, teaching an Air  Pollution Control course, and dealing with several research projects.  But here are a couple of interesting stories on what our students do outside of class, just to illustrate the diversity of opportunities.

Emily

Emily is a Civil Engineering student with a big interest in entrepreneurship.  She has started a company and won several prestigious awards.  Her company is not based on what you would call “classical” civil engineering, but nevertheless it involves project management, problem analysis, and creative solutions.  You can read more about her and the business here and here and here.  Emily has taken full advantage of the entrepreneurship and business training and experience opportunities at Waterloo, such as Enterprise Co-op, CBET, and VeloCity.  Her story is also interesting, because she came to Waterloo as one of those very few successful transfer admissions from engineering at “another university”, where she found the student culture was not a good fit (story here).  We are glad that she found a good fit and thrived at Waterloo.

Dominic

Dominic is a Mechanical Engineering student, and he has worked in the petrochemical industry during his 2012 workterms.  Specifically, he worked with Shell Canada, where his problem analysis efforts (Root Cause Analysis) resulted in $1 million savings per year for the company, and a Co-op Student of the Year award for him (see the story here).  It’s not clear from the story, but it is worthwhile to point out that he was only a second year student at the time.  Something to point out to those who claim that our junior students don’t know enough to be useful to companies.  We’ve always known that isn’t true, and Dominic is just one example. It also illustrates that if you want to work in the energy/petroleum industry, chemical engineering is not the only route.  There are lots of roles for other engineers too.

So, a couple of stories that I hope you find interesting and informative.  I always like learning about our students’ work experiences, and am frequently amazed by what they accomplish.

Electrical and Computer Design Projects 2013

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Continuing the topic of the previous post on Mechatronics fourth year design projects, here is a list of projects completed by the graduating students in our Electrical and Computer Engineering programs.  Again, these are the result of the group design experience that is required in all of our engineering programs.  These projects are organized by “themes”, such as power systems, music/entertainment, software, sensors, and transportation (to name a few).  The list is a nice example of the scope and breadth of things that students in the ECE programs get involved with.  I assume that some of these projects are in collaboration with companies, although they aren’t explicitly identified.

If you would like more details on some of those projects, there is a book of “Abstracts” that gives a brief description about each project.  Glancing through, I like the naval collision avoidance system (and the helicopter missle avoidance too), the “Watchdog” animal monitor for veterinarians, and the electrostatic speaker design project.  But there are lots of others that seem quite interesting too.

Mechatronics Design Projects 2013

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Next week our graduating Mechatronics Engineering students present the results of their fourth year design projects during their Mechatronics Engineering Design Symposium.  There is a project list with links  so that you can see examples of what senior-level students do as their “capstone” design experience.  It is quite an interesting list, covering a variety of application areas such as biomedical (laparoscopic surgery and assistive devices), environmental (water treatment), agricultural (egg washing and sorting), and a rather intriguing 3D chocolate printer.  There are quite a variety of other things too, well worth looking at if you’re wondering what mechatronics engineering students do at Waterloo.

All Waterloo Engineering programs have similar upper year group design projects, usually selected or initiated by the students, and sometimes in collaboration with company sponsors.  The purpose is to provide an opportunity for “real world” design experience, with project management and communications included.  In many cases these are projects that are inspired or initiated during co-op work terms, and sometimes they are ideas that the students hope to commercialize after graduation.  For high school students trying to decide on a future path, looking at some of these projects can be very helpful in understanding what engineers do, so I’ll try to find more examples in the coming weeks.

Our New 3D Printer

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Our new 3D printer, a Fortus 360mc rapid prototyping machine, was officially launched today in our Engineering 5 building.  I haven’t actually seen it, but there is a website link that describes what it is and how it works.  I will certainly have a look in the near future, because I can already think of a few custom parts I could make for my research projects.  I just need to teach myself AutoCAD first.

Apparently the 3D printing costs are some of the cheapest available, and anyone can submit a job, whether faculty, staff, or students.  Some of the student design teams have already been using it, and I bet it will be popular with a lot of student research and design projects.

Boosting Grades at Summer School

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While working through our application and admission data, we see quite a few applicants who have done a required course at summer school, especially among Ontario residents.  (It doesn’t seem to be so common in other provinces.  I wonder why?)  We know that the theory/rumour is that you can get higher grades at summer school and thereby boost your admission average and chances of acceptance into the more competitive programs.  We also hear concerns from other applicants and parents that this is an unfair advantage, because some are unable to attend summer school for various reasons.  Currently we don’t penalize applicants taking summer school courses (unless it is to repeat a required course), but maybe we should?  Since we like evidence-based decision-making, let’s use some data to see if summer school does give a significant advantage. Continue reading →

Waterloo Engineering in the New York Times

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Recently there was a nice article about Waterloo (the university and city) in the New York Times, that you can read here.  Overall, it’s quite complimentary and here is a sample of some notable quotes:

“The University of Waterloo…is one of the world’s best technology schools”.   “It’s got this amazing university which has long been one of our top three recruiting universities for Google as a whole, worldwide,…”.  “Different approaches, rather than money, have instead enabled it to attract prominent faculty members from around the world as well as Canada’s top engineering and computer science students.”

So some nice comments about the quality of Waterloo’s engineering students and faculty.  My main concern with the article is that it goes on a bit too much about RIM/Blackberry, perhaps giving the impression that a single company has been behind Waterloo’s growth and success.  RIM has certainly been an important supporter for the university, but there are literally thousands of other companies that have hired our co-op students and graduates for many years, and have also been important partners in teaching and research programs.  The article says that RIM hired 400 students in 2007, which seems like a lot, but to put it in perspective that is a small fraction of the thousands of students who took co-op jobs in one year.

The article also focuses on IT/communications technology, and ignores the many other areas where students and graduates have had significant impacts, like energy, pharmaceuticals, biomedical, aerospace, automotive, financial, and many more.  That’s typical though.  The media seems to find it easier to write stories about IT for their audience, maybe because it doesn’t require them to explain concepts in chemistry and physics.  But I think that after they have a look, most people realize there is more to Waterloo Engineering than just IT.