Computer Science woes

[SmokeMonster]

A.J @ Wed Apr 13, 2011 8:56 pm wrote:

Actually, yes you are worse off, as you have to finish 6 out of the 7 available coop terms. Also, you'll be paying more money to be in the coop program, so you would want to get a job to pay off your term fees and possibly for other things (being in CS, I have to pay $600 per term to be in coop I believe).

If you do not complete your coop terms the worst that can happen is that you won't get the coop designation on your degree, you'd still get the regular Hons. Bachelor of CS degree so in that sense you are not any worse off than others, atleast that's how it is at my university. I highly doubt Waterloo can prevent you from graduating if you do not finish the work terms or penalize you in any way.

[Tony]

current CS employment statistics are:
1B -- 69%
2A -- 71%
2B -- 91%
3A -- 94%
3B -- 93%
4A -- 100%
4B -- 100%

Of course keep in mind that if you are unemployable you get kicked out of co-op, so naturally the numbers are skewed.

[Tony]

SmokeMonster @ Wed Apr 13, 2011 9:06 pm wrote:

I highly doubt Waterloo can prevent you from graduating if you do not finish the work terms or penalize you in any way.

In CS they'll let you graduate, but will be unhappy with you and continue to charge you co-op fees. In Engineering programs they will prevent you from graduating.

[Vaughan H.]

Right, some of the numbers are quite discouraging.

Any thoughts on Project Euler?

[SmokeMonster]

Tony @ Wed Apr 13, 2011 9:10 pm wrote:

SmokeMonster @ Wed Apr 13, 2011 9:06 pm wrote:

I highly doubt Waterloo can prevent you from graduating if you do not finish the work terms or penalize you in any way.

In CS they'll let you graduate, but will be unhappy with you and continue to charge you co-op fees. In Engineering programs they will prevent you from graduating.

Yikes! Sounds terrible to punish the student like that for something that is basically out of the student's control.

[A.J]

Vaughan H. @ Wed Apr 13, 2011 9:11 pm wrote:

Right, some of the numbers are quite discouraging.

Any thoughts on Project Euler?

I guess I would be the PE person here . Well, I have worked on PE problems for 4 years now, and they are damn entertaining. However, I don't think it really helps you with university applications much, as it is mostly something people do for fun. I put it on anyways as I was in the top 10 at the time I sent in my AIF .

[Tony]

The University experience is a lot closer to the real world (although not quite) than the bubble that is high-school. Shit happens, and sometimes you just have to deal with it. There is some leeway -- you only need to complete 5 of the 6 co-op terms, and the definition of what is relevant to the industry is rather lax as well. If you can't find a paying job, you volunteer to fetch coffee at some Engineering firm for free.

[Sur_real]

Tony @ Wed Apr 13, 2011 9:28 pm wrote:

The University experience is a lot closer to the real world (although not quite) than the bubble that is high-school. Shit happens, and sometimes you just have to deal with it. There is some leeway -- you only need to complete 5 of the 6 co-op terms, and the definition of what is relevant to the industry is rather lax as well. If you can't find a paying job, you volunteer to fetch coffee at some Engineering firm for free.

But don't you have to write a report or something afterwards? Anyways that's what heard...but it'll be funny at least, reading a report on fetching coffee.

[Tony]

The report doesn't necessary have to be on the work that you've actually done. Some companies claim that everything is confidential, so you can't write about anything that happened on the job (still need to produce a report though).

[Dratino]

Tony @ Wed Apr 13, 2011 9:28 pm wrote:

The University experience is a lot closer to the real world (although not quite) than the bubble that is high-school. Shit happens, and sometimes you just have to deal with it.

Would you deal with it by taking an extra year to finish off those extra co-op terms that you missed?

[Tony]

I've heard of at least one student who decided that he didn't need an on-paper degree since he already had an attractive full-time job offer by the time he finished his course requirements (but not those of co-op). It wasn't even a missing co-op term, just a failed report. His parents appealed to the school, but CECS can be rather difficult at times and refused.

I personally know of students who took effectively below-minimum-wage jobs on assembly lines, and volunteering gigs, as both fulfilled the requirement for "job experience" (even though they were a long stretch).

It gets much easier in upper years though.

[Dratino]

Tony @ Wed Apr 13, 2011 10:15 pm wrote:

I've heard of at least one student who decided that he didn't need an on-paper degree since he already had an attractive full-time job offer by the time he finished his course requirements (but not those of co-op). It wasn't even a missing co-op term, just a failed report. His parents appealed to the school, but CECS can be rather difficult at times and refused.

That's the exception, not the rule, isn't it. (For people who failed the co-op part of the degree, I mean.)

[A.J]

I believe that differs from program to program. For example, Engineering programs value coop highly, and they will be seriously angry if you messed up a coop by either by not getting a job (though this isn't as bad if you have already completed your required number of coop terms), or getting a bad review from your employee, or not finishing PD, etc...

[andrew.]

Tony @ Wed Apr 13, 2011 9:54 pm wrote:

The report doesn't necessary have to be on the work that you've actually done. Some companies claim that everything is confidential, so you can't write about anything that happened on the job (still need to produce a report though).

You're allowed to write a report on a confidential subject as long as it's okay with your employer. You just have to either mark it as confidential (and only one marker will ever read it) or you can try to have it employer marked (where your employer reads and grades it).

[Tony]

@Dratino -- for Engineering, that's the rule. Although students actually failing the co-op part of the degree is an exception. In CS you just declare to be in the non-coop program at the last moment

@andrew. -- the key part is "it's ok with your employer". UWaterloo tries to accommodate for that by limiting the number of people actually reading the report (as you've said), but a few years back there were some blanket exceptions regarding reports about workterms at IBM. Things might have changed now though.