Conferences/Other Opportunities

[Snario]

Hi, I'm a first year in Computer Science at Waterloo and I'm looking for interesting things to do during my co-op break such as conferences, events, volunteer opportunities, etc related to CS. Is there a good place where I could find out about things like these? Also are there any notable ones coming up soon I should know about?

Thanks

[Tony]

I think that largely depends on where you'll be during your co-op. Do you already have a job lined up?

[Dan]

As tony sates, it largely depends on what your future plans are.

Professional (i.e. not academic) conferences are mostly only good for networking with others in the industry. If you are not into networking, they probably will not be worth the price of admission.

Volunteering for real life organizations might get you a bit of experience that might help in finding your first entry level job but personally I would rather find a popular open source project to contribute to. To me having a few patches accepted and committed to a major project would seem more impressive then setting up wordpress for a local non profit.

Another idea might be to get involved with your universities CS club and/or ACM chapter. I know the ACM runs at least one programming contest aimed at undergraduates. If you don't like any of the clubs your university currently has relating to CS, you can always start a new one. Normally it is only a matter of fill out the right forms with your student union and getting a set amount of student signatures.