A quick question about waterloo...

[StealthArcher]

How much a year (appro.) am I going to get out of going co-op for CE?

Looking at the 19500-22300 price tag isn't very reassuring of my funds supply....

[Dan]

Well at lakehead it costs me about 10,000 a year for verything incuding tution, food, rent, entermainemnt, transpartion, ect. Where about 4k of that is tution. Waterloo will probly cost a bit more then that maybe 15,000 a year or a bit more.

My point being that 19,500 to 22,300 is some what exesive. (Unless waterloo has raised there prices even higher...)


As for how much you will get from CO-OP it realy depends on where you get a job and what you are doing and for how long. Most co-op jobs range from $10/h to $20/h with the average being some where in the $12/h area. It noramly goses up the more experince you have and the more tehcnaial a job you are doing.

So a term of co-op where you work 35 hours a week whould probly get you about $6,720 with $12/h. But not all of that goes to you, you have to pay tax and other stuff on it and you also need to pay for rent and food well you are working. So if it was me i whould budget $4.5k to $5k from co-op to be on the safe side. (If you do one term a year, double that if you do 2 but you might aucatly pay tax then...)


Note: The above is an average and bised more to the worst case side (as the best case or averge case is not allways the best for budgeting moeny unless you like living on the edge) and obvesly there will be peoleop that get alot more from co-op per term and probly some unluky ones that get stuck with minum wage jobs. If in dougth talk to your local co-op office.

[StealthArcher]

Okay thanks Dan.

Oh and the 19.5 k number comes from waterloo's own site, so unless tony's been messing with their servers again, I'm assuming it's correct.

[Hikaru79]

I'm on my second work term, and I'd have to say that Dan's estimates are very much on the conservative side. I don't think anybody gets as low as $10/hour for an actual Jobmine-obtained co-op job, and $20 is certainly not the upper limit. I'm only in first year and both of my jobs so far have been over $20/hour (before tax).

Some years you will have two co-op terms, one school term, and some years you will have two school terms, one co-op term. My estimation is that a fairly decent job nets you maybe $12,000/work term

$20 dollars/hour * 8 hours/day * 5 days/week * 4 weeks/month * 4 months/term = 12,800

On the terms where you have two work terms, you'll make twice that, and only have to pay for one term of tuition. On the terms where you have two school terms, your expenses will be twice as high, and your income twice as low, but in those years you won't have to pay any income tax (If your income is below a certain cutoff relative to your education costs, you get a full return).

Again, both tuition costs and job salaries vary from faculty-to-faculty, but I can tell you from the Math faculty, at least, if you work hard you will almost be breaking even (this is good).

[StealthArcher]

Yeah breaking even is what I'm looking for, thanks.

Math co-op?

[Hikaru79]

StealthArcher @ Mon Jan 21, 2008 11:28 pm wrote:

Math co-op?

Me? I'm in double-honours Computer Science/Combinatorics+Optimization, but all of my jobs so far have been typical CS programming jobs (first at Sandvine, now at QNX). They're the same type of jobs any CS'er would expect to get.

I said "Math faculty" to distinguish my version of CS from the Software Engineering version (which is Math/Engineering faculty)

[Tony]

Hikaru79 @ Mon Jan 21, 2008 10:17 pm wrote:

I don't think anybody gets as low as $10/hour for an actual Jobmine-obtained co-op job, and $20 is certainly not the upper limit.

Actually I know of someone making minimum wage through Jobmine (this is why you research the companies you apply to, negotiate, and turn down offers if need be -- though Jobmine people will hate you muchly for it).

The first few jobs I've had were typically around the $16/hour mark (published average for first couple of years), which is nice if you are there mostly to learn.

[CodeMonkey2000]

Tony, how many terms of coop would you recommend doing? As much as you can?

[Tony]

There's a set number of co-op terms that you need to complete in order to get your "co-op" degree.

On the other hand, once if have enough experience to not require the use of the University's job database + interview centre, you could potentially switch into regular program, take terms off, find jobs on your own, and save $400 (or whatever it is) in co-op fees each term.

For example I am now employed full-time, and will continue working with the same company each term. It would not make sense for me to be in the co-op program other than the convenience of automatically scheduled "off-terms" (but that's just a quick talk with a program advisor).