University of Waterloo Systems Design Engineering 2017 Class Profile | Hacker News Reader

University of Waterloo Systems Design Engineering 2017 Class Profile

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120 pointsjoeyloi30 comments

I sometimes wonder if Canada's tech industry would be more ahead if there was no TN visa.

Perhaps the ease of working in the US tech industry (via the TN visa) is, in some part, responsible for driving talent towards these university programs?

This seems most likely. Canada has a very strong connection with labour, which is especially visible when looking at the differing attitudes around unionization[1]. The social norms dictate that you go to school and then get a good job working for someone else. As a result, high achievers do not normally strive to be entrepreneurs. If there wasn't a bustling tech industry in the US for these people to go to, I expect they would end up aiming to work in established Canadian industries, not setting out to build a tech industry like the US has.

[1] https://www.motherjones.com/files/blog_unionization_usa_cana...

Workers in the industry are significantly underpaid relative to the US. With no easy way to work in the US, I suspect fewer Canadians would choose to study computer science.

For example, from Google just now, the average software engineering salary in Vancouver BC is about $73k CAD (about $57k USD), and the average software engineering salary in Seattle is about $96k USD. That's about a 68% increase over the Canadian salary, and the cost of living is similar in both cities.

Incidentally, my company has had a number of Waterloo interns over the years and they have all been excellent. Many of them have moved back to the US after graduating.

Relative to other prograns, computer science graduates still probably come out near the top in terms of job opportunities and income, even if they're underpaid relative to the US.

Last year I got offers to intern at one of the big 4 companies in a US office and a Canadian office. Including relocation bonus, for 14 weeks, in the US I was offered 31K USD and in Canada 28K CAD, (around 22K USD). A 40% difference.

CS still pays way better than most stuff in Canada and almost every school's CS department is struggling to meet demand. I'm sure there would be some negative effect in terms of demand but realistically the supply side is so constrained especially at good schools I doubt you'd see any real downtick in graduates.

And that number in Vancouver is the average market rate. Work on a tech role at a non-tech company and the range can be up to $30k CAD lower than that at varying experience levels.

I think the TN actually helps the Canadian tech industry. It might be a bit counterintuitive but as an engineer in the Bay Area on TN, I can see myself spending a few more years down here and eventually move back to Canada to set up shop.

I would take what I've learned along with the connections I've made and start a business in a country that's more immigrant friendly, has universal healthcare and is very close to the US.

That's exactly the path I'm interested in following.

Waterloo would not be a very good school if not for the TN visa.

You're just going to throw that out there with no explanation? Waterloo had a very strong reputation prior to NAFTA. In the 1990s, prior to the tech boom, it was far less common for co-op students to do work terms in the US, but the school was still just as highly regarded as it is now for CS/engineering/math grads.

It's about as difficult to get into Waterloo for undergraduate studies as it is to get into a regional US state university. Many Waterloo students don't take AP courses and standardized tests are not required. I am rather disappointed more US universities have not adopted a similar coop system.

What about straight male vs female in the class? I don't see that graph.

In the 1980s I was accepted into Computer Engineering at Waterloo (undergrad coop program) but decided against it, partly, because at that time it was like 90% male 10% female, and that mattered to me.

I wonder what it is now?

It's worse

For syde its typically 40/60

I think somewhere in the PDF they said it's like 70/30

This is for System Design engineering, OP is asking for CompEng

For 1st year enrollment, CompEng is currently around 16% female. SyDe is 46%. Engineering overall 30%.

https://uwaterloo.ca/engineering/about/faculty-engineering-s...

36% cheated huh.

Administration is going to love seeing that one released.

Looks like they took that line out...?

EDIT: never mind, it was in the PDF

What fraction of jobs are programming jobs versus non programming jobs for this class of systems design ?

The more detailed report in pdf menions 70% of men and 38% of women are into software.

"Water! Water! Water! Loo! Loo! Loo!" I need to use the loo every time I remember this.

[deleted]

It's not the school that's gathering and releasing these statistics, it's just a graduating student. It's not hard to imagine why he'd be interested in it.

This is just one student doing this in this one class out of the entire school of 36k+ students.

I was hoping for some lecture notes/videos.

EDIT: Gee, downvotes.. instead of lecture video links... too many reddit users came to HN apparently.

I'd assume the down votes are because you're asking for something neither the title nor the article imply would be provided...

Imagine if the article was "Facebook staff survey results" and someone commented: "I was hoping for a list of upcoming features."

Please don't violate the guidelines by complaining about downvotes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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