Co-op Reflections 2.1: (Overdue) End of Term Thoughts

How has a month into the new year already passed? Between a flurry of holiday celebrations and the start of a new school term, I haven't had the opportunity to sit back and reflect on all the things that I learned throughout my second co-op term. 

Companies Big vs. Small

After spending my first co-op term at a very small company with around ten employees, working at BlackBerry was a huge change. Not only was the culture very different, but there were suddenly so many processes to get used to; from online seminars on protecting IP, to meetings on the results of user studies for our apps, it was clear that everyone was a lot more careful regarding all aspects of their work. This was an interesting new perspective, as all of a sudden there were many more people, other than engineers, invested in a single product. I got to spend a lot of time in meetings that ranged from "what does this have to do with me" to fresh insights into things that I never would have considered about the software that I was working on. This was really valuable to me, and I really enjoyed hearing what people in different roles had to say about both the development and business sides of the company.

Doubting Myself

Things were actually really overwhelming during the first couple of weeks. During my previous term, our codebase was tiny and, having started a major portion of it from scratch, I was very familiar with the majority of the code. After being used to such a comfortable advantage, the much larger and confusing codebase at BlackBerry took some time to get used to. Furthermore, the extent to which I was familiar with Android consisted of single-activity lab applications from ECE 155, or what should more accurately be known as "not-really-Android-applications-at-all". This meant that in the beginning, I was really confused by the general structure of things and how different pieces fit together. Unfortunately, this caused me to lose quite a bit of confidence in myself; I questioned my own perspective on things, afraid that if I spoke up, my opinion would be wrong. Looking back, I really regret doing this because I realize that I likely would have gained more from speaking my thoughts, regardless of how they were taken. However, on a positive note, I definitely improved upon adapting to unfamiliar code and understanding how certain processes worked without knowing all the pieces. 

Making an Impact

Things definitely picked up in the second half of the term, where I got to head up a performance improvement for the Tasks app. This was an awesome project for me because I got to see it through start to finish, from the design process all the way to implementation. The highlight of the process was getting to lead a design meeting, complete with thoroughly written design documents. This was really fun and allowed the whole team to get involved with suggestions and discussion; everyone on my team was really supportive, and their feedback was duly noted. In the end, my feature led to drastic improvements in performance times, reducing UI lag during screen loading, scrolling, and rotation, from over five seconds to under a second. I was really proud of this feature as it definitely made a noticeable impact on user experience in the Tasks application.

Self-Motivation is Hard

Switching pages to life outside of work, at the start of the term, I had a list of things that I planned on learning on my own time. As weeks turned to months, that list started to shrink, partly because I'd completed them, but mostly because time was running out. I think part of the reason it was so hard to convince myself to keep learning was because after a long day at work, especially after looking at a lot of code, all I wanted to do was enjoy my free time. While there was a lot that I wanted to get done, and things I was really interested in knowing more about, it was at times difficult to find the momentum to propel myself into the start of a new project. This term taught me a lot about my own work ethic, and how I shouldn't always aim to get too much done; looking at such a large list, it's hard to know where to start. In the end, focusing on smaller, manageable goals helped me to be the most productive.

Despite the many ups and downs, I really enjoyed this term. To an extent, I miss the interesting challenges that I encountered every day and the different it took to solve them; I definitely miss the people on my team, who were helpful and supportive along each step of the way. Overall, I had a fantastic experience working at BlackBerry, continued to improve my skills, and now whenever I walk by a Priv in a mall, I can take pride in knowing that I contributed to a small part of the phone!

Co-op Reflections 2.0: Week One at BlackBerry!

It's been quite the extended break over on this blog while school took over most of my summer, after which I was able to enjoy three weeks of break before this term started. After getting some decent rest and being able to catch up with friends back home, it was soon time to jet back to Waterloo for my second co-op internship at BlackBerry!

Day 1

The morning of my very first day at the office was spent in a group orientation, where we got to learn a lot about BlackBerry's history, culture, and where they were as a company today. It was a really insightful session; as I got to know more about the company, quite a few of my preconceived notions changed. It was really inspiring to hear from employees who had worked at the company for many years, weathered its many changes, and were clearly still very enthusiastic and dedicated to their roles. Furthermore, we got to meet (albeit quite briefly) the fellow co-op students that would be working on roles throughout the company.  

After lunch, I set off with my (very lovely and welcoming!) team and began to set-up my work environment. I'm really glad that I get to work on a Linux system! It's definitely a bit out of my comfort zone, as I'm still a dedicated Windows user so even much of the command line syntax is different, but it's funny because I was actually brushing up on Linux terminal commands a few weeks ago while on vacation. I've actually been hoping to become more comfortable with Linux operating systems, so this is the perfect opportunity to do it.

As for what I am working on, there isn't that much that I can say. And so for the rest of my co-op reflections this term I'm going to focus more on what I'm learning and goals that I have for improvement. I'm already very excited for what's to come!

Day 2
Today was exciting as my team attended a talk held by a Senior Manager of Software Product Management; it got me thinking more about some of the other aspects of software development. While it is easy to determine the technical requirements for a piece of software, there are many other perspectives that the software must be considered from in order for it to become a successful product. He discussed many products and their approach to tackling these additional perspectives, and it was interesting to consider things that I'd previously never given much thought to.

Day 3
I got to begin working on my first task for my team's project today! What started off as something that was supposed to be fairly straightforward ended up being more complicated than we'd originally thought, but I made quite some progress today and my mentor, as well as the entire team, has been so helpful in helping me out. Compared to last term, the process to push code is much more complex, for good reason as the code base is so much larger and there are many more people working within it. The learning continues everyday and I am really excited to move on into more in-depth tasks in the coming weeks. Our team uses Scrum, and so it's been really cool to see the various processes and methods that we'd learned about last term propagate into real-life applications at work. It's nice to be able to hear about what everyone is working on at our daily stand-up meetings, so that the entire team stays up to date on not only our own but everyone else's progress.

Day 4
I finished my first task today and also spent some time refactoring my code to clean it up as much as I could. Time continues to fly by so fast when I'm working, so I'm glad that I was able to finish my work in time for the weekend! I just need to test my implementation a bit more before it can be sent off for in-depth testing; since there are some issues with the test data, we plan on actually testing it with real data on Monday.

I also received my work phone today, a BlackBerry Passport! It's crazy because I remember writing about it from when I saw it pre-release at a BlackBerry information session during my very first term. I can't believe that it's already been a year since then and that I now get to use one for work. Like I mentioned in my other post, I really enjoy using the touch-sensitive keyboard, which is really convenient for typing fast because you can delete words and select word suggestions without taking your hands off the keyboard. As I only previewed it briefly last year, I look forward to playing around with it some more and discovering its full capabilities.

Throughout the week, there have been moments where I feel lost just looking at the codebase and times when I've felt frustrated that one problem leads to another. However, at the same time, there have been occasions when all of a sudden things become clear, or when seeing my feature come to life on a phone for the first time. I can truly say that I'm enjoying every moment, both the ups and the downs, as well as everyone who I've met along the way. Overall, it's been a really exciting first week and I am most definitely anticipating what's to come.

A Busy Second Term + JobMine Round 2

As you can probably tell from the lack of posts since the beginning of May, this summer has been a busy one as I dove headfirst into my second school term. After a comparatively relaxed co-op term, the schoolwork took us all by storm and we returned to the seemingly endless cycle of labs, assignments, and quizzes. Now that it's already a week after midterms and just over a month until school finishes once again, I thought I'd write up some updates.

1B Term
Second term has been going really well so far; I feel that the courses are more interesting than in 1A, and we're learning a lot more completely new material (compared to reviewing high school topics for half of last term). This term has involved a lot of math, with both Calculus and Discrete Math courses; Discrete Math has been all about logic, from proving various integer relations to even a bit of basic cryptography. The proofs can get quite difficult at times, but it's been a refreshing break from calculus. Then, extending from last term are continuations of Physics, Circuits, and Programming. As Circuits mainly involves digital logic this term, the circuits labs have been really cool; we are working with VHDL to program circuit boards to simulate different tools such as a car controller, an elevator controller, etc. While I still prefer software over hardware development, the experience designing circuits and then interacting with hands-on controls has been a very fun experience.

Although the workload has increased quite a bit, I feel like I was better prepared for it and thus adjusted faster to the workload, as I've gotten used to what has to be done by when in order to finish everything on schedule. While the assignments have gotten more difficult, I've found the content across all courses to be a lot more interesting. Of course, there are still lectures that are hard to sit through, as well as professors that may not teach in the most easy-to-understand fashion; the 8:30 to 4:30 days aren't very enticing, but all in all I think this term has been much more enjoyable than 1A.

Revisiting JobMine

While May consisted mainly of getting back into academic mode, June was spent prepping for the second round of JobMine, which meant updating resumes and prepping for interviews. They say that finding your next co-op job should become easier as you gain more experience, but I actually felt more pressured this term to find a job that I wanted. Last term, I didn't really have any expectations of where I would end up working, but after working in a development role, I wanted to find another, hopefully better position, and so I dedicated probably even more effort to JobMine this round than last.

I was definitely more selective when applying to jobs this round, making sure that I only applied for development positions at companies that I was really interested in. Since I worked on web application development last term, I hoped to gain experience working in mobile development. In terms of my resume, since I now had relevant work experience, I was able to remove some older, less applicable experience from my resume and focus the information on development-related activities. I also made it appear more polished by updating the font and some styling. Throughout the job application period, I attended many employer information/networking sessions to talk with different team members, learn more about companies, and even give out my resume. This was really helpful because not only did I get a better sense of the company, I got to talk with the actual people that I could potentially be working with.

I ended up receiving eleven total interviews sporadically through the next few weeks. Since I now had programming experience, I knew that the interviews would be more focused on technical questions. And so, I prepared quite a bit for my interviews, especially for the first few. I found that brushing up on the specifics of major object-oriented programming concepts helped a lot; since I didn't use certain concepts very much throughout co-op, it was a good reminder of things that I'd previously learned. The interviews this round were definitely longer and more intensive, but I gained a lot of valuable practice for answering technical questions; it's one thing to program on your own, but a very different experience to write code under pressure during an interview. In particular, I tend to get overwhelmed by problem-solving questions that aren't even that hard to solve with a clear mind. Prior to next term, I hope to practice more so that I don't feel as stressed out while I am in the interview itself.

All in all, I ended up receiving five offers this term and it came down to deciding between what I wanted to work on. I'm really excited to be working at BlackBerry next term on one of the mobile development teams! After working at a small company last term, I'm looking forward to working at a bigger company and seeing how the team environment and workflow differ. Traditionally, BlackBerry has been focused on both software and hardware, but they are transitioning more towards software development now so I am already anticipating the projects that I'll be working on. As I was hoping to work on mobile development next term, I'm really excited for this opportunity to gain valuable work experience and learn a lot throughout the next term.

Mining for Jobs Part 3: JobMine Rankings + Where Am I Working?

It's been quite a while since I've updated this blog, but finals caught up to me and before I knew it, 1A was over! Our first university term was filled with lots of both fun and hard work, but most of all it honestly flew by so quickly that, coming home, I almost can't believe I just spent four months away. As I look forward to the next four months of co-op, I thought it'd be a great time to end off this series about JobMine and talk about perhaps what is the most relaxed yet also nerve-wracking part, ranking jobs. 

JobMine works on a dual-ranking system; employers rank students that they interviewed based on preference, and the students who are ranked get to rank the employer. Then, the system will match students with employers based on the cumulative rank; after adding the two rankings together, the student with the smallest sum gets the job, and in the case of ties, JobMine works to ensure that as many students are matched with jobs as possible. Students who are ranked #1 receive an Offer; if they rank the company #1, the job is guaranteed to be theirs. Otherwise, you don't get to see what rank you are placed at by a company - the ranking status simply indicates Ranked. This is where it gets tricky; because we don't get to know our ranks, it comes down to a game of risk versus reward. Do you rank all your jobs #1 but risk not getting the one you most wanted, or do you rank them according to preference and risk not getting a job at all?

My own experience with the ranking system was entirely different from the risk/reward scenario I'd originally imagined. Out of thirteen interviews, I received eight Offers, three Ranked, and two Not Ranked (essentially a rejection). The large amount of job offers was so beyond my expectations that I was very overwhelmed; although this was clearly a fantastic situation to get caught in because I was guaranteed a job, it meant that where I ended up working was up to my own choice. If you know me, you'll know that I have a hard time making the smallest decisions, so having to make such a major choice in a weekend's time was a little stressful. There was quite the variety to choose from; eventually, I managed to narrow the list down, one offer at a time, by weighing the perks and drawbacks of each job. Because I hadn't asked about wages during my interviews, I didn't really know how much I was getting paid for each job; this was unfortunate as it may have made the decision a bit easier, but then again I wanted to pick my job based on the position rather than money. For each job, I mainly considered the role's responsibilities and the company location. It was definitely a process that included tough choices, but in the end I'm very happy with my decision.

With all that being said, I will be working as a Software Developer for Savision Canada near Ottawa for the next four months! Savision creates business management solutions, bridging the gap between information technology data and marketing. The company works with Microsoft System Center, and I'll be working with C#, so I thought that it'd be a great way to expand upon my foundational understanding of C# and explore how much more can be done with it. Furthermore, I've only visited Ottawa briefly before and it was a lovely place, so I am thrilled for the opportunity to explore the city some more while I am there. The combination of the job itself (where I'll be able to gain very relevant experience), what the company does (which sounds interesting and I'm excited to learn more about) and its location were what sold me for what I hope to be a fantastic work term during and out of work.

I aspire to do lots more writing over the break as well as many updates throughout the work term. The past four months have been a blast, and I can't wait to see what the new year will bring.

Mining for Jobs Part 2: Interviews

After two consecutive busy weekends applying for jobs, notifications of interviews began coming in on a rolling basis. I remember distinctly the nerve-wracking feeling of sitting in the Tatham Centre (where all on-campus co-op interviews happen), waiting to be paged for my very first interview; I hadn't had a legitimate job interview before, so I didn't really know what to expect. Sure, everyone can think of generic interview topics that have a good chance of being discussed, but especially for software development positions, it's hard to predict what combination of technical and general questions you'll be asked.

If only it were this easy?

From late September to late October, I was fortunate enough to receive thirteen interviews. These numerous experiences helped me not only to get used to the interview process, but also to build up confidence in answering questions on the spot. To sit in a small room with one or a few interviewers is intimidating enough, let alone having questions thrown at you with minimal preparation. I've never been a fan of public speaking, but I was able to see myself improve in my ability to articulate my experiences clearly and present myself as a good candidate for the job. 

Throughout this period of time, my perception of how to handle an interview also changed; I learned that it is not so much about presenting yourself in the best possible light, but more about connecting with the interviewer. The interviews that I felt best about were the ones where I got to have meaningful conversations with interviewers, whether it  was about their work or even their previous experiences. I think that one of the things we tend to overlook is that interviewers are great people to learn from. When I found out about my Google CSSI phone interview, I decided to make the most out of talking with the interviewer, who I knew was going to be an engineer at Google, regardless of the interview's outcome; I made the same effort with many of my co-op interviews. I think that if you can demonstrate that not only do you care about the job itself but also about the company and people behind it, you add a level of depth to your character that goes beyond merely talking about your accomplishments.

When it comes down to it, I think everyone has their own different way of tackling interviews; there isn't anything specific you can do that will guarantee anything. As long as you are prepared and let your natural character shine through, you will impress an employer sooner or later. Furthermore, since this is only our first work term, I'm sure there will be even greater things to come. Stay tuned for part 3, where I'll be talking more about (UWaterloo-specific) job rankings and where I'm working for the winter term!

Mining for Jobs Part 1: Applications

After two months of going though the job hunt process, I'm happy to say that I've found work for Winter 2015! As a first year, particularly Stream 4, I definitely felt the pressure from submitting my first application up to deciding which job to take. In this next series of posts, I'll be reflecting on my experience with the different steps of the job search and what I've learned from the first ever job search.

The University of Waterloo has an internal job search system called JobMine (which inspired the title of this series) for its co-op students to find and apply for jobs on. The first part of the job search consisted of reading through hundreds of listings and deciding which ones to apply for. JobMine limits applications to 50 per round, likely to prevent everyone from applying to everything. Without much previous job experience or even programming experience in general, it was a fine line to decide between the "safe picks", entry-level jobs that didn't require a lot of experience, and the "long shots", jobs where I didn't meet all the requirements.

The easiest way I found to sort potential jobs that I wanted to apply to was by three categories:

1. Fits most requirements
2. Fits some requirements
3. Hard to get

As I added jobs that I was interested in to my shortlist, I added them to one of the categories; this made it a lot easier to keep track of how many of each type of job I was shortlisting. Then, when it came time to apply, I could easily choose from the categories and keep track of how many jobs in each category I was applying to.

From this round of the job search, here are some important things that I learned:

• Don't be overwhelmed by a long list of required skills: As a general rule of thumb, employers who list a lot of requirements generally aren't looking for someone who fits exactly all of them. I mostly applied to jobs from the first two categories above, but I also took a chance to apply for some "hard to get" jobs. You never know specifically when you'll fit well with what an employer is looking for; while it's good to be realistic, the required skills are only part of the picture.
• Don't be scared to apply to jobs that many people have applied to: I made this mistake when considering whether or not to apply for some jobs, in thinking "what chance will I have against tens or hundreds of other people"? Again, you just never know, so if it is a job that you really want, it doesn't hurt to take a shot.
• Be specific on your resume: Writing specific details about relevant skills or experience and how they'd apply on the job not only helps employers to connect your skills to their work, but also helps you in deciding what to talk about/elaborate on if you manage to snatch an interview!
• A cover letter isn't always the best way to go: I actually chose not to write any cover letters when I applied for jobs, because I didn't have a lot of time to personalize them for different jobs. From what I've heard, it's sometimes better to not include a cover letter at all if it's going to be a generic one. Unless you're confident that your true interest in a job or skills description shines through in a cover letter, it might be best if you just didn't include one.

Overall, I definitely learned a lot from the very first round of job application; thinking ahead, I will be changing my mindset a little when applying for jobs next round. I hope that these tips are useful to Stream 8 co-op students or anyone really who is looking for a job. Job applications are a crucial first step because they are the deciding factor for whether or not you receive an interview (which I'll be talking about in the next part). All in all, be prepared, don't be afraid of failure, and I'm sure the results will show for themselves.

Midterm Week Is Over

It's hard to believe that my very first university term is already half over. Last week, commonly referred to as "Hell Week" here at Waterloo, has been a whirlwind of studying for and writing all of our midterms in the span of five days. There were definitely a few stressful moments throughout the week, from unease about the very first exam (calculus) to apprehension over the notoriously difficult physics midterm. Reminiscent of the pressure that I'd felt during International Baccalaureate exams only a few months ago, this week seemed to bring about more anxiety due to it being our first official test of university. Whether it was self-motivation or simply the weight of stress - likely a combination of both - many of us spent the weekend of Thanksgiving studying rigorously for the midterms to come.

Since I am in Stream 4, midterms happened to coincide with the second-last week of job interviews for winter co-op positions (which I'll be talking about more in my next post!). I happened to also have one to two interviews a day, so I spent the week running around from midterm to interview, then back to my dorm to prepare for the next ones. Thankfully, we had the week off from classes, meaning that we could focus all our effort on exams. One of the main things I've enjoyed about living in residence is always having a group of people to study with; in high school, I preferred to study independently, and while I still like to study alone for more major exams, it really helps to have a network of people to go to with questions, where we're able to help each other out.

They key to midterms, I soon realized, is to study past exams. You can study lecture notes or the textbook for as long as you want, but it isn't as effective as studying actual exams from previous years. Often, it becomes easy to see patterns of questions you know for sure will appear again. University exams focus more on applying what you know versus simply just knowing it, so it really helps to practice examples and put your knowledge to the test. 

Overall, midterms went by smoothly, and I am quite pleased with how I did. I think that they were a great introduction into how to better study for exams in university; it already feels as if finals are right around the corner. Thankfully, they're not all in one week, as they are quite heavily-weighted toward our final course grade. Now that exams are over, the focus is back on securing a co-op job; I'll be discussing some of my experiences with employer interviews soon, as Monday is when I find out where I'm working next term! More exciting details to come.

The Job Search Begins: Highlights from Employer Info Sessions

Yesterday, co-op students in Stream 4 officially start applying for jobs through the university's internal job postings, JobMine. After exerting all efforts to perfect our resumes during the past weeks, it is finally time to put our skills to the test and apply to internships for the next term. Throughout September and October, companies big and small host employer information sessions around campus where they speak about their company and what projects they have been working on, to give students a deeper understanding about whether or not the company will be a good fit for them. Having been to a few sessions this week, here are some features from the talks, as well as some tips related to attending sessions.

Highlights
This past week, I attended information sessions for Facebook, Google, and BlackBerry. Each one had a slightly different setup; Facebook held a talk about security in computer network systems, Google discussed its Waterloo office and projects that they are working on, and BlackBerry mainly organized a networking session with recruiters from various departments.

The first information session that I attended was for Facebook. Much of the presentation went over my head as it was very advanced and technical. However, the presenters concluded with information about Facebook itself and available job/internship opportunities. At the end, I had the opportunity to speak with one of the recruiters; although I found out that Facebook mostly only hires students with a lot of experience (e.g. upper-years), it was through the recruiter that I found about Facebook U, a special internship-type program for first-year students. Unfortunately, the program is only available in the summer so I am unable to apply, but nonetheless it was great to find out about the opportunity.

Next, I attended an information session from Google, as I had been introduced to our campus recruiter from the CSSI team! The presentation was given by Steve Woods, Engineering Director of Google Canada. One of the interesting parts was about why Google chose Waterloo to set up its first Engineering office in Canada and how the company has worked with so many start-ups coming out of the University of Waterloo; I find it so exciting that Waterloo has fostered such a culture of technology engineering and entrepreneurship. We also learned about the many community initiatives that Google contributes to - many of these projects involve sparking children's interest and supporting underrepresented people in engineering. I thought it was fantastic that every Google is so active in encouraging younger generations to explore technology. In terms of internship opportunities, Google offers the Engineering Practicum Internship for first and second-year students, which unfortunately I am also unable to apply for this year, but I am definitely going to apply next summer!

The last information session I went to was for BlackBerry, which is based right out of Waterloo. Their session focused on a networking fair setup, with stations for various job departments to speak to recruiters and a display of current/new BlackBerry products. One of the exciting aspects of the session was having the opportunity to test out the unreleased BlackBerry Passport! The most interesting feature of the Passport is its full QWERTY keyboard with touch functionality. I feel that this feature is very innovative because it combined the traditional Blackberry keyboard with increased user-friendliness by allowing users to use the keyboard to control applications instead of touching the screen. It was fantastic to be able to try out and learn more about Passport.

The BlackBerry Passport, soon to be released.

I really enjoyed the networking fair because I got to speak one-on-one with different BlackBerry employees: a Campus Ambassador who'd done two co-op terms with the company gave us a lot of insight into what her role was during her internships, and one of the recruiters for Software Development answered many of our questions about first-year co-op students and internship opportunities, which was very helpful. It was great to find out that BlackBerry has several internships tailored for first-year students in Winter 2015, which I am definitely considering applying for.

Tips
From attending these few sessions, here are some suggestions that I've gathered about making the most out of employer presentations (wherever they may happen):

• Come prepared with questions: If you have specific questions that you'd like to ask the employer about, there will definitely be people there who can answer them and it is a lot easier to talk in-depth to recruiters in person than through email.
• Talk to employees: Whether it's during or after sessions, talk with people from the company. Even if you don't have any questions, employees offer a lot of perspective and more details on what it's like to work at the company.
• Bring your resume: This one applies more to non-co-op students, but if you bring a copy of your resume to a session, there will be recruiters taking them in or employees who can pass on your resume directly to one.
• Attend many different sessions: Each session that I've gone to so far has offered something different, not just in terms of company but also in content; even if you're not interested in a position at a company, the sessions are a great way to learn more about how they are contributing to the tech industry in general and you may be surprised at how the company fits with what you're looking for. 

Employer information sessions are very beneficial to find out about a company and what they're up to from people who have actually experienced working there. I have only gone to three so far, and I've already learned a lot more specifics than you could find out on their websites. In my opinion, these sessions are very useful and I'll definitely be going to a few more in the coming weeks.

The First Week: Initial Thoughts

The first week of classes has finished up at Waterloo! After a fun and exciting orientation week where we got used to living in residence and met lots of new people, this week introduced us to the academic aspect of university life. From lectures to labs, we are slowly but surely making the transition from cramped high school classrooms to capacious lecture halls.

This week was definitely much more relaxed than I'm anticipating the rest of the term, because many tutorials were cancelled and so the days felt a lot shorter than they are supposed to be. With also fewer-than-normal assignments and studying for the week, this week has been a good transition week from orientation to the full engineering workload. To be honest, I am somewhat intimidated by the impending work; even after completing the International Baccalaureate program in high school, I feel that engineering will have a heavier workload, with the added pressures of living on my own and balancing school with extracurricular activities. 

That being said, there are also many things that surprised me about university class; they aren't as different from high school as I'd previously thought. Although the class sizes are much larger and professors definitely have a different teaching style than high school teachers, most lectures utilize interactive components such as examples to demonstrate topics. Moreover, professors are generally very open to stopping lectures to answer questions. A common misconception is that university is all about sitting through lectures and taking notes; in actuality, during labs and tutorials we have many opportunities to apply our knowledge to example problems and hands-on work, in order to practice what we learned in our lectures. This ensures that if we have any questions about the work, we are able to speak to teaching assistants and get help right away.

All in all, the first week of classes has been a great start to the term ahead. I hope to continue keeping the momentum of the week going and stay on top of everything, become accustomed to classes, and join clubs/student design teams at Clubs Fair next week! University life has been a big but exciting change, and I'm looking forward to whatever opportunities come next.

Why I Chose Computer Engineering at University of Waterloo

As school at the University of Waterloo officially started this past week, I thought it'd be a fantastic opportunity to talk about my reasons for choosing both my program and my school.

Why I Chose Computer Engineering

For me, deciding on what university program I wanted to pursue fell between Computer Engineering (CE) and Computer Science (CS) from the beginning. Initially, I was only sure that I wanted to work with software, and I didn't really know what the distinction between the two programs was. After doing a little research, I came across several key differences between the two fields:

• CS focuses more on understanding theory, while CE focuses more on applying knowledge to build things
• CS involves writing programs for computers, while CE involves integrating software and hardware components of computer systems
• CS students take mostly only math and programming courses, while CE students also take physics and circuits (and even chemistry during first year)

Computer Engineering and Computer Science are very similar fields, and lead to similar careers. In terms of university program though, they vary in workload (CE has a heavier workload) and elective options (CS students choose elective in first year, while CE students only get electives starting second year). In the end, I chose CE because I felt that it would give me a better all-around understanding of computers and technology. CS focuses on software, which in my opinion, requires a lot of initiative to progress in coding skills and work on personal projects. Thus, I thought that by taking Computer Engineering, I could learn more about programming myself while also gaining a better understanding about hardware, which I've had minimal exposure to. Most importantly, I felt that engineering was the right choice because I enjoy hands-on application to create relevant and innovative projects using what I know, and that is largely what engineering is about.

Why I Chose Waterloo

One of the main features of Engineering at the University of Waterloo is its Co-operative Education (Co-op) Program, in which students work at internships throughout their years at university. While many other universities across Canada offer similar work experiences, the University of Waterloo is unique in that students start co-op during their first year. This has its perks and drawbacks, based on personal opinion. The biggest advantage is that students graduate with two years of work experience, and work experience is often regarded much more significantly by employers than education. However, students don't have a lot of experience when they start applying for jobs; hence, they may not find the most relevant jobs to their field.

All factors considered, co-op was the main reason I ended up choosing Waterloo. I feel that being able to gain work experience would be much more advantageous, particularly in upper years. Furthermore, being able to work with a variety of different employers during each co-op term means that I will gain a lot of insight into what different positions and what it is like to actually work in them; this will be very helpful in figuring out what exactly I want to do within Computer Engineering by the time I graduate.

In the end, Computer Engineering at Waterloo was the right choice for me because it fit the most with what I was looking for in a university education. UWaterloo is one of the most innovative universities in Canada, and I am looking forward to exploring the innovation of Computer Engineering through not only the program itself, but wherever my future degree will take me.