Canadian University Puts Tech Whiz Kids in 'Dormcubator' 188
jades writes "The University of Waterloo (Canada), sometimes billed as the 'MIT of the North' is establishing a residence 'incubator'. Meant to challenge 70 of their very top students in the tech and business fields, students will live together and work on 'the future of mobile communications, the web and digital media'. It's called 'VeloCity', and it launches in Fall 2008 after renovations are completed this summer."
I was going to say... (Score:2)
I was going to say PIX PLZ but then, hey, why not start "Geek Big Brother" or "I'm a Geek... Get Me Out of Here!"
I'm not sure, that it is the best way to get serious things done, but it sounds fun.
nice (Score:3, Insightful)
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Of course... (Score:3, Insightful)
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bs (Score:3, Interesting)
when asked, "how's your University", most of them just shrug and say "meh, it's alright, its a University."
MIT of the North? who said that? the Marketing department for Waterloo?
Re:bs (Score:5, Informative)
Submitted anonymously because I'm gonna get modded down for bragging. Slashdot user taylortbb if you want to reach me.
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I agree - (UW '92) - back then, I heard Microsoft indeed hired more grads from UW then anywhere else (could never verify that). At any rate, I did get hired at IBM (long since left), from an English programme!
Join the Imprint - that rocked way back when - we were always pissing of the engineers with obscure record and film reviews. It seemed all they cared about was Monty Python.
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Re:bs (Score:4, Informative)
In Canada, my opinion is that there isn't a good undergrad program for comp sci at all (I'm willing to be convinced, though). But all of the accredited schools are adequate. I'm not qualified to comment on engineering. However, my understanding is that Waterloo primarily achieved it's engineering reputation by being one of the first (if not the first) Canadian engineering department to really embrace a coop program. Now almost every school has one.
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Re:bs (Score:4, Informative)
As a UW student who's looked at many other Canadian co-op programs... I urge you to look more deeply into UW's co-op. I hate to be a braggart, but I do not exaggerate when I say that UW's co-op is leaps and bounds beyond ANYTHING any other Canadian university has, despite their best efforts. The level of support, organization, and opportunities you get with UW co-op far exceeds any other school.
With many other schools I feel as if the co-op is another thing to strike off their list "yep, we've got that too", whereas at UW you really feel that the school strives to make it part of its identity, and the results speak for themselves. We place a ridiculous number of students in jobs every term, incredible satisfaction and success rates from both employers and employees, and heck, companies come interview students on *our* campus...
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American reporters.
Hmmm. (Score:2)
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I simply state that not one person I know calls it the 'MIT of the North', and I know quite a few people who go there.
This leads me to believe that its a BS line made up to sell an article.
I'm sure it's a very good school.
But why call it the "MIT of the North"? thats like announcing "hey, we play second fiddle to MIT", "we're not quite as good, but we're close."
Relax (Score:2)
Re:MIT of the North (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:bs (Score:4, Interesting)
when asked, "how's your University", most of them just shrug and say "meh, it's alright, its a University."
I can see how your friends might have mixed feelings about the place though - the administration can treat people quite poorly, and life as an undergrad can be stressful. As an alumni, I'm glad to have gone through it, and I'm glad not to be there
As for the original story, I'm glad to see UW doing something like this. Developing UW spinoff companies wasn't something that most of us considered, but this could really encourage that sort of thing. I think that's good for the school and the economy in the long term.
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If I went to MIT, I'd major in marketing.
I have no reason to doubt that their technical degrees are quite good. However, based upon the absurdly disproportionate amount of press they receive, their marketing people have got to be absolutely fucking brilliant.
Perhaps one of their engineers managed to clone Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field......
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Re:bs (Score:4, Interesting)
Ass Backwards (Score:2)
MIT is "Waterloo South".
Funny summary (Score:5, Funny)
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Yeah, I checked it out... Waterloo is 1 degree north of Boston.
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Re:Funny summary (Score:5, Funny)
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It's called 'VeloCity'... (Score:5, Funny)
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The business students won't gain anything from the lash-up because they won't be able to understand what the techies are saying, and the tech students IQs will drop by double digits from listening to inane golfing stories.
VeloCity? Seriously? (Score:3)
The basic idea is quite good, even if it does just sound like a slightly more segregated version of "Halls of Residence" from the summary.
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Waterloo vs U of T (Score:5, Interesting)
Waterloo has always fancied itself an industry supplier of productive bodies. My brother the EE went there and benefited from their work-term model. He got lots of practical experience which helped him land a job, although he took longer to get his degree than me.
I did an ME at the U of T. (Funny that the article calls Waterloo "MIT North", because U of T profs liked to call MIT "U of T South". Which is all very embarrassing, like stop with the MIT comparisons for heck's sake.)
The problem I have with this Velocity thing is: who pays and who benefits? Seems to me a chunk of everyone's tuition will go toward it, while only some will be in a position to get in. And those who can get in will be the ones who can deal with the extra work load.
In a perfect world, it would be the more clever who could handle the added work. In reality, it is the ones who have external support, like whose parents live not far away, or who come from richer families, that can focus on the work. The poor slobs who have 2 pair of pants for 4 years and who eat leftover mac & cheese for 5 days in a row wouldn't fit in.
I have no problem with elitism, it's a central component of hereditary capitalism, our beloved system. But not when the winners are being subsidized by the losers, that just strikes me as wrong.
I'm obviously biased, but I like the U of T approach: classical. Give everyone the same education and chuck them all into the market and let life sort them out. I hate the idea of university admins having the power to pick winners.
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While this may benefit a select few, those that were already achieving well, those that aren't doing so well now have less places to look for good study practice, which I have found (at least on me) rubs off.
When you're working with people who party all the time, you tend to work less, when you are with people who study more, you study more. So now the struggling student has even less of a work atmosphere than before, and the students that don't need more of a work atmosphere and are doing fin
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Most students outside of the US pay very little for tuition. Tuition fees generally fund the university's variable costs associated with taking on more students, whilst the university's core operation and fixed costs are paid for by the government. State universities in the US operate on a somewhat similar principle, unless you happen to live in a state that is unwilling or unable to fund its
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Well, for starters, I imagine that this will be funded through the government's grant rather than tuition dollars.
If it is funded from general revenue then the money comes from a mixture of tuition and subsidy. Subsidies are allocated per student, so each student is worth a certain number of tuition plus subsidy dollars to the university. The university is not compelled to spend the money it gets from a given student on that student.
That might sound hard to believe but it's true. At my alma mater the administration was much hated for allocating less money to the engineering faculties that it received from them. Bas
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I'm obviously biased, but I like the U of T approach: classical. Give everyone the same education and chuck them all into the market and let life sort them out
doesn't make sense to me. EVERY university is in the business of picking winners; it is called "admissions".
One problem that Candadian Universities face is that because of their public status, and (in most provinces) the resulting mandate to educate the masses, the variance of student capabilities is much higher than at elite universities down south. Most lectures will aim somehwere at the center third of the students, leaving behind the bottom third,
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Note: I'm one of the selected students for this VeloCity thing, so I may be biased. To answer some of your questions...
The problem I have with this Velocity thing is: who pays and who benefits?
The residence component is paid by the residents, barring a small (
Beneficiaries is everyone. In the worst case scenario nothing of real value comes from this, and nothing happens, money down the drain. In the best case scenario we're talking about massive new employment opportunities in the region, and potentially tens of thousands of high-tech jobs (the type the gov't likes) created
What the hell is the 'U of T'? (Score:2)
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The problem I have with this Velocity thing is: who pays and who benefits? Seems to me a chunk of everyone's tuition will go toward it, while only some will be in a position to get in. And those who can get in will be the ones who can deal with the extra work load.
You mean like how everyone pays for the introductory classes even if they don't need to take them because they're too easy for them? You know all that classroom space they take up is paid for by everyone as well and some of those classes aren't very populated. What about the counseling classes that exist for students with mental issues or study habit problems? What about the writing tutoring that probably exists as well for those who don't know how to write a resume? No of course, if it benefits you but so
Campus news sources (Score:3, Informative)
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Waterloo, jeesh. That's not a campus newspaper....THAT"S [skule.ca] a campus newspaper. (Large pdf warning).
Example article titles: "White Guilt Month Set to be Best Ever" and "The Many (Retarded) Uses for Facebook". Yeah. Waterloo sucks.
What a waste (Score:5, Insightful)
Let them work on REAL challenges. Like better engines (we've been using the same combustion engine for 100 years now), better flight (which as not progressed much since WW2 jets), new energy sources (we never went beyond nuclear, which was 60 years ago). Why not let them work on wireless power, on indoor agriculture, desalinization technologies ? REAL challenges, not some hyper-popular niche that doesn't suffer from the lack of talented people.
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Burning what I got (Score:2)
I agree with you, that our great challenges are sociological, economical and political. But Thing is, we are already living in the peaceful times in human history. We have not a single real war outside of Africa. If you think I am wrong, I advise you to take a few history classes.
But the real social challenge is moving away from democracy and capitalism, and embracing a more advanced mode
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I think your high opinion of the chinese system is also a bit... silly. Unless you agree with a confucian ethic (nepotism, corruption, yay?), mixed with dictatorial suppression (that is what the chinese model is after all... capitalist economics with political dictatorship). Unless you're talking about the old china, which was just as bad as Russia.
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But can they solve this? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:But can they solve this? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:But can they solve this? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:But can they solve this? (Score:5, Funny)
Very smart (Score:4, Interesting)
All in all, Gov. CAN help fund ideas. The Canadian approach will help lead to companies with loads of ideas AND ppl to try and incubate them. My suggestion would only have costs iff an idea was worthy. Hopefully more universities will pick up the idea of integrating ppl, rather than separating them (and perhaps offer incentives).
North. (Score:2)
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Judging by my freaking freezing ears, MIT is in the North.
Yes. I'm a Stanford grad, live in Silicon Valley, and some years back someone from MIT was trying to recruit me for the Media Lab to work on physically-based animation. We're walking across the MIT campus to the T station. It's sleeting, with light hail. He says "and there are fewer distractions out here".
I'm still in California.
"As Far Away As..." (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, it's not *that* north.. (Score:3, Informative)
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA - 42 36'
Most people forget that southern Ontario dips well south into the great-lakes basin.
As a former Waterloo student... (Score:2)
As if athletic ghettos weren't bad enough (Score:2)
Just go to MIT, Caltech, CalPoly, etc (Score:2)
Fact checking required (Score:3, Informative)
2 blocks is considered far away?
Not emough people... (Score:2)
Sounds Like BB (Score:2)
Oh god (Score:3, Insightful)
No doubt .... (Score:2)
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That, or a Pirated copy of Windows. These are students, and therefore dirt poor
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This is a sign of a good management, actually.
Re:Oblig (Score:5, Informative)
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I went thorough Computer Engineering at that university. Generally the top students in the first and second year that got by memorizing the textbook didn't do well in the upper years when you had to time manage and think for yourself. It was generally the creative types that could think on their feet that became the top students.
Given that the article says they are upper year students, I'd say that very likely they are also smart.
Not everyone learns in incubators (Score:2)
Everyone has a different leartning style. Some think best when in an incubator-like evironment and others think more by walking around outside.
I hope they give these kids lots of healthy fresh air too. No point in burning them out.
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Ability to make money does not mean you are smart - just look at George W Bush.
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Me too.
Did yo notice this in TFA: "The university has received applications from as far away as Wilfrid Laurier University"
WLU is down the street about 4 blocks.
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These are students, and therefore dirt poor
Unlikely. I can't remember where I read it originally, but a quick Google search brings up a report [unc.edu] with details of a study of top universities. Turns out in the top 146 universities, 74% of the students are from the top economic quartile, 17% from the second, 6% from the third, and 3% from the last. I don't know how egalitarian Canada's top collages are, but if they're anything like the ones here in the States, it is unlikely that the average student is dirt poor.
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You're conflating the students with the fam
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I went there for engineering and never saw any Linux rally, or any pro/anti software rally whatsoever. Not to say it didn't happen but it certainly isn't common occurrence. The geekiest thing I ever saw was a paper airplane contest. Free outdoor concerts and filling the bar with sand for indoor winter beach volleyball were the cool things I saw.
They were likely transients hopped up on crack or something.
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The ones that don't get rich will commit suicide. This project is the academic equivalent of cockfighting.
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You shouldn't try to debug drunk, though. Just move on and get it tomorrow.
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DISCLAIMER: Not saying you should reach for the bottle for every problem though. That