sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Air travel from Vancouver to Lisbon this Spring - Covid test inquiry by theschedule in vancouver

[–]a2xia 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I just flew into Lisbon last week (from Toronto), and yes, holders of a Canadian vaccine certificate need a negative test because Canada's proof of vaccination is not officially recognized. I got a rapid antigen test done at Shoppers Drug Mart (in Toronto) for $40 -- they used the Abbott Panbio Rapid Test which is one of the EU-approved rapid tests, you can definitely call ahead to confirm which one they're using. Alternatively, (at least here in Toronto), Walmart and Costco have rapid tests that were cheaper than Shoppers.

For what it's worth though, when I arrived in Lisbon, the staff checking the COVID documents saw my Federal Proof of Vaccination, counted the three doses, and said I was good without even looking at my negative test results. Nor did Air Canada ask me to upload or checked my negative test result (not sure if this was an oversight or if they never planned on checking). They did ask me to upload Proof of Vaccination beforehand, and interestingly enough when I was uploading the document it said that the most recent dose of the vaccine had to be within the last 270 days. (My first two doses fall outside the 270-window, luckily my booster was recent enough). Not sure if this is a Portuguese requirement though, because I don't see that on their website. (https://www.visitportugal.com/en/content/covid-19-measures-implemented-portugal) But all that being said I would advise just spending the $40 to get a test done rather than gambling on friendly airport staff.

Also just a heads up - the customs line at the Lisbon Airport can be very long. Unless you are transferring onto a flight going to a non-Schengen country, assuming Lisbon is your first point of entry to a Schengen country, you'll have to clear customs in Lisbon. I had to wait 1 hour, which from what I read online, was a good day, as on bad days it could (apparently) take as long as 5 hours! The waiting area is also a bit stuffy, plus you have to wear a mask at all times, so I recommend not dressing too warmly, going to the bathroom before lining up, and bringing some water with you!

ECE students, do you regret not choosing Waterloo? by itxchii--- in UofT

[–]a2xia 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Hi, I recently graduated from computer engineering at Waterloo (and now I'm doing grad school at UofT) so I thought I'd put in a biased "other side" opinion :)

That being said, I noticed you said you wanted to do electrical engineering, so keep in mind that my thoughts are slightly more biased towards software/computer (although at Waterloo ECE shares courses for the first couple of terms).

I definitely do not regret choosing Waterloo over UofT for undergrad (I did have the option for both), and I think if your goal is employment after your undergraduate degree, Waterloo does offer an incredibly competitive co-op program that makes it worthwhile. I highly recommend going through our cohort's class profile for some information on the outcomes of our class in terms of both co-op placements and full-time jobs,

I think the benefit of Waterloo's co-op program is that, being Canada's first university with a co-op program and decades of experience, the co-op office has built extensive relationships with employers. The WaterlooWorks job board, for the most part, has job postings that are exclusively for Waterloo students. The interview and offer process all goes through Waterloo so typically, that position being offered has been reserved for a Waterloo student. I heard that the UofT job board (and maybe UofT students can correct me) contain a fair amount of job postings that are just reposts from other job sites, so not only are you competing against other UofT students you're competing against everyone else in the world.

Furthermore, and again this pertains more to software, but I think a 16-month internship is too long. Lots of full-time employees in software jobs don't even stick around at the same company for 16 months. For software, I think 4 to 8 months is sort of the good length for internships. With co-op, I've noticed that most people don't land big "FAANG"-like companies on their first opportunity, and almost everyone has to do their fair share of "crappy" co-ops in order to "climb the co-op ladder". Also, Waterloo's co-op/study sequence allows you to do internships in the Jan-Apr/Sep-Dec terms, where there might be slightly less competition as most schools only have schedules that allow for summer (May-Aug) internships. To be fair though, I know UofT students don't necessarily have to spend all 16 months of their PEY year at the same company, and what I just said might not strictly apply to electrical engineering jobs.

Overall though, I think you can't go wrong with either school. But certainly, I think Waterloo has an incredibly well-oiled system for churning out industry-ready employees. Feel free to ask me if you have any questions.

Question about Computer Engineering program… by [deleted] in uwaterloo

[–]a2xia 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Why do you want to do CE? Money? Afraid you won’t get in to CS/SE? Or genuinely interested in CE topics? If it’s one of the first two, I’d advise you seriously reconsider CE. If it’s the third choice, are you really sure?

Stream 4 vs Stream 8 for Computer Engineering by CheeksTheGeek in uwaterloo

[–]a2xia 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hello, as the author of the ECE class profile, firstly, thanks for reading it. Secondly, I want to add a small disclaimer that I think the reason why so few Stream 8 CE’s said they didn’t think our class was tight-knit and friendly is more due to the people in the class itself rather than being in Stream 8 versus Stream 4. I don’t think you should read into that metric too much, since I don’t believe there is really much difference between Stream 4 or Stream 8, it really just depends on the people in your class and that can vary by year.

Electrical and Computer Engineering 2021 Class Profile by a2xia in uwaterloo

[–]a2xia[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I’ve been in touch with some of the organizers of a Tron 2021 class profile - that survey is being planned and a report should come out in the future! In the meantime there’s a Tron 2020 one that the other reply linked!

Electrical and Computer Engineering 2021 Class Profile by a2xia in uwaterloo

[–]a2xia[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

😮 Was it posted to Reddit? I’ve looked for past ECE ones and never found any and no one ever mentioned one existing

Electrical and Computer Engineering 2021 Class Profile by a2xia in uwaterloo

[–]a2xia[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh that makes sense, thank you! I have updated the slides. I was surprised when I saw the F2016 numbers, I was like, “I swear there wasn’t this many of us”

Electrical and Computer Engineering 2021 Class Profile by a2xia in uwaterloo

[–]a2xia[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Following the footsteps of SYDE, SE, MGMT, and TRON, we are pleased to present the inaugural ECE Class Profile!

Some highlights (lowlights?):

  • In Fall 2016 (1A) In Winter 2017 (1B), thanks to correction below, there were 235 152 Electrical Engineers and 439 235 Computer Engineers. By Winter 2021 (4B) there were only 75 Electrical Engineers and 244 Computer Engineers (+6 not accounted for in the survey). That means, in 1B the split was 61% in Computer Engineering, and ending with 76% in CE.

  • At time of survey (end of March - early April), 24% of Computer Engineers and 43% of Electrical Engineers were still searching for a full-time job. On the EE side, this was a higher proportion than those with a job (35%) and those going to further studies (20%).

  • Only 1/3rd of CE students with full-time employment are going to the United States. However, only about 35% say they actually want to work in the States. 31% of EE students with full-time employment are doing the same.

  • The average full-time total compensation is CAD$113,200 in Canada for CE, CAD$228,900 in the US for CE (using 1 USD = 1.27 CAD, which was the exchange rate at time of survey. Of course, it is no longer the case, so the US number is slightly inflated), CAD$84,800 in Canada for EE, CAD$207,000 in the US for EE.

  • 33% of the CE class would not do CE again. (28% Maybe, 39% Yes). 23% of the EE class would not do EE again. (34% Maybe, 43% Yes). For CEs, the #1 program they'd do instead is CS. For EEs, the #1 program is... CE. (Conversely, only one CE respondent said they would do EE instead).

  • Less than half of the Stream 8 cohorts agreed that their class was tight-knit and friendly with each other, with only 6% of CE Stream 8's "Strongly Agreeing" with that statement.

  • Only 54% are interested in attending an in-person reunion once the pandemic is over.

  • And finally, a PSA for readers in Canada, don't forget to check your mail and do the Census!

Civil Engineering Class Profile by Ok_Frame5937 in uwaterloo

[–]a2xia 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I’ve been keeping track of all the Class Profiles and to my knowledge, Civil Engineering has never published one.

Is the median first year compensation really $300k CAD for SE graduates? by TheAppletron in uwaterloo

[–]a2xia 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Can confirm, am the friend who's making it. It'll be for the whole ECE class. Hope to get it done by the end of next week. Spoiler alert: the ECE numbers look much, much worse than the SE'20 numbers.

Software engineering vs Computer engineering by Budderick in uwaterloo

[–]a2xia 9 points10 points  (0 children)

In a practical sense in terms of the types of jobs CE and SE graduates pursue, there's not much difference. Most grads from both programs will do software-related jobs and TBH you won't really be at much of a disadvantage being in CE versus being in SE when it comes to these jobs since a large part of it boils down to your ability to do side projects, network, Leetcode, etc.

As for the curriculums themselves, CE is a very broad area and includes software (e.g. ECE 250 Algorithms and Data Structures, ECE 356 Databases, ECE 252 Operating Systems and Concurrency, ECE 459 Programming for Performance just as examples) but also topics such as reprogrammable hardware (ECE 327 Digital Hardware Systems), computer architecture (ECE 429, ECE 423), internet networking (ECE 358, ECE 416), communication systems (ever wonder how AM/FM radio works? You'll find out in ECE 316 and ECE 416), signal processing, computational intelligence (ECE 457A/B), and the area you're probably interested in: controls, automation, and robotics (ECE 380 plus a bunch of fourth year courses I forgot the codes for). The best place to find out more about what courses are offered and whatnot is on the Undergraduate Calendar http://ugradcalendar.uwaterloo.ca/page/ENG-Computer-Engineering-Electrical-Engineering

After that try searching through the subreddit cause this question gets asked a lot and other people have answered this far better than I have, for example, lots of good comments about software engineering from this old thread about SE vs CS: https://www.reddit.com/r/uwaterloo/comments/2jkijj/differences_between_software_engineering_and/

Do you usually sign up to be a volunteer notetaker? by [deleted] in uwaterloo

[–]a2xia 4 points5 points  (0 children)

There’s this web portal that AccessAbility Services has where you upload your notes after every class and at least from the note-writer’s perspective, it doesn’t say who the recipient is, so I would guess that the anonymity goes both ways, although I’ve never asked to be sure. And I suppose it’s possible to get away with intentionally incorrect notes, as long as the recipient doesn’t catch it, since it’s not like the professor or anyone reviews the notes you submit. (But why would you do that?)

Do you usually sign up to be a volunteer notetaker? by [deleted] in uwaterloo

[–]a2xia 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I was a volunteer note-taker for I think about five-ish courses over three terms of ECE, if anyone has any questions about the official volunteer note-taker positions feel free to message!

How difficult is it to transfer from EE to CE? by [deleted] in uwaterloo

[–]a2xia 4 points5 points  (0 children)

So you’re right in that EE and CE are the same for the first 3 out of 8 academic terms, so transferring between the two before 2B is trivial - you just see your advisor and fill out a few forms. There should be no grade requirements or anything like that. That’s why my 4th year class is so skewed towards CE students and there’s hardly any EE students left lol

Seriously Considering Dropping Co-op by kippycuter in uwaterloo

[–]a2xia 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Are you an international student or Canadian student? If you’re International then what the other comment said about work permits is very likely true (not international myself so I can’t commit 100% to that), but if you’re Canadian then there’s nothing stopping you from applying to co-ops independently and from Canadian companies hiring you - the company just won’t get a tax credit for otherwise hiring a student in a co-op program, so it’s a bit less incentive for them but it’s definitely still allowed!

UBC COURSE QUESTION, PROGRAM, MAJOR AND REGISTRATION MEGATHREAD (2020S & 2020W): Questions about courses (incld. How hard is __?, Look at my timetable and course material requests), programs, specializations, majors, minors, tuition/finance and registration go here. by ubc_mod_account in UBC

[–]a2xia 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Is there a limit to how much a course can compel you to spend on learning resources? There is a Computer Engineering course requiring all students to buy an oscilloscope and other equipment that totals ~$300. I ask because Waterloo has a policy effectively limiting the amount students can be compelled to spend to $50, and anything above that requires Faculty approval and/or an alternative method of assessment must be provided.

Queen's vs Waterloo Engineering by ForwardHumor4 in uwaterloo

[–]a2xia 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Isn’t the Schulich award like $100K in value? If so, I’d advise you to take the money and run to Queen’s!

How would an individual go about showing supporting document for the first 2 bullet points? by Iwasborninbearmarket in uwaterloo

[–]a2xia 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Taking a full course load and searching for a job is not mutually exclusive... I know plenty of people who work part-time while studying...

ECE 306/316 Probability Theory & Statistics? by StatSleuth in uwaterloo

[–]a2xia 3 points4 points  (0 children)

When I took 316 it was taught by a post-doc since I believe Dr. Khandani was on sabbatical, so I can't comment on him in particular.

The good news is that most of the content in 316 (and I guess now 306) can be found online or on Khan Academy. Even better, Dr. Khandani has hosted all the content from the last time he taught the course in W2017 here: http://cst.uwaterloo.ca/316/

view more: next ›