Who's Your Competition?

Computer Science is taking over society.  Literally.  If you can code, you can get a job.  And there are thousands of those jobs being filled every day.  But like most people, including myself, they ponder over how to get there – that is – how to snag a spot in Silicon Valley.  When my brother was applying for co-op positions a couple years back, he decided to shoot for the moon and apply for an internship down in Palo Alto, California, home of Facebook.  He was a mediocre student, nothing really to his name.  Surprisingly, he snagged that one spot from over 130 applicants that was narrowed from over 1000.  Did they make a mistake? Is this really happening?  Why would he get that position?  I blame it on Waterloo.  What is unique about Waterloo is that it is maybe the most unattractive university, yet it attracts thousands from around the globe.  Yes, they are known for their engineering, but what they now are being known for is there well-respected co-op program.  Truly, Waterloo blows other schools out of the water in terms of co-op.  UofT, a brother to Waterloo, has just as good as a program for engineering and better grad program, but can’t even kneel down to Waterloo in terms of co-op.  What tech companies want nowadays are people who can learn on the spot and be able to produce.  They don’t care if you studied at Harvard or Caltech, they care if you have had experience in the field and know that you can handle the pressure.  And that is exactly what Waterloo offers, opportunities in the field, so that when their students graduate they already have an advantage.  So this is where I am left sitting…typing… knowing what I have to do in order to reach Silicon Valley, but stuck in traffic waiting for that exit so I can reach my destination.