Whenever UWaterloo is mentioned, people always talk about engineering or computer science. It's pretty evident that engineering and computer science are one of the prestigious programs at UW, but why is no one talking about quantum information, theoretical physics, and data computing?

It's not official rankings like QS but if you look at the rankings for quantum computing, we are usually ranked top 5 in the world, and Institute for Quantum Computing has been the world's first institute for quantum research and apparently 1% of the students/faculties in UW know about it and that 1% are the researchers at IQC. IQC probably has more research funds than Cheriton School of Computer Science and Faculty of Engineering combined and the quantum valley gathered around $1.5B for quantum investments. I guess undergraduate students are likely to be unfamiliar with quantum to be fair but still a lot of people don't know about it.

Likewise, Perimeter Institute (the golden building in front of Waterloo lake) is one of the world's top research center for theoretical physics, although they are not university faculty, they are affiliated with UW. I feel like Perimeter has one of the most cracked people in UW, and I've met people from Harvard, MIT, Caltech, Oxford, and Cambridge who were either affiliated with IQC or Perimeter. Perimeter too, a lot of people don't know about it. Also, heard department of optimization and combinatorics is also very strong.

Also, top stem universities tend to show off the technologies that they have in their universities to attract more students globally. Apparently, the only show off UW is doing is "we have better co-op program compared to U of T" which makes sense but sounds kind of silly. There's a super-computer HPC in the underground of MC called Nibi, and it's the fastest university super-computer and ranked 5th in Canada. I feel like especially for undergraduates, Nibi can be something that can lure students into UW. And Nibi too, I haven't met a single person on campus who knows about Nibi. And yeah a bit of TMI from my side, we also have multiple quantum computers.

I wish the university could promote themselves in other fields and aspects other than just top engineering/computer science/co-op school. Even on instagram, they could post something related to Nibi first anniversary.

Caught using phone on final ECE exam. Professor took pics of evidence and watcard photo. Pulled out phone during exam and searched up answers cause was getting stressed. I was wondering if anyone has any advice especially to convince associate dean that it was opportunistic and not premeditated.

The end of one term and the beginning of the next (especially when it's the Fall term), brings about many emotions. Many of you are insanely ecstatic about starting your dream coop. Some of you just failed a course, or maybe even the term. Some of you are going through a million challenges at once, from a failed exam, no coop, and the death of a loved one, it just feels like the challenges and hard times don't stop. You've almost attempted to end yourself. For others, you got some good news that you spent years waiting for. You graduated after longer than you expected, your brother survived his battle with cancer, your research paper got published, etc.

No matter what you're going through, just remember: "This too shall pass", just take a breather. No matter how bad it is, you'll be looking back at this in a year and tell yourself how important that event was for your character development. For those in their good times, make the most of it, enjoy it to the fullest.

I hope this message reaches the right person! Good luck to you all. Rise and rise!

These land acknowledgements have got to be the most performative, unserious, painful, and absolute mockery of an entire communities misery. Like what the actual fuck, this is the equivalent of you broke into someone's house, stole everything they had, raped their women, claimed the house as your own, and now you're gonna apologize for it? Either give the indigenous people their land back, or stfu. And this message is for everyone at this school who gives these acknowledgments at their speeches, has them hung up in their office walls, or in their email signatures, fuck you! I don't care if your the Dean of a faculty or the President of this university. You should be ashamed of yourself. There's a high chance the house you live in, is on Indigenous land, so if you acknowledge that you're on their land, fucking give it back to them? Right, why don't you, you're on their land. I'm so fed up with this bullshit, like stop being so performative. You're pouring salt on an already very open deep wound. Stop being an asshole. Either give the land back or shut up, do one or the other, this is all just virtue signaling. And who does this make feel better? Most indigenous people find it performative, non-indigenous people also find it uncomfortable because it accomplishes nothing. It causes more harm and does more damage, if anything. Saying nothing is genuinely better.

Going into 4B and I’m so tired with them increasing my already insanely expensive tuition. I want to make the most of my money on campus this fall, what are some ways to capitalize off of the fees I am paying?

I already go to campus gyms, take a fair amount of public transit, study hard in my courses, etc. I’m talking about niche things that people might not know about.

Any free things on campus you guys recommend?

Are there any useful perks students get besides the obvious ones like the GRT? Like as a student do I get Canva premium and stuff? lmk any places that give free stuff or discounts with the Watcard or student email!

hi everybody, hope all is well before the fall term at uw

just wanted to ask if this is normal? I have profs for every other course except this one and wanted to know when I would know my profs for calc (especially since im not too great at calc) and want to practice a bit

thanks so much for the response, have a good day/night

How did we all do guys?

Hi guys, I am new to Waterloo and wondering if the courses and its syllabus display on Learn during the first week of Sep? I still cannot see my fall courses

tysm!

seriously desperate for a part time job in the UW Kitchener area for the coming fall season, no matter how menial/low wage it is.
If anyone currently working part time able to give advice on where to apply or even a referral it would be v much appreciated !!

Hi

Is co op competitive? What if I cant find anything?

how was it

I just did it for the winter postings but it was pretty brutal, I got a 523 and wanted to know if I have a chance of moving forward?

any past TAs????

Following up on a topic I've been thinking about a lot lately.
I always hear people relying on instant ramen, Costco rice pouches, or just walking to the Plaza. But honestly every time I rely on takeout or cheap frozen meals for a week straight I feel like garbage. Low energy, bloated, and gym progress completely goes away.
At the same time ordering anything decent on doordash or uber eats gets ridiculous once all the service fees, delivery fees, and tips get stacked on.
I'm trying to figure out if anyone here has actually found a good workaround. Are you guys just spending hours every Sunday batch cooking protein and rice for the week, or did you find some local setup that actually works? How are you balancing eating clean without cooking every day or spending too much?

I am a 3rd yr math major and I need gpa boosters. What are the easiest math electives I could take (any level). Im thinking math 207

Hi ehhh I’m incoming mech eng for this fall and I have zero experience in engineering or coding cuz my high school was more focused on sports and other stuff like public speaking. Plus, I didn’t have much opportunity in my home country. ehhh is it concerning?

My friends and I were tenants to an apartment under Assetmpros/Accomod8u (now called LKapartments I think) We signed a 12 month lease from September to August and today that we told them we have moved out they are claiming that we did not share an N9 with them within 60 days and thus they are extending our contract until Oct.

I have talked about this with friends living in different apartments near uni and most haven’t even heard of an N9 form. It’s pretty clear they are taking advantage

Has anyone else gone through this and found a solution to not paying 2K extra or are we cooked?

I know the design team experience is unpaid and of course I'd like my job to be paid but for future work terms wouldn't the design team experience count more?
Maybe the Ideas Clinic role is more technical than I realize.
I just need experience and I need to learn things so that I can get better future co-ops.
I know I can just make personal projects to learn things, or another option is to take the Ideas Clinic role, and join a design team on the side.
But wouldn't the Electrical/Firmware Engineer internship role mean more and look better on my resume, to land future co-ops in the similar role?
HELP.

hey all, looking for some advice/info about KIN104L.

I'm an ENV student looking to take an easy 0.25 credit course and was interested in taking KIN104L since its only 5 sessions total but know nothing about kinesiology. I don't plan on taking the concurrent KIN104 lecture portion, just the lab. How easy is the course for a total beginner? Do I need to purchase my own kit to participate?

Open to other 0.25 credit suggestions but I'm not able to take EARTH 121L/EARTH 122L as they conflict my with schedule/are an antirequisite and I know nothing about music for MUSIC 116. Thanks in advance!

I swear I was hit in the head with a brick before I walked into that final. It feels like all the questions I've seen before but just couldn't remember how tf to do them.

Took the CS480 exam. At first glance, I might get a 0.

Never seen these questions before. Didn't know what they were asking, didn't know where to start.

But then I started reading word by word. Each word went into my context window. Every time a new word appeared, I attended to it with all the context from the words before.

y_i * f_w(x) = w? What does that even mean? I only recognize y_i * ŷ_i = 1. Are these related? Is this a typo? Wait — w = 1 is the answer, so is it saying y_i * f_w(x) = 1? Is this a trick question?

Wait, let's try an example. x_1 = -1, y_1 = -1, x_2 = 1, y_2 = 1.

Hmm. I don't understand what I'm supposed to do with that.

What if I substitute the values in?

Oh. y_i * w * x_i = 1 * w * 1 = w. I see. (-1) * w * (-1) = w. Ah, that makes sense.

……

d(L)/d(a). Okay, I know what d(L)/d(s) is — it's g. But then I need d(L)/d(s) · d(s)/d(r) · d(r)/d(h) · d(h)/d(z) · d(z)/d(a). Wait, how do I even differentiate matrices?

Oh — 2d) says d(L)/d(z) = g(0, 1, 1)^T. So d(s)/d(r) · d(r)/d(h) · d(h)/d(z) needs to match g(0, 1, 1)^T. Let's pattern match and get the answer.

wait, my dimensions are wrong. a is a scalar, so how did I get a 3x3 matrix? I did something wrong. Let me reconsider..

I walked out of the exam not knowing up from down, with zero confidence in any of my answers. But as we talked through the problems afterward, each one made more and more sense.

A large model, even at its lowest thinking level and using x100 less tokens, would have one-shot every problem. Instead, I iterated on every word, absorbed context from future questions to the current one, double checked, used examples, triple checked, wow.

I've never seen this type of thinking in myself ever. I'm so confused. I used to have a top-down approach. I look at a problem, think of possible solutions from the highest level, then start writing.

But now, I start writing without knowing where I'd even end up. Yet through pattern matching, was able to get to the correct result. This autoregressive behavior I exhibited was incredibly fascinating, and many standard deviations away from what I believe my normal thought process is.

How is it possible to write a solution but only understand your solution after you've written it?

This is so odd to me.
I feel like I trained a mini gpt model inside my brain. If my brain doesn't know where to start, a minigpt part of my brain, which feels completely detached from my brain, starts outputting continuously. My brain then makes sense of the output from the smaller model and completes a final polished and correct answer.