In this post, I write about tips for getting into University of Waterloo’s Engineering programs. It also features insights from the Director of Waterloo Engineering Admissions and recently admitted students. February 19, 2014. I vividly remember the day I was admitted into University of Waterloo’s Software Engineering program. I screamed in excitement, spun in my chair, and repeatedly jumped up…
I’ve been lifting for 1.5 years now, and it’s become one of the best investments in my life. In this blog post, I’ll share the 9 most important lessons that I learned. I previously wrote a blog post about my gym journey. What I’ve come to realize was that my biggest transformation wasn’t physical, but rather mental. 1. Mental confidence. If I don’t believe I can lift a weight, then I probably…
A recent study highlighted the brain drain problem for tech talent in Canada. In this post, I will explain the ‘Cali or bust’ movement and describe its effect on the tech brain drain. In addition, I will provide 8 recommendations to retain and attract top Canadian tech talent. Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California (PC: Paul Bardea) Brain Drain Report A study led by Zachary Spicer, found…
After watching my first Broadway show in 2016, it’s become one of my favourite things in the world. In this post, I will share everything I know about Broadway, including tips on how to get cheap tickets. Hamilton at Richard Rodgers Theatre According to Wikipedia, Broadway , refers to the theatrical performances presented in the 41 professional theatres with 500 or more seats along Broadway road.…
I was recently motivated to kick off an initiative to collect new grad offer data for roles based in Canada. I posted this survey on Hackathon Hackers, Facebook groups, Reddit, LinkedIn, and other sources. To my delight, the survey received over 200 crowdsourced responses (60% which were software development roles). I went through all responses, carefully inspected the data, and then cleaned the…
2017 was an incredible year for me. In this blog post, I will provide a recap of my 2017 year, and set new goals for 2018. 2017: New year, new same me. 2017 Recap I was on 21 one-way flights, equivalent to my previous lifetime total. I transferred from SE to CS . I will now graduate in August 2018, so I will begin job hunting in January or February. (Hello full-time friends who can help me out!…
Today, it brings me both joy and sadness to announce that I am transferring from SE to CS. In this blog post, I want to share my reasons for switching and some key lessons learned in the past few years. SE 2019 class picture. (Winter 2015) Four years ago, I was a clueless 17 year old kid spamming refresh on Waterloo’s admission status page. If you checked my browsing history, you’d find yconic.com…
In late 2016, I started lifting weights at the gym. I had no idea what to expect, but I stuck with it. I’m quite pleased with the results and wanted to share my experiences in this blog post, which I will update every now and then. Before and after pictures Here’s a visualization of my body weight over the year. I weighed myself several times a week. Why I started lifting weights The reason why I…
Last week, I accepted my offer to join LinkedIn NYC as a Technical Program Manager intern. In this blog post, I’ll discuss how I used LinkedIn to get a job at LinkedIn. Photo credits: Komal Why I found LinkedIn interesting I have been a huge fan of LinkedIn, both the product and company, for a while now. I’ve been a LinkedIn user for 5+ years, and have unlocked many professional opportunities over…
I recently wrapped up my fourth co-op term at Axon. As I’m typing up this blog post, I’m on my 19th and final flight of the summer. What I did I was a product manager intern working on the new Records Management System team, which is Axon’s next big product investment. I worked on delivering a solution to support workflows for agencies to customize data fields and reports, as well as the initial…
I recently returned from the best trip of my life! I spent 5 days at the Grand Canyon National Park for a company-paid vacation. Every year, Axon pays for 4 trips to the Grand Canyon, with about 29 people in each trip. While interning at Axon this summer, I was fortunate to be offered an opportunity to attend the trip. I was initially hesitant to go because it was a large time commitment, and I…
In this blog post, I will discuss why UWaterloo has been the best investment I’ve ever made in my life. Originally posted here: uwaterloo.ca/alumni/blog/post/best-100000-investment-my-life Photo credit: Raymond Ji “Is a degree from the University of Waterloo worth paying $100,000 in tuition fees and living expenses?” This is a question I’ve heard many students bring up, including myself. Having…
I made the decision to study at Waterloo over 3 years ago, and I have no doubts it was the right decision. In this blog post, I will discuss the things that I love and hate about the University of Waterloo. Photo credit: Raymond Ji What I love… 1. The people I’ve met and the experiences I’ve gained Simply put, I’ve met a lot of great people through my three years in Waterloo and co-op terms. The…
Two months ago, I began my internship at Axon as a product manager on the RMS team. In this blog post, I will share some insights on what it’s like to work at Axon, and also discuss what to consider when evaluating an internship. Photo credit: GeekWire Internship recap On my first day at Axon, it felt like I walked into a spaceship rather than going to new hire orientation. The offices in both…
In this post, I will share the most important life lessons that I’ve learned in university. More specifically, these are the 5 things I would say to a student entering college. 1) Friendships are so damn important. I’m writing about this lesson first because I believe it’s the most important one. I would not be the individual I am today without my friends. This should be a fairly obvious…
Three months ago, I wrote a blog post outlining my goals for 2017. As March wraps up, I wanted to check in and reflect on how my goals are doing so far. New year, new me Every year, plenty of people make New Year’s resolutions. Popular ones include getting fit, living life to the fullest, traveling, new lifestyle, etc. This year, I set both specific and generic goals for myself. I wanted to stay…
Last year, I had an amazing opportunity to live and work in New York City. Throughout the four months, I recorded the memories that made my experience so special. Beautiful autumn day at Central Park I had previously been to New York 2 times in my life. The first time was when I was 11 years old and touring the city with my family in one of those Asian tour busses. I vividly recall the time when I…
I’ve always blogged about my achievements and how happy I was. In this blog post, I discuss the iceberg illusion and talk about some of my recent struggles. What is the Iceberg Illusion? When we see an iceberg, we only see the the tip, a small part of a much larger or complex unit. What we don’t see is below the iceberg’s surface. Often, when we hear stories about successful people, we naturally…
It’s been forever since I last updated my blog. In this post, I reflect on my experiences during my sophomore year, and set personal goals for 2017. Peaceful sunrise in Mountain View, California 2016 in Review Summary Here’s a brief recap of my 2016: I was on 14 one-way flights, doubling my previous lifetime total of 7 flights I interned at Addepar twice, 4 months in California, 4 months in New…
For many students, paying for a university education is a non-trivial task. There are several ways you can pay for your education, five of them being scholarships, bursaries, grants, loans, and work. I will explain each of the listed in this post. Table of contents Cost of education Scholarships Bursaries Grants & Loans Work Conclusion Cost of education In my previous blog post , I wrote about the…
When I was searching for my 2nd internship, I really wanted to work in California for personal and professional reasons. Throughout the process, I documented my daily thoughts regarding the internship hunt. If you’re a Waterloo student reading this, you’ll notice that WaterlooWorks didn’t exist back then! It was called “Jobmine”. Saturday September 26: Jobmine applications opened up today, and so…
Time flies. Has it really been a whole year since I started this blog? To be honest, my original intentions were to simply update my family and friends on what was going on in my life. I never expected my blog to take off the way it did. I’m still a little shocked that my blog received over 70,000 views this past year. I’ve received countless emails and Facebook messages from keen high school…
When I was looking for information about university expenses a year ago, I didn’t get the most accurate responses. Hopefully, after reading this blog post, you will be more informed about the total costs. University is an exciting experience, but it sure doesn’t come cheap. 1. Tuition Tuition is easily the largest incurred expense. The costs varies across programs, schools, and location in Canada.…
What a difference a year makes. One year ago today I was counting down the days until high school graduation. Suffering from boredom and “senioritis”, I did my usual thing and scrolled through Facebook, hoping to find something remotely interesting. Fifteen minutes later, I managed to come across this video. I was probably thinking at the time “Interesting… A 23 minute long video with the title…
1. Don’t be a dick. In my opinion, this is the most important rule in life. Some people may know this phrase as the Golden Rule: “Treat others how you’d like to be treated.” There’s a good reason why this expression appears everywhere, whether it’s your parents teaching you about manners, or as seen in religious texts. Respect others and be considerate. This is actually the easiest lesson to…
Hey world! It’s been a long time since I last posted. I apologize for this delay, but I’ve never been so busy in my life. I can’t believe that first year is going to be over in one month from now. Time flies. Today, I’ll be going over my experience applying to my first co-op job and providing tips to maximize your chances. This blog post will be tailored towards engineering and math students,…
For most programs at Waterloo, it is strongly recommended to fill out the admission information form (AIF). By the end of this post, you guys will learn how the AIF may be the difference between an offer and rejection. September 2018 update: Check out my new up-to-date post on ‘How to get into Waterloo Engineering.’ My Story I applied to Waterloo and submitted my AIF exactly one year ago. Two…
I know I’ve said this a million times already, but time flies in university. I remember after the second week of school, I was calculating what 2 divided by 13 was in my head. The answer? 15% of the way through 1A. I still find it hard to believe how that was three whole months ago. I’ve had a fair share of good and bad experiences throughout the term (mostly positive ones, but humans tend to…
An estimated total of over 11,000 people attended Waterloo’s Fall Open House 2014. This represents a new record, and it just astonishes me how much Waterloo grows every single year. I volunteered for the entire day as the department lead ambassador for Software Engineering, so it’s very likely that I met many of my readers in person. I remember how one year ago, I was the person asking the…
Hey everyone! Sorry that I haven’t posted anything in the past month. School and life has been extraordinarily busy! Remember when I mentioned how time flies? Well, it’s exactly how my life is right now. It feels as if the beginning of October was just yesterday. Here’s the highlights of my second month at Waterloo Engineering. Assignments, labs and, quizzes In our five core courses, we have…
Oh man, it’s October already? Time really does fly in university… My first month in university was incredible. Without a doubt, it was one of the best months of my life. You guys are probably wondering right now: “Bo, what made your month so special?” My response would be: “Everything.” Academics First thing’s first, we go to university to learn and indulge in the world of academics. I’m studying…
Hey there everyone! It’s been quite a hectic first two weeks at Waterloo. When I say hectic, I mean THE BEST TIME EVER!!! Although my schedule is packed, I’m going to try my best to write weekly posts. Here’s a recap of my first week: Monday was the first day of class of my university career. I woke up quite late, so I barely made it to class on time. It sort of felt like the first day of high…
There’s some things in this world you just can’t control. One of them is rain. Over the past week, it has rained numerous times in Waterloo. As a result, many orientation events were modified or cancelled. This obviously sucked for all of the enthusiastic froshies like me. HOWEVER…. orientation week was still a blast! Everyone kept a positive attitude and looked past the miserable weather. What…
Today is day 6 of my Waterloo experience! Here’s a recap of my journey so far. Day 1: I moved in to Village One on Sunday. The official move in day for my building was on Monday, so it was just me and another guy for the whole day. Moving in and saying goodbye to my parents was quite bittersweet. I’m going to miss living with them, but I’m also going to enjoy every single moment of this new…
The program director, Andrew Morton, revealed some stats about this year’s Software Engineering students. Enrolled/Applied: 140 students vs 640 applicants # of females: 24 students (17% overall, tied for highest ever) Overall average: 94% Cutoff average: ~90% This number is calculated by averaging the applicants with bottom 10% admission averages. # Enrolled 2018 class: 151 students, so this year…
As I start my first day of university tomorrow, I’d like to share with you grade 12’s the process of applying to university. This post will be a brief timeline and will only contain information about Ontario universities. I didn’t apply to Out of Province universities so I’m not knowledgable about that. By the way, I went to a semestered school in Ontario. Timeline September 2014 Ontario…
It’s 7:00am and right now I’m in the car leaving off to Waterloo. I will be living in a single room in Village 1. I will cover the topic of residences in a future post! I’ve been preparing myself for move in day for months now. I’m still astonished by how fast semester 2 and the summer went. Of course, there were some moments that went incredibly slow (cramming for Chemistry tests, procrastinating…
Hey everyone! My name is Bo Peng and I’m a first-year Software Engineering student at the University of Waterloo. I’ll be blogging about my experiences (both good and bad) here. I’ll also post some informational stuff for you keen high schoolers wanting to apply to university. I better get back to packing now… Move in day is tomorrow!