'Impossible to have chosen a better school'

A blog posting by fourth-year nanotechnology engineering student Rajesh Kumar

Our world is shrinking quite rapidly. The school we go to isn't so important anymore. It's the people we hang out with, the people we eat with, the people we scrutinize the world with that matter more. It is to this straight-forward, yet non-obvious observation that I dedicate my argument that it would've been impossible for me to have chosen a better school than the University of Waterloo in the Winter of 2005.

I've never had such mixed feelings about anything like this before. Or even to any degree like this before.

Leaving home was truly a remarkable experience, but I could have gotten that experience joining any university in Canada east of Manitoba. It didn't have to be Waterloo.

I'm still very much glad for having chosen Waterloo over MIT/ Harvard/ Stanford. But I owe you an explanation for that. My friends keep telling me I've wasted my entire undergraduate career by virtue of having chosen Waterloo, but I don't think so. I've gotten to be friends with some of the smartest people I ever will meet. The kind of friends that are super high-throughput, heavy risk takers, and courageous beyond measure. And that's even after the fact that my definition of smartness is so different from everyone else's that no one actually shares my definition except for the people I consider smart.

I feel, in some very specific ways, that Waterloo is better than MIT/ Harvard/ Stanford. And this is even after de-biasing myself because I went to Waterloo and that I will have paid $80,000 in total for the entire process. But then again, I only know one friend who went to Harvard. And maybe 2-3 who went to MIT and another few who went to Stanford. But compare that with knowing 350 people from Waterloo. So if anything, it probably is a case of mismatched sampling.

All these people who went to MIT/ Harvard/ Stanford, hereby referred to as MHS, are all ridiculously smart. But only in the layman's definition of smartness. Perhaps in a more academic and entrepreneurial way. But not in a fundamental, survivalist, "hard-core" kind of way.

The problem rises from the MHS guys being spoiled by going to a school with an over-abundance of resources and facilities. Waterloo, on the other hand, has almost no resources. Not that many photocopiers, not that many scanners, expensive printers, not enough study space, cramped residences, over-priced food, etc. etc. So we've learned to be super frugal. We've learned to make the best out of what's given to us. We've learned to squeeze the juice out of every little thing that comes our way. And we've learned to efficiently game the flawed North American educational system. Throw anything at us, and we'll learn to deal with it. Make an exam twice as long, then make it twice as hard, and then give us half the amount of time, and we'll still learn to deal with it. We're an army of extremely resilient soldiers that can fight on any terrain and in any climatic condition.

But out of everything I like about Waterloo, the thing I like the most is that not many people know all that much about Waterloo or the truly remarkable people that graduate from it. And this is really great for me. When I go out into the world, I would cringe if people said to me "you're from Waterloo, you must be smart." I want my reputation to come from who I am and how well I solve socio-technical problems. Not from which school I went to.

So yes, in some sense, I'm throwing out what I like by writing this very post and putting it on the internet, but since it's only going to be a 100 or so people, mostly Waterloo-goers, that seems fairly contained and I'm cool with that. I'd be the first person to be sad if Waterloo became as popular as MIT, Harvard and Stanford are today. I want us to remain a secret-society. I want us to be the unsung heroes, the iron hands masked in velvet gloves.

But this post was meant to summarize one thing, and one thing only: If you're looking for some serious academic rigour, some serious intellectual drill, the physical counterpart of which they make you go through in army cadets, and you're interested in one or all of math, computer science, or engineering, then I would ask you to apply to Waterloo today. Apply today, enlist in their co-op program, and look forward to having 5 years of intense "fun". And I can assure you that you will come thanking me 5 years from today.

Napoleon may have lost in the battle of Waterloo in Belgium. But here in Canada, I certainly haven't. Five years haven't flown by without much utility.

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Four new coaches as Warrior season nears

With the season for many Warrior sports just about to start, the UW athletics department has announced the appointment of four new coaches for the 2009-10 season. Shane Ferth will take over as head coach of track and field, Kim Biddiscombe will take over the figure skating program, and Joel Ayer and Marko Agatonovic will lead the tennis Warriors.

Ferth, an accomplished sprinter, moved into the coaching ranks with UW track and field in September of 2006 after a very successful varsity athletic career for the Warriors. He Shane is “an extremely dedicated and hands-on coach”, an announcement says, “who pushes his athletes to the limit by training with his athletes. He is NCCP Level 2 certified in Sprints and Hurdles and is also a certified personal trainer and strength conditioning specialist.”

Biddiscombe comes to UW from the Kitchener-Waterloo Skating Club, where she has spent more than 21 years coaching at all levels. She is a NCCP Level 3 Certified coach and has a wealth of experience coaching skaters from Junior Star to Senior Competitive. She has coached several skaters attending Canadian Championships in addition to international events at the Junior and Senior levels. She has also taught Free Skate at the Senior Competitive level, Dance to the Gold Test level, and Pairs at the Junior Level. Her skating and coaching background, including Psychological Preparation of an Athlete, Physical Training of an Athlete, and Annual Training Planning, “will be an invaluable asset leading the Warrior Figure Skating program,” the announcement said.

Ayer takes over the tennis Warriors with more than 16 years in tennis program development and teaching. He is a Tennis Canada Level 2 coach and presently working on Level 3. As a Tennis Academy Professional, he has recently worked with Tennis Canada, Tennis Ontario, and locally with the Waterloo Tennis Club. He has coached at all levels from beginner to Tennis Canada High Performance. Before coming to Kitchener-Waterloo, he was a Head Pro at the Northcliffe Indoor Tennis Club in Halifax. In 2008 he received the IKON Tennis Nova Scotia Coach Award. In 2006, he was ranked number 1 in singles play and number 3 in doubles in Nova Scotia.

Former Warrior Marko Agatonovic will move into the tennis coaching ranks as an assistant to Ayer. Agatonovic was a five-time OUA all-star and five-time academic all-Canadian during his Waterloo career.

“I am very excited about the appointments of these four coaches,” said Christine Stapleton, associate director in the athletics department and head of interuniversity sports. “They all have a passion for their sport and a drive to make student-athletes achieve their goals. These programs will undoubtedly prosper under their direction.”

The first Warrior action of 2009-10 will come next week with a pair of exhibition games for the men’s soccer squad. They’ll face the Seton Hill University Griffins August 21-22 at the Columbia playing fields.

Seton Hill is located in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, 35 miles outside of Pittsburgh, and is “considered one of the top schools in the US North East”, the athletics department says. The Griffins play in the West Virginia Intercollegiate Athletics Conference, part of Division II in the NCAA.

“I want to provide my student-athletes with some unique soccer experiences,” said Warrior coach Peter Mackie. “I know our players are really looking forward to the weekend and competition from the NCAA.” The Seton Hill team will arrive in Waterloo on August 19 and will participate in two days of training camp with the Warriors before the exhibition matches, which are set for Friday, August 21, at 6:30 p.m. and Saturday, August 22, at 2:00.

CAR

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