Interns making 100K? | University of Waterloo Co-op Program Explained

companies such as google amazon facebook apple  tesla twitter etc they always have job postings   available having a six-figure salary as  an intern that's completely mind-blowing hi everyone this is mika kim welcome to part two  of what to expect as a student at the university   of waterloo to give a quick intro about myself i  graduated in 2017 with a bachelor of mathematics   and after graduation i worked as a consultant  for one of the big four consulting firms   and currently i'm a software engineer in the  us in this video i will tell you everything   you need to know about waterloo's co-op  program if you haven't done so already go   check out part one of my video where i talk about  waterloo's academics reputation school life etc   and i will link that in the description box below  first i will go over what the co-op program is   how it works then go into the juicy topic  of what kind of jobs you can get and how   much money you can make also as a student  that went through this process five times   i will go over the list of pros and cons of the  school program as a quick disclaimer since i am   working in the tech industry right now a lot  of my stories may be biased towards that field   so let's get started if you're interested  in applying to the university of waterloo   you must have heard of waterloo's co-op program  so what exactly is a co-op to quickly explain   it it's a four-month internship that you apply to  but through job postings that are only available   to waterloo students based on your program  you'll go through about four to six co-op terms   which means you will have four to six internships  already under your belt by the time you graduate   if you think about it in another way it means  you have up to two years of work experience   before graduating now that's insane the benefits  of having this experience is astronomical and i   will go over why in a bit so stay tuned all right  let's quickly go over how the co-op program works   the first couple of steps is pretty similar  to how you would apply to any other dog   around the second to third week of each semester  jobs get posted through an internal waterloo   website called waterloo works companies that have  signed up through waterloo's hiring process will   start posting their jobs there before the end of  the following week you will have to go through all   the job postings that's in one of the works and  apply to all the companies that you're interested   in the caveat here is per cycle you only get 50  applications in total so even if there are 60   jobs you're interested in you can only apply to  50. after a week or so if you have been selected   for an interview you will get notified most of the  times interviewers come to waterloo and interviews   are generally held in a place called the tatum  center which looks like this now this is awesome   because you don't have to budget time and money  to go travel to another city for your interview   for instance if you have to go to toronto to go  take your interview you'd have to budget at least   half a day and miss your classes to do that now  this whole interview period may last up to two   weeks and around a day or so after the whole  interview cycle has ended companies will rank   their interviewees and students will also rank  the companies that they have interviewed with this   ranking system is very unique to waterloo and so  i will explain how the ranking system works in a   bit the next day you will get the ranking results  and find out what company you matched with and   generally you can think of this as a full cycle  based on if you got matched with the company or   not there are subsequent cycles that come up and  with each cycle you get 50 more applications so   let's go into how ranking works let's say yelp  posted a job for a software developer role   and i applied yelp decides to interview 5 out  of their 300 applicants lizzy andy steve myself   and wendy during the ranking period  yelp will give an offer to one person   and rank the other students with a number from  two to end they also have an option to not rank   someone if they don't want to hire them at all  this result will get revealed to all the students   now since students may have interviewed with more  than one company as well they can also rank the   different companies they interviewed for and your  match gets determined based on the minimum number   for that role so what does that really mean okay  let's go back to the example let's say lizzy got   an offer i got ranked number two andy three and  steve and wendy did not get ranked because yelp   didn't want to hire them at all if lizzy also  ranks shelf number one it's a guaranteed match   but let's say lizzie got another offer from tesla  and she ranks tesla number one then she will get   matched with tesla instead of yelp because she  would have to give yelp a bigger number than one   now let's say i got some other ranks and  offers too i got an offer from kpmg but i   really want to go to yelp then i can strategize  it like so i will give field number one and i   can give kpmg number three so that increases  my chances of getting matched with yelp over   kpmg because if the number is the same let's  say i gave kpmg two and k creams gave me a one   which equals to three i'd give yelp number one and  yelp gave me number two then that's also three so   the numbers are the same now then it's a toss up  and based on a random number that gets assigned   you will get a job matched so this ranking system  does have a bit of an element of gambling based on   how the other students rank companies which  makes this a little bit more sophisticated   i know this is a bit confusing so if you need any  more clarification please leave a comment below   and i will answer your question now for the golden  question what kind of job postings are available   and how much money can you make there are all  sorts of jobs and positions from industry leading   companies for all of you in tech companies such  as google amazon facebook apple tesla twitter etc   they always have job postings available for those  of you interested in audit or consulting roles   deloitte eny pwc kpmg all of them also have  postings every semester as well and the same   goes for other industries as well i'm really  sorry i couldn't come up with any company   names because they're not the industry  of my expertise but i do have friends in   different fields such as civil engineering and  chemical engineering that were also able to find   great jobs from reputable companies in their  respective fields now let's talk about money   so how much money can you actually make  can you make enough to cover your tuition   well let's take a look waterloo  has a chart posted publicly online   every year for average co-op earnings based on  program and year so let's look at the canadian   work terms i'll use math as the example since that  was my program if you look at the first work term   you can see an average of 1934 per hour rate that  is pretty solid given the minimum wage rate of 14   in ontario based on 2021 rates and having  this as your first co-op job as a first year   that's not too bad the cool thing is based on  how desirable of a candidate you are and also   if you're successful in negotiating  this value can be much much higher   and of course as your year and experience  goes up your wage will go up as well   now here's the fun part let's take a look  at what u.s work term salary looks like you can see here for the sixth co-op term it's  an average of 46 dollars usd and a high of 70 usd   per hour 70 dollars per hour to salary is 145 600  that means having a six-figure salary as an intern   that's completely mind-blowing i will link the  co-op earning website in the description below   so please feel free to take a look at this  in your free time and do the math yourself   now i will be super honest these high-paying  us jobs are going to be very very competitive   but there is a definite possibility that you can  land these roles yourself as well this uplift   that you get is unique to waterloo which i think  is really cool all right so let's talk about the   advantages of the quote program so let me state  the obvious you get to work in six different   jobs before graduating and that is huge so let me  explain that a little bit first of all you get to   try out all these different roles at different  companies with no strings attached for instance   let's say you are interested in becoming a project  manager and you do a co-op term at microsoft as a   pm you realize pm is not really the career path  that you want to take so the next corp term you   work at facebook as a software developer  and after this you realize you love the job   but not the company next you work for another  co-op term at amazon as a software dev   and ding ding ding you found your match being  able to go through this process of exploration   this early in your career is a huge huge advantage  by the time you graduate you will have a much more   solid understanding of what traits of a job or  company is the right fit for you imagine having   to go through this process as a full time  you can't expect yourself to jump between   different companies in different roles every  four months that easily next co-op experiences   prepare you for professional skill sets i have  seen a ton of new grads with no internship   experiences that get their first job and not know  how to write a professional email i'm not trying   to say that is wrong but imagine how ahead of the  crowd you will be by going through six internships   already also you have the opportunity to network  with so many different people in these different   internships which will all be valuable connections  later down your career number three your co terms   have a high possibility of connecting to full  time after completing a successful co-op term   a lot of the times the company will  give you a return offer as a full-time   that means you will have a job lined up already  with the company that you're already familiar with   so no need to stress out of having to scramble  through your fourth year trying to find a job   number four waterloo makes this process a  bit more uniformed like i mentioned earlier   your application your interviewing period is all  predetermined and won't be all over the place   another advantage is most of the times  interviewers will come to the school   no need to travel and finally you get to make some  money while you're in school personally for me i   never had a very high paying us job when i was  a co-op student so with the amount of money that   i made through my co-ops i wasn't able to pay  off school or anything but i was able to live   a very comfortable lifestyle during school  without having to get any support from my parents   or without having to do any part-time jobs  so now let's go over the disadvantages of the   co-op system struggling through studying and job  applying is so arduous as if exams and assignments   and quizzes and all of these things weren't hard  enough on top of that every semester you have to   go through this job finding process whenever  interview period rolls around i used to have   sleeping problems and felt so antsy and nervous  all the time also interview period always overlaps   with midterm period i said this during my other  video but i had this instance where my midterm   exam and my co-op interview was like almost kind  of overlapping so i had to rush through my midterm   submit it and sprint to tatum center to take  my interview and all of this combined together   really does take a toll on you number two  unfortunately you will have no summer breaks   so being in a co-op program allows you to go  through a four-year degree with two years of   work experience so four plus two is six but  if the whole co-op program takes five years   where is that extra one year from so  instead of having somewhere breaks   like a lot of other students you're basically  filling up that time with your co-op term so   high chances you won't have any official long  breaks during your five years at waterloo this   does make me a little sad time to time when  i hear of these amazing traveling stories   that happened during summer break from my  other friends that went to other universities   number three the ranking system may set you back  like i mentioned when i was describing how the   ranking system works based on how these numbers  are matched and kind of like the jumbling through   of the matching process you might actually get  matched with the company that you did not want to   go to so because of that luck and gambling aspect  of things it might put you at a disadvantage but   that's not too too common so don't worry too  much about it number four comparing comparing   and comparing honestly i feel like the co-op  process promotes a bit of a toxic culture   amongst the students at waterloo you will quickly  realize that a lot of people will gloat about   the amount of money they're making and what kind  of companies that they have been matched with   for their co-op terms and this will make you fall  into the trap of comparing yourself to others   please please please remember a single co-op  term will not determine the long-term success   of your career i've had that happen to me too  i've also been through comparing myself being   super depressed but it's not worth wasting your  time on please take my word for it maybe during   this particular co-op term your friend is making  more money than you maybe your friend is going to   cooler places at a seemingly cooler role but no  one knows what the future has in store for you   so stop beating yourself about it honestly this  would kind of be my mental note to my past self i   personally didn't have any u.s high paying co-op  jobs as a student and at the time i was really   ashamed of it looking back to all of my co-op  terms i've learned so much from every single one   of them and also met so many valuable people on  the way and so i kind of regret not being generous   to myself about it so just as another reminder  don't beat yourself over the co-op program   well that was everything you need to know about  waterloo's co-op system if you have questions   about anything that i talked about today feel free  to leave them in the comments and i will try my   best to answer them thank you so much for watching  and if you want me to do another video about the   university of waterloo please feel free to leave  a comment i hope to see all of you again soon bye

Channel: Mika Kim

Views: 32,621

Keywords: uw co-op, university of waterloo intern, waterloo co op, university of waterloo co-op, uw coop, waterloo co-op, how much do interns make, university of waterloo, uwaterloo, uw, waterloo, waterloo university, FAANG internship, sillicon valley internship, tech internship, software engineer internship, co-op program, 6 figure salary, waterloo computer science, waterloo cs, uwaterloo cs, Software engineering internship, uw co op, canada co op, waterloo co op program

Id: eSktjory5sE

Length: 14min 15sec (855 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 25 2021