Inside sCo-op

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Issue II Winter 2011

LIVINGLEARNING

LOVINGthe uWaterloo co-op experience

...wherever it takes you

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Editor: Alana Rigby, Media & Publications AssociateStaff Editor: Olaf Naese, Communications & Public Relations AdministratorPhotos: Jessica Konzelmann, Alice Tsang, Leander Lee, Ben Luke, Andre Magalhaes, Olena Ryzkyh, Joseph IusoSpecial Thanks: Emma George, Jennifer So

From First Year to Full TimeJessica Konzelmann’s journey through co-op and the lessons she’s learned

Coding in CaliforniaA Silicon Valley work term with IMVU

Does Size Matter?Big companies or small companies - is one better than the other?

Career Corner: Economic SnapshotA look at the labour market with Adjunct Associate Professor Larry Smith

Employer Spotlight: Joseph IusoEntrepreneur, co-op employer and Dragon’s Den petitioner

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INSIDE sCO-OP: ContentsThe Inside sCo-op is a bi-term student e-publication released through Co-operative Education and the Centre for CareerAction at the University of Waterloo.

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For Students on Co-opEmployer Evaluation formConfirm your last day and be sure to let your supervisorknow about the Student Performance Evaluation form.Work ReportDon’t forget about the report! See section 9 of theCo-op Student Manual for faculty-specific due dates.

Back row: Ronauq Sabharwal, JobMine Technical Support Assistant; Alana Rigby, Media & Publications Associate; Kris Wu, WatCACE Research Assistant; Jennifer Harvey, Marketing Associate; Johnson Trinh, JobMine Technical Support Assistant

MEET THE TATHAM C E N T R E C O-O P S

For Students Working Spring 2011Pre-work Term InformationPrepare for your work term by reviewing section 7 of the Co-op Student Manual.Résumé PreparationGet help from the Centre for Career Action’s website or arrange an appointment with one of their talented staff.

In music, it’s always easier to practise the pieces you love. In co-op, enjoying your job makes going that extra mile so much easier. Olena Rhyzyk and Alice Tsang agree with this. They’re two AFM students who’ve had drastically different work terms with the same result – success. They loved their jobs, one at RIM and the other at Vincent Dong CA, and that allowed them to thrive.

But while you’re busy learning and loving, don’t forget that simple living, experiencing new things, playing new pieces, is essential. Jessica Konzelmann, a scibus student, will tell you exactly that – she’s worked for start-ups and big companies, she’s done a term abroad, and each unique experience affected her. Joseph Iuso, this issue’s featured employer, believes the same thing. He advises students he hires to “do what you love” because life is short.

So get out there and try a new job, learn a new song and read this newest issue of Inside sCo-op!

CECS REMINDERS

Front row: Hira Zahid, Employer Services Advisor; Madhulika Saxena, Employer Servic-es Advisor; Emma George, Program Review Research Analyst; Kate Surtees, Business Analyst; Katherine Tu, Web Developer, Flor-ence Chan, Experiential Learning Assistant Greg Mittler, Events Assistant; Alex Hart, Student & Faculty Relations Assistant

I love music. I listen to music when I write, I learn instruments in my free time, I play in a band on weekends. As I sit here trying to write this letter, comfortable in my swivel chair, soft music filling my office, it occurs to me that being a musician is a lot like being in co-op. Music takes diligence; it takes practice and precision and I’m only willing to put up with thatbecause I love it so much. But just as you have to learn to play music, you can learn from music, from wrong notes and early entries, from out of tune chords and fumbled runs.

E D I T O R

Alana

Alana Rigby, 2A English Lit & Rhetoric

Co-op is the same way. We learn from our experiences, our mistakes, and the challenges we face. Just ask Benjamin Luke, Leander Lee, or Andre Magalhaes, three co-ops who worked in Silicon Valley, learning from the cutting-edge environment at IMVU. Or do a little learning yourself and try some of the career planning strategies suggested by Adjunct Associate Professor Larry Smith.

FROM GLASGOW, Scotland to downtown Toronto, from hectic start-up to structured company, from team of five to full-fledged organization, Jessica Konzelmann, a 4B Science and Business student, has seen just about everything co-operative education has to offer. And now, five work terms later, she’s ready to cross the proverbial threshold into alumni-dom and grab her degree.

Jessica has a full-time consulting job lined up for herself at Deloitte. Through diligently participating in Waterloo’s graduating student employment process, she got herself the job by October of last year. She thanks co-op for this success – not only did her work terms allow her to build a unique and diverse skill set, but they also gave her the confidence to shine in her interviews. Jessica’s work terms typify the sort of eclectic education a student can gain through co-op, and she’s made sure to learn from each one of her experiences.

“My favourite work term, in terms of sheer fun, would have to be Scotland,” Jessica reflects. With Edge Consulting, Jessica and five other co-op students travelled to Glasgow, Scotland. There, they were split into different teams, each composed of one Waterloo student and four other students from different universities – “there were students from Poland, out west in Canada, the States, China.” Each team was tasked with consulting two clients.

Jessica loved the experience, not only because she got to travel on weekends, but because she feels international work significantly strength-ened her communication skills. “There definitely was a language barrier... which was in a way a good thing, because you learn to communicate differently. You don’t notice the cultural differ-ences until you’re actually working with people from a different country, in their country. And in Scotland, it’s like night and day compared to North America. They’re so relaxed – to them Waterloo students had the reputation of being gung-ho about everything.”

For Jessica, customer service at Petro Canada was an excellent first job. She experienced life at a large corporation and discovered ways to make the most of the opportunity. “It’s easy to just do what you have to do”, she says. “As a co-op student, it’s really important to communicate with your bosses and let them know what it is that you’d like to focus on. I think a lot of students don’t do that and they miss out on opportunities.” Jessica knew her first work term was “a good place to build fundamental skills.” “With co-op, you can explore different fields and that allows you to make a better decision about what you want to do, full-time.”

Working at a Big Company

from FIRST YEAR to FULL TIME

Working Abroad

Jessica (second from the right) and other Edge Consulting particpants celebrate in Scottish style

Jessica Konzelmann’s journey through co-op and the lessons she’s learned

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If you’re a student and you’ve heard of CampusPerks you have Jessica to thank. If you’re a student and you haven’t heard of CampusPerks, check them out now (www.campusperks.ca) and you’ll be glad you did. CampusPerks is a product of Redwood Strategic Inc., a start-up company founded by a former Science and Business student and brought to life by a dynamic team of co-ops, new grads and young professionals. Jessica did her last two work terms with Redwood, helping translate CampusPerks from whimsical ideal into tangible reality. She fearlessly approached big name companies – RIM, Tourism Australia, Loblaws – with a simple proposal: sign up with us and we’ll help you connect with students. And that’s what they did: with Jessica’s aid, CampusPerks hooked up with these companies and others, providing discounts and giveaways for students who sign up on their website.

Five years later, Jessica is mere months away from graduation and full-time employment. She’s found success and has a few tips to share with other students who hope to do the same. Her insight is especially helpful for those seeking full-time employment.

• Start early. Deloitte had an info session the first day of school. Do your research the term before and be ready to go in September.• Extracurriculars and volunteering always help, especially when you’re after a full-time position. Employers are constantly looking for that well-rounded student. By the time you’re in fourth year, you should have a lot of leadership roles; you should be engaged in your community.• Maintain a reputable average. It’s always a good idea. • If you’re in first or second year, get involved right away. Start networking, go to conferences on campus, go to conferences at other schools. You’d be surprised the number of people you can meet that way.

Redwood Strategic (the same guys who brought you the FroshPerks lanyards) share a flat with two other quasi start-ups in Toronto. “You’d swing your chair around and some person was right behind you” Jessica relates with a laugh. “You got to know the people you’re working with really well.”

Working at a Start-up

Going Full-Time

Jessica (far right, back row) and the Redwood team in Toronto

But she doesn’t regret signing up for a Redwood work term. “Working at Petro, going to Scotland – those were all bigger companies. You build those fundamental skills and at a start-up you can execute all of them.”

With only five people in the company during her co-op term, it was what she called a “high stress” environment. “Clients would ask for something and want it back in 24 hours. If you’ve got five people asking for that it’s gets a little crazy”.

Ben, 4B Software Engineering

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EVEN IF YOU’VE NEVER played the game, you’ve probably seen the IMVU logo before. IMVU is an online social entertainment destination where members use 3D avatars to meet new people, chat, create and play games with their friends. Its headquarters are in any tech fan’s number-one-must-see locale: Palto Alto, California. In other words, Silicon Valley.

Silicon Valley is the go-to place for anyone with a technological inclination – it’s a breeding ground for innovation and entrepreneurship and thus is an ideal work location for an enterprising co-op student. The fact that it’s in California, the Golden State of long beaches, sunshine and palm trees, is just the icing on the cake.

Silicon Valley plays host to just about every big name technology company out there, from Amazon to Yahoo! with everything in between. To warrant square footage in such a prestigious location, a company has to be top of the line, built on the backs of equally qualified employees. Ben certainly got this impression while working there: “everyone knew their stuff really well and I hadn’t

We’ve all faced those doubts when applying for inter-national or out of province co-op jobs – how will I find a place to live, who will I live with, is rent going to be ridiculously expensive? For Ben, it was a “fairly painless transition”. He’d lived in the States before and thus already had a social security number. All he needed to do was find a place to stay which he did fairly quickly using Craigslist. The rent was steep but the location was worth it, in his eyes.

But before they could contemplate living arrangements, these aspiring engineers had to impress in the interview.

Step One: Getting There

The trio did some sightseeing, checking out the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. Stanford University was a scant five minutes from where he lived, so Andre joined the university’s Great White North Club of Canadian students. With them, he saw a hockey game and celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving. In terms of professional networking, Andre says: “I added people on LinkedIn and I’m helping the IMVU guys set up an info session. It’s good to stay involved with the companies you’ve worked for.”

Step Three: Exploring the Social Scene

Leander thinks it was his analytical thinking that set him apart: “Sometimes they present you with a problem and instead of just giv-ing an answer, I’d go through the steps I took to get to that answer. So even if I was wrong at least they could see how I got the answer.”

So it was that during the fall term of 2010, while the rest of us were getting ready for winter, Benjamin Luke, Andre Magal-haes and Leander Lee headed south for the winter and a work term with IMVU.

Andre, 3A Computer Science

Step Two: Going to Work

experienced that before. It’s fun and you can col-laborate with people. All the pressure isn’t on you if you make a mistake.” In terms of tangible bene-fits, Ben says: “I got good at PHP. I’d never worked in PHP before. Also, the holiday party was really, really awesome.”

“Every day I learned something new,” Andre added, and as cliché as that sounds, the learning opportunities were the result of IMVU’s uniqueness. IMVU does something that very few in the technical world can claim to do: they publish code their employees have created in a matter of hours. As Andre said, “you commit something on the first day and it’s live before lunch”. Though this might not sound impressive to the non-tech-savvy, it’s an incred-ible feat in the industry. Leander was also impressed with the IMVU’s rapid code pushes. “There was an article”, he explains, “about how people online were saying ‘oh that’s not possible” but IMVU was doing it. These co-op students were doing it.

Meet new friends on IMVU

Typical tourist attractions aside, Silicon Valley is a busy place. Conferences and meet and greets, networking events and info sessions – these students worked in a watering hole for entrepreneurs of all stripes. Leander, an enterprising student who’s lived in Velocity several times (see www.mappedin.ca for his latest Velocity project) felt obligated to get involved: “I went to www.meetup.com and joined usergroups. Companies host events, usually for recruitment. You go there and you meet all the people who run the industry.”

If you’re interested, IMVU is hiring. See their site http://www.imvu.com/jobs for more information.

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EMPLOYER SPOTILIGHT:J O S E P H I U S O

IF YOU’RE A REGULAR FAN of Dragon’s Den, you probably remember Joseph Iuso – one of two business partners who approached the dragons in search of extra funding and received an offer of a million dollars. Which they turned down. Twice.

“How could he walk away from a million dollars?” many might wonder. In truth, “walking away from one million” is just a half-informed soundbyte describing Iuso and business partner Brian Crozier’s appearance on Dragon’s Den. The dragons offered them a million dollars with a conditional 51% in their online payment company.

“We were seriously interested in seeing if we could have the dragons as partners, but not at the expense of devaluing our company,” Iuso explains. “It was always understood that even if we did not get any money, the exposure would result in our company being talked about and bringing in more business.”

Joseph Iuso is an employer who knows the value of his company. He also knows the value of co-op students, and, unlike the proposed deal with the dragons, Iuso’s partnership with Waterloo is a mutually beneficial one.

This relentless attitude has worked well for him – Iuso believes that “expanding your horizons” is essential. “Remember, by the time you finish school you would have already lived about 8000-9000 days. On average, you only have anywhere between another 10,000-15,000 days left to live and work. Life’s too short to be doing something you don’t like to do.”

Co-ops tend to begin their work terms with “limited or no knowledge of many of the technical requirements” (such as IIS, ASP, VB, Javascript), but “are able to, in a short period of time and with guidance, deliver, piece by piece, the final product.”

What He Advises

What His Co-ops Do

Dragon’s Den and the Million Dollars

UseMyServices Inc – Specializes in providing streamline online banking payment services in Web 2.0 environment. Iuso oversees co-op hiring for UseMyServices and is the company’s CEO.

Tekchand LLC – Develops ATM content management systems and value-added services on multi-vendor ATMs. Iuso is not responsible for co-op hiring for Tekchand – he suggested hiring co-ops to Rajeev Bahri, the managing director, who then followed through on the suggestion.

...that if you’re working in Toronto for an employer like Joseph Iuso, you’re eligible for a TTC metropass! Go to Sherbourne station in Toronto with photo ID and a copy of your current timetable from uWaterloo. This confirms that you are a Post-Secondary Student. For more info see “Fares & Passes” section at: http://www.ttc.ca/

Given the highly techni-cal nature of his compa-nies, Iuso tends to hire students from computer related programs. Despite this specificity, Iuso says “there is no limit to the type of work we ask of our co-op students.”

As a successful entrepre-neur and founder of sev-eral companies, Iuso has some words of wisdom current co-ops should take to heart. “The best way to make your mark on this world”, he says, “is to always be in learn-ing mode. Push the lim-its, go beyond educa-tion, find your calling, don’t ‘settle for’ less and never let anyone or any-thing hold you down.”

Did you know...Joseph and current co-op

employee David Xavier

What you probably don’t know is that the same Joseph Iuso of Dragon’s Den fame is also a Waterloo co-op employer. With a Computer System Technology degree from Mohawk College, Joseph Iuso experienced co-operative education himself. His work terms at Royal Trust’s bank-wide help desk inspired him to the sort of work he does today. Today, two Toronto-based companies he’s affiliated with hire Waterloo co-ops.

His co-ops often work on projects that carry over from previous terms – “a great example is our latest product, UseMyCard. This product’s development involved two co-op students over a year both alternating. The co-ops haven’t actually met each other” and yet the product is perfected and available.

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IF YOU’RE IN COMPUTER engineering or CS, you’ve likely considered a term with some high-tech or internet companies. If you’re in kinesiology or biology, you’ve probably eyed a job description for a Toronto hospital. If you’re in arts, a government position probably seems like an appealing co-op job. What do these employers have in common? Big institutions andbigger names – they’re all sprawling corporate entities guaranteed to provide co-op students with some eye-catching résumé decor.

But let’s not be too cynical: big companies offer far more than big names to pump up your résumé. Alice Tsang, a 3A FM student, has had her fair share of work terms at big companies, and she’s loved the experience. Although she’d “never touched a Blackberry in her life”, her Winter 2011 term saw her working with Research in Motion in Waterloo.

Using her earnings from her RIM job, Alice travelled to Mozambique with Habitat for Humanity. Her team was on a mission to build a house for children orphaned by HIV and AIDS. On the last day of the trip, a riot broke out over increasing food prices. Alice and the other volunteers couldn’t safely reach the airport.

“The scariest part”, she said, “was that no one in the world knew it was happening – when we Googled ‘riot in Mozambique’, there was nothing”. The group waited until four in the morning, and then snuck into the airport, managing to leave the country safely. She calls the experience “life changing.” Despite the danger, she wants to go back and recommendsinternational volunteering to everyone. Experiences like Alice’s enrich your life, and you can always draw examples from them in job interviews.

As a Project Manager at RIM, Alice's project was straightforward: all the equipment in a Waterloo RIM building needed to be moved to a newly purchased facility in Cambridge. Her job was to coordinate the logistics of this move. Initially, this task daunted her: the only moving she’d ever done was “to rez and back” and she was now the only RIM employee organizing the move on the Waterloo site. About five feet tall and politely soft-spoken, Alice was “thrown into the fire” (so said her manager) and put in charge of a team of “fifteen burly movers twice [her] size, height and width”. On top of worrying about the move itself, Alice was also concerned for her leadership skills – what if these veritable giants wouldn’t listen to her?

But they did, and she claims it’s because of respect. “I was really nice to them – I respected them and they respected me.” The move occurred on time and was made even more efficient by Alice’s efforts. When it was over, she found herself working on another project in the repairs department. It was here that she really got a sense of RIM corporate culture: “it’s a really relaxed environment – we don’t wear formal clothing and meetings always started with a joke of the day.” It wasn’t stifling and she wasn’t micromanaged – she enjoyed both the work she did and the people she worked with. She’s gone on to work at an even bigger company, CIBC, and still finds her job engaging. Thus, there is substance to the desire to work at big companies. But that was something most of us al-ready believe – it’s the other side of the story that may not be as well known.

Alice Tsang at Research in Motion

The Big

Does S I Z E matter?Big companies or small companies - is one better than the other?

Adventures in Africa

Alice happy at RIM

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Olena is a varsity field hockey player, and because of that, she almost didn’t get hired for her first work term. She was so invested in the season that she left all her cover-letter writing and résumé drafting to the last minute. She was unemployed when exams hit in December, and was beginning to worry.

Ironically, she also thinks her love of sports helped get her hired. Hersupervisor loved sports; he “asked about field hockey and school and how I was balancing the two – being able to balance a lot of responsibilities was very important to him”. What really clinched the job, she suspects, was that she told him during the off-season she stayed fit with volleyball, his favourite sport.

At both small and large companies these students found success. The moral? Finding an enriching co-op job isn’t just about the size or the reputation of the company. There are plenty of medium-sized companies that offer excellent opportunities too. It comes down to finding a job that suits you; it’s about finding a job that caters to your interests and challenges your skills. Most importantly, it’s about dedication. Whether it’s taking on additional responsibilities or taking charge of a team, dedication is essential for success at any company, big or small.

That’s not to say that work terms with small companies are only useful as stepping stones in the road to employ-ment at that big name. Olena Ryzhyk, another 3A FM student, would argue quite the opposite. She’s worked two terms with Vincent Dong, a Chartered Accountant who runs his own self-titled accounting and consulting firm at one of the four companies he owns. ‘Small company’ often means lots of work on one very small plate, and Olena’s term was no exception. “There are days”, she explained, “when Vince comes into the office and throws a bunch of things at me and every ten minutes he’s like – oh, that first thing I asked you to do, is it done yet?” But she thrived in that atmosphere; she is the type of person who isn’t stressed out by a mile-long to-do-list with fast approaching deadlines.

“Small firms are really great in the sense that you get your hands on a lot of things,” Olena believes. "You’re not stuck in one department doing the same sort of work day in and day out." She also built some impressive net-work connections with clients: “Working in a small firm, you get to know your clients very well.”

Her second term with Vincent Dong was even busier than her first. One of the full timers, an office manager, unex-pectedly went on leave. This meant even more work for Olena – she gave up weekends and stayed late, throwing herself headfirst into the job. Her enthusiasm was a good match for her job, just as Alice's well-mannered respect helped her succeed in hers.

Many uWaterloo employers are from small comapnies - start-ups and entrepreneurs who target niche markets with specific services. If you could work at RIM, at RBC or the government, would you spend a work term at a company less familiar to the general public? Alice has her own opinion here: “It’s a common perception that getting into big companies is always really, really good. But not everyone’s that lucky. So don’t be afraid to start somewhere small. You have to take the first step to get that experience. Sometimes, small companies come later, as the perfect place to use all your skills.”

The Small

Olena Ryzhyk at Vincent Dong CA

The Answer

Co-op and Sports: A Balancing Act

Olena collaborating with boss Vicent Dong

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It’s no secret that the recession took its toll on co-op. It would be unreasonable to assume that, somehow, the University of Waterloo could escape the economic downturn that dug its talons into labour markets around the world. However, Waterloo economics professor Larry Smith assures us that Canada has weathered the worst of the storm and is now sitting pretty with a 61.8% employment ratio (meaning that 61.8% of Canadians who can work are working).

Does this mean that we co-ops, desperate for that next rewarding work term, can breathe a little easier? Yes. Does this mean that we can relax and assume the jobs will come to us? No. Definitely not.

Prof. Smith is a self-proclaimed “knight master” who models himself in the image of Yoda (yes, that petite, green, “passive voice am I using?” Yoda), harnessing the potential of his would-be Jedi students. To this noble end, he shares some of his observations about the labour market, and his advice about the future.

Here is a basic model of questioning Larry Smith (shown above) urges all

students to consider:

Canada came out of the recession a little bruised, but more-or-less intact. We’ve returned our pre-recession employment years ahead of any other developed, mature state. And the reason Prof. Smith gives for this is rather surprising.

“Canada has,” he confides in a hushed tone, “one of the highest rates ofcreation of self-employment on the planet. In February alone, 20,000 people started their own business. And that statistic is by no means unusual – it is not a sudden boom of self-employment to counter the recession.” The trend is supported for quite some time. Canadians, it would seem, are leagues ahead of their American counterparts in making their own success and living the so-called “American Dr.eam”.

It would seem that the glorified, one-in-a-million, successful entrepreneur is not at all rare in Canada. Prof. Smith believes this knowledge should have an impact on students: “If you do your whole job search without ever asking yourself ‘would I like to be an entrepreneur,’ then your career strategy is fundamentally flawed. Many people would say no, and for very goodreasons, but to never ask the question is bad career planning.” Selfemployment should be a valid consideration for any student.

Something Prof. Smith cannot tolerate is the tendency for students to “default” into a career. Those who, with graduation approaching, say: “I don’t know what I want to do; my marks are okay; I guess I’ll teach!” “They’re the ones,” he exclaims, “that wake up at 39 and wonder ‘what did I do to myself?’. And then they do all sorts of irrational things like learn how to skydive because they’re so bored with their lives.” Instead of squandering your life in pursuit of the “secure job with a good pension” your parents advocated, follow your passion. But before you blindly dedicate yourself to your career quest, look at the market and do your research.

Some sectors remained more or less unchanged by the recession, some boomed and others buckled under the pressure. It’s not as easy to get a job in manufacturing, in public service, in goods production, as it used to be. Other industries have decreased hiring for entirely different reasons; for example, fewer elementary and secondary school teachers are being hired because fewer babies are being born.

Nonetheless, Prof. Smith believes that if your passion is in one of these “injured industries”, you shouldn’t change it. “For those students who earnestly desire to teach because that’s what their passion is, understand the facts, recognize the reality of where your career choice stands in the labour market, and consider the strategies you’ll employ to prepare your qualifications.”

The “facts” about which industries are blossoming and which are not act as stepping stones to make informed career plans, not as determinants that dictate your career. It’s important to be realistic, to understand the specifics and allow them to influence your job search strategies.

A Look at the Labour Market and What it Means for You

...an interview with Adjunct Associate Professor Larry Smith

CAREER CORNER

Don’t Default – Be Realistic

Consider the ‘American’ Dream

a. Yes. Refine your interests. Try co-op jobs in different industries. Pinpoint what works best for you. b. No. Then you’d better figure out what type of program you’re in!

2) Am I in a program that prepares me for a variety of career options where one specific career or industry is not the focus (e.g., Sci-Bus)?

b.No. Proceed to 2)

a. Yes. Am I happy with my program? i.Yes. Good. But don’t get too cocky – stay appraised of the changes in the industry you’re aiming for. ii.No. Re-evaluate your interests and decide how to redirect your career plan.

1) Am I in a program that prepares me for relatively specific career options (e.g., AFM)?

Choose Your Own (Career) Adventure!