Waterloo Experience (WE) Accelerate: Spring 2021 work term

Yes, WE Accelerate counts for a co-op credit! Eligible students who participate in WE Accelerate will earn a Flexible Work Term Credit that counts toward their co-op degree designation. WE Accelerate will show up on your co-op work term history just as any other work term would, and you’ll also receive a Student Performance Evaluation at the end of your WE Accelerate experience.

Each WE Accelerate stream involves industry partner-led skill development work, project work and career curriculum components that together add up to the ~280 hours required for a Flexible Work Term Credit. This means that you don’t need to search for any additional work on top of what's included in the WE Accelerate stream you are assigned to – just completing the components below are enough!

• Complete ~60 hours of career curriculum delivered by the Centre for Career Action (two parts, beginning and end).
• Complete ~100 hours of skill development content and activities provided by the industry partner of your assigned stream.
• Complete ~120 hours of project work by an industry partner (working in teams of 5, must receive at least a "marginal performance" on your Project Evaluation and complete a Team Assessment form at the end of your project experience).

Your progress in each of these components will be monitored for completion as per the guidelines for assessment below.

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Please note: To graduate, undergraduate co-op students must complete a minimum of three standard work terms plus an additional one to three work terms that meet standard or flexible work term criteria. This depends on your academic program’s study/work sequence. For more information about Flexible Work Terms, visit the co-op roles and responsibilities webpage or reach out to your co-op advisor.

Graduate students, upper-year students, Pharmacy students and EDGE students are not eligible for this first offering of WE Accelerate this spring term.

WE Accelerate is an alternative co-op pathway that qualifies for a Flexible Work Term Credit. This pilot program was created specifically for students who are entering their first work term in Spring 2021, in recognition of the challenges of finding a first work term in the current economic landscape.

On the other hand, our flexible pathways represent a set of temporary, term-specific measures put in place to help ALL students find work and maintain their co-op credits in light of COVID-19. These have been in place since Spring 2020 and will continue to be assessed on a term-by-term basis as the situation around the pandemic continues to evolve.

TL;DR: WE Accelerate is a separate program.

WE Accelerate is open to all undergraduate students from all faculties who are going into their first work experience in Spring 2021 and haven’t yet found employment (WaterlooWorks employment status = UI, US or UO). If you missed your first scheduled work term and are currently looking for your second, you are also able to take part!

Any student who is eligible for the program would have received an invite to the WE Accelerate Virtual Information Day event, as well as an official invitation to opt-in to the program.

If you end up finding a creditable co-op job at any point before the deadline to opt-out (Friday, May 21 at 9:00 AM EST), you will no longer be eligible for the program as WE Accelerate is intended as an alternative to a traditional co-op work term.

Please note: Graduate students, upper-year students, Pharmacy students and EDGE students are not eligible for this first offering of WE Accelerate this spring term.

Yes, international students are eligible for WE Accelerate! 

Please note: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the University has imposed some travel/location requirements for Spring 2021 work terms that students must adhere to. This means that you can complete WE Accelerate virtually from within Canada or virtually from your home location/location of citizenship, if you’re an international visa student (status at UWaterloo is “student permit”).

Additional information for international students:

• This program does not require permits and SINs from visa students who are located outside Canada for Spring 2021 for the duration of the program. If you are considering coming to Canada for Spring 2021, please connect with the SSO Immigration Consultants for further advice.
• You will receive career/onboarding programming and some streams will feature synchronous elements, though we’re attempting to schedule them at times that are workable internationally.
• You will have access to all synchronous sessions that will be recorded and made available in LEARN for asynchronous viewing (across all six streams).
• You will be asked to indicate what region you will be located in via the opt-in form to give us a sense of where students are located. Ideally, we’re hoping to take this into consideration when project teams are created (to group students with peers in similar time-zones), but we aren’t able to guarantee this as it depends which students sign up, where they’re located, which streams they’re placed in, and so on.  

If you have additional questions about whether you are eligible or the University’s travel/location requirements, please reach out to your co-op advisor.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the University has imposed some travel/location requirements for Spring 2021 work terms that students must adhere to. This means that you can complete WE Accelerate virtually from within Canada or virtually from your home location/location of citizenship, if you’re an international visa student (status at UWaterloo is “student permit”).

Additional information for international students:

• This program does not require permits and SINs from visa students who are located outside Canada for Spring 2021 for the duration of the program. If you are considering coming to Canada for Spring 2021, please connect with the SSO Immigration Consultants for further advice.
• You will receive career/onboarding programming and some streams will feature synchronous elements, though we’re attempting to schedule them at times that are workable internationally.
• You will have access to all synchronous sessions that will be recorded and made available in LEARN for asynchronous viewing (across all six streams).
• You will be asked to indicate what region you will be located in via the opt-in form to give us a sense of where students are located. Ideally, we’re hoping to take this into consideration when project teams are created (to group students with peers in similar time-zones), but we aren’t able to guarantee this as it depends which students sign up, where they’re located, which streams they’re placed in, and so on.  

If you have questions about the University’s travel/location requirements, please reach out to your co-op advisor.

The total time commitment for a WE Accelerate work term is approximately 280 hours (roughly 25 hours per week).

The exact breakdown of your time will vary from stream to stream, but generally speaking you can expect the following breakdown of time throughout the term:

• Approximately 60 hours devoted to career and onboarding content (at the beginning and end)
• Approximately 100 hours devoted to career and skill development content
• Approximately 120 hours devoted to the project component

Some streams will feature synchronous elements, though we’re attempting to schedule them at times that are workable internationally. You will have access to all synchronous sessions that will be recorded and made available in LEARN for asynchronous viewing (across all six streams).

Students do not need any specific technical skills in order to participate in the WE Accelerate program. The program is designed for any first work experience student to be able to successfully complete the three program components – career development, skills training, and the project work experience. For some streams, basic programming skills would be helpful but are not necessary.

There is no additional cost for students to take a WE Accelerate work term beyond the co-op fee that you already pay to support the running of the co-op program throughout the duration of your degree. 

For questions about OSAP eligibility, please contact Binah Straker within Student Awards and Financial Aid at safainfo@uwaterloo.ca. 

Eligible students would have received a message via WaterlooWorks on Friday, April 16 letting them know when they are able to sign-up for the program using an “opt-in” form that they will submit from their dashboard in WaterlooWorks.

The deadline to opt-in and indicate your streams of interest is Wednesday, May 12 at 4:00 PM (ET)!

• Follow the steps above to submit your opt-in form as soon as possible.
• If you are having trouble finding the opt-in form or have questions about filling it out, you can contact your co-op advisor.

Please note: You do NOT need to complete an Arrange Own Job form or search for additional part-time work on top of WE Accelerate. Just submitting the opt-in form and completing the components of your assigned stream is enough to get you co-op credit!

If you want to change how you ranked the streams in your opt-in form, you can submit a NEW opt-in form and we’ll accept your most recent submission as the “official” one to be used when we sort students into streams.  

Please note: Even if you submit a new form, we can’t guarantee that you’ll be matched with your top choice. Streams will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis to keep things fair between students, so submitting a new form will change your priority (i.e., where you are “in line”).  

Yes, you can continue searching for a co-op work term after opting into WE Accelerate until the opt-out deadline of Friday, May 21 at 9:00 AM (ET).

If you receive and accept an offer for a job that counts for co-op credit, you will no longer be eligible to participate in WE Accelerate as the program is intended as an alternative for first work experience students who are currently unemployed for the Spring 2021 work term. In this case, you can either submit an opt-out form to let us know that you're employed, or we can remove you from the program directly if we see your status change to indicate that you are employed before the opt-out deadline above.

Please note: After this deadline, we expect that you will be committed to fulfilling the requirements for your stream to earn your co-op credit. WE Accelerate is a work term credit, so withdrawing from it after the deadline is considered leaving a work term early and may involve consequences. Please contact your co-op advisor for more details. 

Yes! Students who have opted-in can choose to opt-out until the deadline of Friday, May 21 at 9:00 AM (ET) using the opt-out form on WaterlooWorks.

If you’re still enrolled after this deadline, we expect that you will be committed to fulfilling the requirements for your stream to earn your co-op credit. WE Accelerate is a work term credit, so withdrawing from it after the deadline is considered leaving a work term early and may involve consequences. Please contact your co-op advisor for more details. 

We know you want as much choice as possible within the program. You’ll be able to indicate which stream(s) you’re interested in on the WaterlooWorks opt-in form, but there is no guarantee that you’ll be matched with your top choice(s). Streams will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. 

After registration closes on Wednesday, May 12 at 4:00 PM (ET), we will be in touch a few days later with more information about the stream you will be assigned to. We’ll ensure you know which stream you’re in before the opt-out deadline of Friday, May 21 at 9:00 AM (ET).

Note. For the spring 2021 pilot. Industry partners will provide projects that require skills that teams of students are trained in and interested in developing further; students will be able to indicate preferences for skill course(s) and potentially projects as well.

For more information about each stream, see the WE Accelerate stream chart above or login with your UWaterloo credentials to watch recordings of the WE Accelerate virtual information day industry partner sessions below:

• WE Accelerate program overview and industry partner introduction
• Vidyard | Video 101 with Vidyard
• Manulife | Building Software Engineering Skills with Manulife
• Deloitte | Human-Centred Design: HCD Master Class
• Concept/Velocity | Concept Innovation Stream in partnership with the Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change and the Problem Lab
• Microsoft | Microsoft Azure Artificial Intelligence
• D2L (Desire2Learn | Brightspace Training: Transforming the way the world learns

For a high-level overview of WE Accelerate timelines, major milestones and what to expect, please see the chart above (may be slight differences, depending on which stream you're enrolled in).

Yes, you can continue searching for a co-op work term after opting into WE Accelerate until the opt-out deadline of Friday, May 21 at 9:00 AM (ET).

If you receive and accept an offer for a job that counts for co-op credit, you will no longer be eligible to participate in WE Accelerate as the program is intended as an alternative for first work experience students who are currently unemployed for the Spring 2021 work term. In this case, you can either submit an opt-out form to let us know that you're employed, or we can remove you from the program directly if we see your status change to indicate that you are employed before the opt-out deadline above.

Please note: After this deadline, we expect that you will be committed to fulfilling the requirements for your stream to earn your co-op credit. WE Accelerate is a work term credit, so withdrawing from it after the deadline is considered leaving a work term early and may involve consequences. Please contact your co-op advisor for more details. 

Students do not need any specific technical skills in order to participate in the WE Accelerate program. The program is designed for any first work experience student to be able to successfully complete the three program components – career development, skills training, and the project work experience. For some streams, basic programming skills would be helpful but are not necessary.

Each stream will also have a project component where students will work in teams of five to practice what they learned by tackling real-life problems and projects provided by industry partners.

Each stream will vary slightly, but generally speaking the projects will be related to the skills that you're learning within your stream and will take approximately 120 hours for each student to complete. Finally, industry partners will assess each team's approach to the project using via a Student Performance Evaluation that will show up on your work term record.

Just like with any other job, you might not know all of the specific project details up front – but you can rest assured that you’ll be learning the skills required to complete the projects and will have support along the way.

We’re still confirming details around what the projects will entail but will let you know more details as soon as we have them. Stay tuned!

Students will be assessed based on four mandatory components that must all be completed for flex work term credit to be granted: 

Career programming assessment	Marked as “complete” or “incomplete” for each individual student.   Students must successfully complete the final summative assignment of the career curriculum in order for this to be marked as "complete." It's important to complete the entire career curriculum in order to be successful on the final assignment.
Skill programming assessment	Marked as “complete” or “incomplete” for each individual student.   Assessment structure will depend on stream (e.g., some streams may involve a single summative certification/exam or several smaller certifications).
Project evaluation	At the end of each WE Accelerate project experience, project supervisors will complete a project evaluation form to evaluate the performance of their assigned student team(s) with respect to output, quality standards, delivery of goals and assignments.  Students will be assessed as part of a team (one assessment per group) with an overall performance rating assigned for the entire group of students (e.g., outstanding, excellent, very good, good, satisfactory, marginal, unsatisfactory).   Each student within the team will receive the same overall performance rating, which will appear on your work term history going forward.   Please note: An overall performance rating of “Marginal” or higher is required in order for you to receive co-op credit for your WE Accelerate work term.
Project team assessment	At the end of each WE Accelerate project experience, each student will be required to fill out a form on WaterlooWorks to provide feedback on project contributions by themselves and other team members, with the ability to indicate any significant gaps in contribution to the team project.   The Project Team Assessment Form can be accessed via the “Forms” section of WaterlooWorks: Category: Waterloo Experience (WE) Accelerate Program Sub-Category: Project Team Assessment WE Accelerate (5034) These team assessments will be reviewed. If concerns are raised, the situation will be considered by a review committee to determine if individuals have not contributed to the project and the impact to a student’s evaluation/credit eligibility (by exception only).     Please note: The expectation is that students will raise team contribution issues as early as possible, both with their team member(s) and the assigned WE Accelerate Team Lead, to allow for more time to address any situations.

Once all the above components have been completed, the Overall Performance Rating received by your project experience team will be added to your Work Term History in WaterlooWorks. 

If you have any questions about how students will be evaluated, please reach out to your co-op advisor.  

As of May 10, every student who chooses to participate in the Waterloo Experience (WE) Accelerate this Spring will be given a financial award of $1000 each. The award has been funded in part by the Government of Canada's Innovative Work-Integrated Learning Initiative (IWIL) and Co-operative Education and Work-Integrated Learning (CEWIL) Canada’s Innovation Hub (iHUB) for domestic students, and by the Provost for international students.

Please note that this one-time financial award is an added benefit that we’ve been able to secure for students who take part in spring 2021. The award will be added to your Quest student account upon completion of all WE Accelerate components. Once all mandatory WE Accelerate components have been verified, the award will be added to your Quest account in the Fall term.

For those of you who do decide to take part, we hope you will see WE Accelerate as a unique opportunity to invest in yourself, increase your future employability and maintain your work term credits despite the challenging hiring landscape brought on by COVID-19.

That said, we know that each student has their own financial needs to take care of, and that the $1000 award is not equivalent to a typical co-op salary. This program was created as an alternative for students in light of the challenging hiring climate – so it’s completely up to you. If you’re on the fence, consider opting-in and if you end up finding a paid co-op job before Friday, May 21 at 9:00 AM you can always opt-out! 

For more information on additional funding opportunities, visit the  Student Awards and Financial Aid  website.

Absolutely! The WE Accelerate term will appear like any other work term on a student’s work term record in WaterlooWorks and on their co-op work history. Once you’ve been assigned to a project, your actual job title may change to reflect this.

Here’s an example of what you’ll see on your co-op work history, once you’ve completed the program: 

Employer: Waterloo Experience (WE) Accelerate Program 
Division: “<Strategic Partner>” “<Skill course name>”  
Job: Project Title 

For example:

Waterloo Experience (WE) Accelerate Program
Microsoft – Azure & Artificial Intelligence Fundamentals   
Project Title 

Beyond what will show on your co-op work history, you can also talk about the skills you learned and practiced on your resume and in interviews with future employers! 

Co-op students have been hired as Team Leads to support each stream and help students through the career curriculum, skill development and project experiences.

Co-operative and Experiential Education (CEE) staff have also been assigned to each stream as WE Accelerate Facilitators who will be familiar with the subject matter and available to provide support as necessary.

In addition to WE Accelerate-specific support, students will be able to access traditional co-op supports and resources and can always reach out to their co-op advisor.

Visit the supports and resources section of the co-op website for more information about wellness resources, accessibility resources, financial resources, equity resources and more!  

Even though we are still in the very early stages of delivering this new program, upon consultation with our academic colleagues, staff who are developing the program and our industry partners, we have decided to continue to offer this program in Fall 2021 as an alternative for students. Some details may look different for this next offering – stay tuned to learn more!