Saw the post about racism against black people on campus, and thought I'd bring up something that's really been rubbing me off the wrong way - people being insanely and openly racist towards indians.

(https://www.reddit.com/r/uwaterloo/comments/1p7ynau/the_racism_i_hear_in_mc_is_so_disheartening/)

I've been in Waterloo since 2022 and it's unbelievable just how racist the students here have gotten, especially this past year. It's like no one cares if ur being racist as long as its against indians, like they're not human. Its crazy, I'm asian and I think that makes people feel safe saying INSANE shit to me.

Here's some stuff I've heard over the past year:

• Group of students waiting in line at DC Tims, said "theres too many indians" and another next to him said "they're a plague we need to wipe them out". Deadass IN PUBLIC like loudly wtf!
• In line at Pub on King, group of white and black guys were shitting on this one dude for being indian the whole way. Started w obnoxious questions like "why are you guys taking over canada" then got to "why do you guys eat shit for food" all the way to talking about killing all indians (why does this KEEP happening)
• Two girls (brown or arab couldn't tell) looked at a group of indian guys at the back of the bus and said "eww their types stink" and started giggling. Guys I know indian immigrants can have hygiene issues but these dudes deadass had no bad smell. Straight up racism.
• Another big one - SOO many people I follow on instagram like INSANELY racist shit. Like straight up videos about how indians are low iq, roaches, need to be wiped out/genocided.
• Also a lot of my friends have become super super racist for no reason.

I genuinely can't believe how brutally racist waterloo students are towards indians. I grew up alongside brown kids in the GTA and honestly I've never had any big problems w them.

I feel like the massive influx of conestoga students that happened has given people the confidence to be INSANELY racist towards indians - including other minorities lol. But istg all the indian kids I know are mad chill. The hate feels so forced, i feel hella bad

Anyone got more stories? Feel like this conversation needs to be had bruh

Most ethical waterlooian. Who’s joining this💀Post is getting ratio’d in the comments

Waterloo Defence is an “independent” engineering team.

I'm in 1A mechatronics right now. I feel like I'm trying to do a lot of things to keep myself busy but I'm not sure if they are right for me, nor do I know if I'll regret some decisions now. I also don't feel like my studying method is sustainable...I need to work on life-work-sleep balance

So, if you are in 1A of your program again, what would you do differently?

During orientation, my roommate (17f) came home after a long day of O-week activities, and she looked visibly upset.

We were talking, and I found out she was, like, trying to go home after an event in O-week, and a group of edcom (team black) people in engineering orientation O-week came up to her, and they were all talking, and they invited her to go back to their room. My roomate really wanted to go home, she had early plans for the next day or something, and then they were, like, really forcing their power of authority to persuade her into coming home with them. 

She kept saying no, like she early morning plans, and they were, like, starting to play around with their authority, and they started to trying to get handsy and touch on her without consent, and she just felt violated by them, and she's heard that this happened to other underage girls in orientation week by edcom, where we heard about other cases where edcom members (4th and 5th years) were inappropriately flirting with first years (most of which are underage) and making them uncomfortable, and not taking “no” for an answer.

She also mentioned that during orientation, the same edcom members were going around with an appendage shaped object, calling it “ the cock”, and going near other leaders and first years with it, and being like “you just got touched by the cock”.

We aren't sure of the names because edcom is anonymous but to simply describe them, two of them have middle part black hair, a bit longer, mixed race, about 6 feet tall. And the other one has curly hair and is a bit shorter. Again, because they were dressed up, we don’t have much details on them unfortunately. 

Just wanting to make other first years aware incase they run into something like this.

Reach out to campus wellness if this has happened to you, and you need to talk to someone.

UPDATE:

https://www.reddit.com/r/uwaterloo/s/JiOzQ51k4S

Interested to hear if anyone has any thoughts about this new design team at our university?

Reflecting back on UW with some former classmates, it occurred to me that there are certain courses, still known by course number years later, that you simply never forget.

For those who took it, CS452 (the trains course) was an all-consuming, life-altering experience.

In a very different way, an entire generation of UW alums will forever remember Larry Smith's animated ECON102 lectures with a particular mixture of reverence and fondness.

And within particular faculties and programs, there are courses that become almost legendary for their difficulty or uniqueness. I've heard a lot about ECE106 ("intro" to EM) from more recent students.

What's your forever-memorable UW course? Bonus points for an interesting or funny story explaining why.

During this time of hellish weather, my roommate (likely a top operative from the idf) has turned off the ac every chance he gets. Yes you read it right, completely off. Not even entertaining the idea of setting it lower. (Its usually set to 72 freedom units/22 degrees).

When asked why, like some superstitious ajumma, he claims that the ac will cause him to get sick. An interesting precuation to take as ive never seen this chud wash his hands once during my entire time here

Fortunately, ive been able to height and frame mog his smaller stature to understanding that the ac stays on while i am active and awake. However, like a sneaky conniving eunuch, he plots during the dark, waiting for the opportunity to once again replicate living conditions similar to the slums of mumbai. As i write this, i cry not knowing whether i will have to wake up with sweaty cheeks as he continues to play roblox well into the night.

P.s, his utilities are fixed.

Welcome to Waterloo, first-years (and interested high school students)! Use this thread to post any questions related to frosh or your first year at Waterloo in general.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-college-university-funding-osap-9.7086776
Doug Ford's government will change OSAP funding structure from max 85% grants and min 15% loans, to max 25% grants and min 75% loans.

They will also remove the tuition freeze for domestic students. Tuition will be allowed to increase 2% per year for the next three years, and then we will have to see the new rules after that.

To be fair, they did approve 6.4 billion for post-secondary institutions spread out over the next 4 years.

Some students at McMaster are calling for a student strike: https://www.reddit.com/r/McMaster/comments/1r37gk3/osap_has_been_gutted_we_need_a_student_strike/

I think this calls for a province-wide strike of all post-secondary students, similar to Quebec in 2012: https://www.midnightsunmag.ca/learning-from-the-2012-quebec-student-strike/

Ask WUSA for a strike vote: https://wusa.ca/about/contact/
To the "Advocacy" department
Use "Student Strike Now" as the subject

Full transparency: I graduated from UW a few of years ago. I was only able to complete my degree at this school thanks to the tuition freeze and OSAP funding. I was fortunate and I want the students that come after me to have the same opportunity.

I think the student strike should demand (but students can discuss and decide on their own demands):

• Reversal of the OSAP changes (or even free post-secondary, might as well go big)
• Restore the tuition freeze
• Maintain or further increase the governmental funding for post-secondary institutions

I think students should take the following actions (which again you can decide for yourselves with a vote):

• Strike. Instead of going to school, protest at Queen's park or at your local MPP's office. If you are not willing to do a full strike, write your exams and organize lecture notes by sending a couple people to take notes and distribute them to students who are protesting. International students may be able to help with this since they probably won't be striking.
• Email your MPP, the minister of colleges and universities, and the premiere every day with our demands.
• Call your MPP every day to request they support our demands in the legislature (if you hate phone-calls, you can call after hours and leave a voicemail).
• Write a physical letter to your MPP, or the minister of colleges and universities, or the premiere. This will need to be coordinated as you have to pay postage to send mail to the provincial government (you woudn't have to for the federal government).

Striking now to prevent this change from being implemented is infinitely easier than trying to get back to the current system in the future (with any political party). The changes to the OSAP funding structure and tuition will eventually lead to a US style system where students are paying really high tuition, need to take on predatory private loans to help with funding, and will be stuck paying them back for decades. Doug Ford is selling out our youth to banks and private investors.

This threatens the future of post-secondary education in Ontario. I think all Ontario-based post-secondary students and student unions need to come together and carry out a campaign to put political pressure on Doug Ford's government to reverse these changes. We need to show the government that their action is incredibly unpopular and will not be tolerated. Doug Ford is counting on you being too busy to bother advocating against his policy. He is counting on it being too cold for you to go outside. He is counting on you to be too lonely or scared to do anything about it.

WE CANNOT LET HIM GET AWAY WITH IT.

As an alumni, I will support the student strike in the ways I can (joining the protest outside of work hours, donating to the cause e.g. a presto fare fund).

Hi all,

This thread is specifically for those who got accepted to UW to discuss different issues (residences, courses, student life, etc.) and celebrate the hard work and efforts of those who have already been admitted to their desired programs.

This thread is different from the previous admission megathread as this thread will focuses on those who got accepted which will help decluster the other thread.

I am sure you all remember the viral Reddit post about our Chancellor being on his phone during his one and only job at the University (convention) (https://www.reddit.com/r/uwaterloo/comments/1ogkuew/when_even_the_chancellor_doesnt_give_a_shit_about/)

Right now, they are conducting a review of him to decide whether he should be reappointed. Make sure to email your feedback and tell them to replace him as our Chancellor. Email [secretariat@uwaterloo.ca](mailto:secretariat@uwaterloo.ca) by April 23.

This guy should not be representing our community, and a simple email can go a long way.

Apparently a large amount of ARBUS first students made a whatsapp group, someone ratted them out and everyone in that group was suspended. I think there were like hundreds of kids in that group. Some people got an email from econ 101 prof stating that the people in the whatsapp group will face disciplinary measures.

I'm actually not very sure if they were all suspended, but some afm kids told me they were.

Is that facts? Cause we're only 2 weeks in school yet and kids already got suspended for the whole term for a course like econ 101.

UPDATE: It was ARBUS students.

Guys help, I think I REALLY REALLY fucked up this time.

So a while back, I did one of those random demographics survey that comes in to your UW email from time to time. The survey was legit, but I bullshitted it by saying my ethnicity was "Yakubian" as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakub_(Nation_of_Islam))

Why tf did they make the ethnicity field a user input instead of just multiple choice with an "other" option ffs WHY????

So right now, several months later, me, who is as white as blackboard chalk, just got an email saying I've been offered the "Undergraduate Achievements Award for Black Canadian Students".

Apparently, I have like top 10% grade average in my program, but one of the top grade averages amongst the candidate pool (sorry my bruthas) for this award. I'm so fucking scared, not just because I don't deserve this award obviously because I'm not black at all, but because I don't know how I can explain to the administration that because I shitposted on a demographics survey now almost $30,000 of award money just got passed up from deserving black students to go to a wyteboi.

I honestly don't know what to do. Do I turn down the award? How would I even do that? How can I even explain it to them that I'm not black? They probably thought "Yakubian" is some sort of African ethnicity, but how would I even correct them on that?

Please help me, the amount of money involved is too high for it to wantonly go to some melanin-less kid like me.

Edit: Technically I didn't lie. I am Yakubian by all metrics and standards. Idk if the admin will let it slide on that alone tho.

Edit: Okay, so I emailed the admin explaining that "Yakubians are a Eastern European minority ethnicity noted for their nomadic life style and colorful cooking such as steamed hams. Though culturally similar to the Roma people of central and southern Europe, the Yakubians have a different origin than the Romanies. Thank you for offering me this award, but I must decline." I think I implied hard enough that I'm white, they should have gotten the message.

Edit: for all the full-time Redditor folx going: "Uhmm yikes sweaty, I'm gonna have to downvote and report to the subreddit mod about how you're stealing scholarships meant for students of color[ed skin]." please touch grass and get a life. This is obviously an entirely fictional shitpost meant only to entertain and distract during this finals season. Talk to some real humans in the real world. I promise you, there aren't that many people shouting racial slurs and calling for genocides as reported online so you can loosen your grip on your pearls.

Edit: I'm an artist. What I make is art. Some guy smears shit all over the DC toilet stalls and you call that art? NO! But when I smear digital shit all over the proverbial toilet stalls of r/uwaterloo, I make sure to paint a picture that tells a story. That's what makes what I do art. Now take a whiff, and enjoy.

Edit: Thanks for the gold kind stranger or something idk, I'm not an actual redditor I have a life.

Saw something really weird on the plaza lawn today.

There was a soaked cardboard box sitting on the grass and inside looked like a pile of feathers and what appeared to be a dead goose. Someone even put a poster board over it like it was being covered up.

Not sure what happened here or if campus services already knows about it.

Just thought it was… very strange.

wondering if anyone knows what this is about, or if this has been reported to campus services already.

-----------------------------------

*Edit[10:18am]

If anyone nearby this morning has time to report it, "Techchick_Somewhere" suggested calling the Humane Society:

Phone: 519-745-5615

You can call the main number and say that you want to report a dead Canada goose that appears to have been placed in a box in the Plaza parking lot area at UW. They mentioned that animal control might want to investigate.

position： It’s on the grass near the Plaza parking lot at UW. You can see it directly from the sidewalk when walking past. I’ll try to post the photos as well.

position Image: https://imgur.com/a/m1FYOO2

(I just realized I can’t add or edit photos in the post after it’s been published, so I had to upload them this way. I’m still pretty new to posting on Reddit, so please bear with me.)

-----------------------------------

Edit2 [10:40am]

The goose has been reported. A professional will come and take care of it and give it a proper send-off.

\Also, please* do not touch dead animals with bare hands*, as there may be infection risks**

It was a good goose. A respectable goose.
May it find endless grass, quiet ponds, and fewer Waterloo students in goose heaven.

Please join me in a 5-second moment of silence..

I don’t understand what is taking WUSA so long to come out with a single statement about the implementation of the BDS motion. Back in March, WUSA held its AGM where students got the chance to vote on whether WUSA should implement BDS (item 5.7), specifically using the smallest BDS list available, that by the BDS National Committee. Students voted overwhelmingly in favour of BDS, which isn’t surprising considering we voted in a whole ass referendum where students voted 88.6% in favour of having the whole university divesting and these are our own student dollars.

I get that things take time and I’m not usually one to rush but the fact there hasn’t been a word about timelines seems really irresponsible for an organization of this size. If it’s gonna take a few more months to begin implementation tell us why and I’ll understand, and if our vote doesn’t matter and it’s not coming I’d like to hear about that too.

If anyone knows anything about whether WUSA is actually required to follow through with what we vote on or knows anything about the timelines that I might’ve missed let me know!

I’m an international student from Turkey and I’ve been in Canada for about 7 months. Before coming here, I got IELTS 6.5 overall (L 7, R 6.5, W 6, S 5.5). Since my speaking was 5.5, I took Duolingo instead and got 125/160.

Since coming here, I’ve met quite a few Indian students who say they got 7.5–8+ in IELTS. But when I talk to them, I hear basic mistakes all the time: “I can able to do it,” “everybody have,” “he don’t,” etc. Sometimes their sentences are so broken that I genuinely struggle to understand what they mean.

What confuses me even more is that people I’ve met in Canada/Europe with around 7.5 usually sound completely different — much clearer and more grammatically consistent.

So what’s going on? Is it just extremely good IELTS prep/templates, or is there actually some issue with IELTS testing in India? Like score boosting, corrupt test centres, etc.?

I’m genuinely curious because the difference doesn’t make sense to me.

CMU just received a 3 billion USD donation from Citadel’s CEO.

That is sixfold of UWaterloo’s total endowment.

Just imagined how transformative it will be to UW if we receive 1/6 of that donation; our endowment would’ve doubled.

With so many alumni in tech, why are we not receiving much donations? The school admin need to network more…

It’s $14.75 now??? I paid $16.66 for mine including tax today. This is truly a recession indicator.

Still the same amount of food though, so it remains a good value

They are asking alumni to VOLUNTEER in reviewing student applications and help the university pick out which students to admit.

Universities proving once again that they’re just money grabbers but reaching new lows this time of asking volunteers to help with their money grabbing scheme.

I just saw the 2020/21 tuition fee and it’s WHAT THE FUCK? The international fees went up like literally 10k (35k for faculty of math last year now it’s 45k). What The Fuck Waterloo? You know we r gonna take online classes right? You know there’s a freaking pandemic going on right? You know my parents’ income are affected by this shit right? What the fuck? Any other school went up by 10k in one year? First the over admission then this, are we international students just pigs to be slaughtered for money or what? Now the main question-is this too late to change school? If I explain fcking deeply do u think there’s a possibility I can transfer to Dalhousie or Mcmaster or something? Cause this is FUCKING NON SENSE!????

Update: thank you for the kind comments. I appreciate your understanding. And to those who make hateful comments saying that “you’re crazy rich so take it or leave it, noone forces you to come blah blah blah”, we are NOT rich. So you mean those who cant afford the fees and have to ask for a loan shouldn’t come here in the first place? Cause no one forces them to? We all have different difficulties, and if you don’t have anything nice to say, then shut up and ignore the post. I’m surprise that there are so many uneducated ppl here in this subreddit who are so racist, ignorant and mean. But again, to those who have showed support, thank you.

Starting a thread for discussions around exchange results.

Hi all,

If you are an incoming student, feel free to utilise this thread to ask for advice or information regarding classes and university life. Keep in mind that you can also check out some of the following resources:

• Our wiki, which also contains a general FAQ page
• Important Dates for Fall 2017