An excerpt from an article written by Dave McKay, President and CEO of RBC. Read in full on The Globe and Mail.

When I enrolled as a computer science student at the University of Waterloo in the early 1980s, I had no idea I’d end up in banking.

A work term at the Royal Bank of Canada, through Waterloo’s vaunted co-op program, changed that. It opened my eyes to a world that involved strategy, people and the finance I was studying, and I never looked back.

Five more co-op terms, all at RBC, confirmed my passion for finance, and did something more: They changed the way I learned, both in the workplace and when I got back to the classroom at Waterloo.

As Canada comes to grips with its place in the age of disruption, our university and college co-op programs are among our quiet strengths. We need more of them, and to do a lot more with them.