Hello everyone and welcome to a brand new term! My name is Josh and I’m your VP Education for the Engineering Society this term. I’m in 3B Software Engineering and I’m thrilled to be representing all of you on educational issues this term. Since this is my first exec update this term, I wanted to take some time to go over what I’ve been working on and my goals for this upcoming term.
This summer my focus was around two key initiatives, an Engineering Career Fair and Course Critiques. The career fair, known as EngFair, is the first career fair that the engineering society has ever run. Over the summer, I worked with my three awesome directors to sort out the logistics around this awesome event designed to help you find a job. EngFair will be taking place on November 4th and look forward to a lot more news as we announce employers and more details in the weeks to come.
Course critiques have always been dear to me as they are the most effective way to improve teaching quality within the Engineering faculty. During the summer I spoke with Professor Gordon Stubley, the Associate Dean of Teaching, to discuss how the society can contribute to teaching excellence within the faculty. From these talks I’ve made a concerted effort to increase the awareness of the course critiques results and increase awareness for the faculty wide teaching award. This term we’ll be actively advertising the link to the course critique results (eng.uwaterloo.ca/critiques) and look out for more information on the new EngSoc Teaching Award in the coming weeks.
My main job as VP Education is to advocate for the engineering student body on academic related issues within the faculty and university wide. This term I’m going to be focusing on a few key issues that could have a large effect on engineering students. First, I want to ensure that engineering student’s have a full say in the discussions about the fall reading break within the faculty and FedS. Second, this is expected to be the final year that students will have to take the ELPE. I want to ensure that any replacement will not make engineering student’s academic lives any more difficult.
I just want to re-iterate that my job is to represent all of you on all academic issues that are facing engineering students. So if there is anything you are concerned about with your classes, co-op, exams, or even if you just want to talk, my office hours are from 2:45 to 3:45 Tuesdays and Thursdays in the Orifice (CPH 1327) or you can reach me via my email (vpeducation.a@engsoc.uwaterloo.ca). I’m super excited to working with everyone and I wish everyone the best of luck this fall term.
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