It’s a Conference Time of Year

Hello to all!

It’s Will, the last one to ever hold the VP External role. I’ll be going over a major part of what my role: conferences!!

During the first month of this term, the majority of my time is spent with conferences. The past couple weekends in September I have represented our Engineering Society at the Engineering Student Societies’ Council of Ontario (ESSCO) and the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students (CFES). Topics such as the Engineering Change Lab and eligibility for schools to participate in regional competitions were some more notable discussion points. The Engineering Change Lab is “a social change lab – a place for the resolution of complex social challenges that involve a wide array of participants.” (CFES Launch Workshop Document) Both ESSCO and CFES have initiatives regarding the Change Lab and are working to be involved and give students a voice. For more information, please visit http://www.essco.ca/ and/or http://cfes.ca/ and get in contact with the executive.

These two conferences are not the only opportunities that we have to directly interact with other schools across Ontario and even Canada; we go to about 7 conferences each year to share best practices, improve professional development, and so on. Four of these conferences are provincial, including Professional Engineers of Ontario Student Conference, hosted this year by the University of Carleton in Ottawa. This leaves three on the national level, including the Conference on Diversity in Engineering hosted by McGill University in Montreal. Both of the previously mentioned conferences will be happening in November and will have applications out in the next couple of weeks.

ESSCO is currently in search of students to fill directorship positions that can be found at http://www.essco.ca/essco-directorship-applications/

If you have any questions about anything above, please feel free to stop by the EngSoc office (CPH 1327) and ask, or send questions to vpexternal.a@engsoc.uwaterloo.ca