Hello First Years! Welcome to the University of Waterloo! You may not be in the liveliest place in the world, but there are some pretty awesome people here and that’s important isn’t it? I’m Roy Lee the Editor-in-Chief of the Iron Warrior for the fall semester. If you see me around feel free to introduce yourself and say hi. Anywho, within engineering at Waterloo you will most likely meet many different types of people. Orientation week is going to be the best time to meet some of those people. There is a massive group of upper years who have worked hard to make the week possible for you, when you get the chance to thank them please do they deserve it, other than that they are there to help you transition into university feel free to ask whatever questions you have if they don’t know I am sure they will redirect you to someone who does.
Now, if you are a little nervous, that is ok, I was nervous as well. I knew a few basic things when I got here, like how to do laundry, splitting up whites and colours… I just stopped wearing white clothes so I didn’t need to worry about that. I knew where I was living and that was about it. Oh! I knew how to cook, which is pretty much the most important thing to me. With that limited amount knowledge I treaded the oceans of Waterloo and here I am now a year later as the Editor-in-Chief of the Iron Warrior for the fall semester. The ability to cook may have helped with that a little bit (not actually).
So now you might be asking yourselves what is Iron Warrior. As you can tell the Iron Warrior is a newspaper. It is actually the newspaper for Engineering. There are other publications on campus that you’ll see, however I am partial to the Iron Warrior. The Iron Warrior is put together by an awesome team of engineering students that meet weekly to help put together a biweekly newspaper. We are looking for anyone who has interest in journalism, writing, photography, layout design, production or even just trying something new. Production is incredible satisfying and with the right group of people, which we have, it is a great way to take the edge off of a super busy day. Our email is theironwarrio@gmail.com, so if you get a chance drop us an e-mail or come by and say hi in our office in upstairs E2 2349A.
Other than that there are a couple things I would like to share from my experience my first year.
First, as everyone else will tell you, get involved! A) It is super good for soft skill development, it is something you need for any job that you try and get. B) It is awesome for meeting new people. C) It will give you something other than school to focus on and that is key to keeping yourself sane and getting through engineering here at Waterloo.
Second, don’t be afraid to try new things. There are so many possibilities at Waterloo. We have a huge amount of club that cover everything from robotics to dragon boat racing. There’s undoubtedly something you’ll find out about yourself that you didn’t know at this same time last year.
Lastly, don’t forget to have fun. Taking engineering does not have to be everything that you do for the next 5 years. Go out with friends and explore Waterloo Park, take some time to head up to St. Jacobs for the farmer’s market, go out and see a movie. Put plan into a calendar to do these things, and other things will magically get done because you’ve prioritized taking a break.
Once again, welcome to engineering at the University of Waterloo. You’ve worked hard and deserve to be here. So make the most of your time here, because the next 5 years is all you.
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