> 70% Enrolled in PD Elective! Along With Other Academic Endeavours!

It’s time for yet another VP Ed report, yay! I have a lot of items to report on this time around, so I’m going to do my best to do so efficiently. I am pleased to announce that Major Warren Miron, an Engineering Officer from the Canadian Forces, will be our guest speaker for the term. He will be speaking about his time as commander of the Construction Management Organization (CMO), focusing on stability engineering support efforts. The talk will happen on Monday Nov. 29^th from 5:30 to 7:00 in RCH 302. There may or may not be food at the event.

A lot has been going on with the WatPD Eng Curriculum Committee and things have been busy in the last few weeks. WatPD 20 development is going well, and I’ve been told it is on track to begin quality assurance in December. Things are looking great on that front; I’m excited to hear what first years think after they take it this Winter. As it says in the title of this article more than 70% of the students expected to enrol in a PD elective with work term have already done so, this is amazing! Please encourage your classmates who haven’t already done so to enrol on Quest. The due date for response to the RFP for PD21 passed on Nov. 3^rd, and we received 3 proposals. The committee is currently evaluating the proposals and will make a decision by the end of the month. I’ll let you know who the successful candidate is when the committee makes a decision. Some more good news, as per the recommendations from the PDEng Renewal Committee in May, an assistant to the WatPD Academic Director, Dr. Gord Stubley, has been hired. Please join me in welcoming Lynsey Ellis-Smith to the role of Assistant to the Academic Director, I have confidence she will do well.

I attended SUC (Senate Undergraduate Council) on Nov. 9^th, and CEC on Nov. 11^th. At the SUC we discussed the introduction of instructions for proctors for use during tests and midterms. Instructions included things like giving a 10 minute warning before the end of the test, and instructions to not sit at the front of the room while performing other work. At the CEC meeting we got several updates from CECS about Waterloo Works, the employment situation, and other initiatives. Waterloo Works is making some good progress; they are currently on their second pilot and still plan on launching for Spring 2011. Some of the new features include: Improved search capabilities, easier application process (including the ability to apply to multiple jobs at once), PDF resumes, and the ability to upload cover letters and resumes separately. I’m very excited about this, and can’t wait until Spring 2011 to apply to jobs using it. To give you an idea of the employment situation, the overall percentage of employed students as of Nov. 11^th is 54.6%, where we had 52.3% on Nov. 12^th last year. This is spectacular, especially when you consider the 537 more students going on coop this winter than last year.

Resume Critiques happened last Tuesday, and my directors estimate they critiqued approximately 150 resumes. I would like to thank my Resume Critiques Directors for all their work this term, I’m certainly impressed. For students who still need help with their resumes, I encourage you to book an appointment with CECS to get your resume critiqued, see http://www.careerservices.uwaterloo.ca/ for more information. I met with Rocco Fondarcaro to discuss the employment situation for chemical engineering. If have any questions, please forward them to me and I will do my best to get you an answer. Last EngSoc Meeting I created a thread on the discussion forum about ideas for coop. It can be found here: http://engsoc.uwaterloo.ca/node/5362. Course critiques were stuffed last week, and should be coming around to your classes soon. Please make sure they get back to the EngSoc Office once they are filled out. Academic Rep Meeting #3 will be on Nov. 23^rd, with location and time to be announced. If you are an academic rep and have not been receiving invitations to this event, please let me know. That’s all for now, if you have questions or comments please send them to me at: asoc_vpedu@engmail.uwaterloo.ca