EngSoc has released a scholarship bank! It is now accessible at http://engsoc.uwaterloo.ca/scholarships
We are adding scholarships and looking at how the usability can be improved, so scholarship contributions and suggestions are welcome.
On a related note, make sure you submit exams to the exam bank for P**5 points and to help out your peers.
Policy
Nick Soave is trying to push a policy that new professors would have mandatory training through the Centre for Teaching Excellence. It would be a long way off if it happened, but obviously we are supportive and hoping for the best.
ESL 110R (http://www.ucalendar.uwaterloo.ca/1112/COURSE/course-ESL.html#ESL110R) has been included as a List D elective. I am somewhat worried this is a stop-gap measure, and not addressing the root issue of a greater number of students coming into the Faculty of Engineering unprepared in English and Canadian workplace expectations. I have expressed this concern to administration and discussed additional courses, higher standards (for admission and milestones like ELPE) and perhaps even a program similar to Math ELAS, where students with poor English skills are admitted conditionally, dependent on completion of additional English courses . Hopefully the administration recognizes this mounting need and will properly address it moving forward.
After a second reading at UOPS, the midterm policy Sasha and I tried to move was once again bogged down with implementation issues. I will be working with the Associate Dean of the Faculty of Environment to rectify said issues, which will hopefully then go through in April.
Co-op News (or lack thereof)
• The plan to address chemical engineering jobs has been delayed until summer, but hopefully will be successful then.
• Organizational redesign, which will hopefully address a lot of our problems, will be released later this month
• Still waiting for more info on improving Jobmine and will be working on this through April
• As always, employment statistics are available at www.cecs.uwaterloo.ca/students/statistics.php
Interesting stuff from other Faculties
The Faculty of Mathematics is looking at relaxing their graduation requirements: allowing students who have too many uncleared courses to graduate to take extra credits to compensate. (eg. rather than 18 units passed and < 3 failed units, 19 units passed and <3.5 failed units). While the implementation details would work completely different for engineering, hopefully this will pave the way to have more flexible graduation requirements.
On a related note, I have instigated discussions about allowing students more flexibility in their terms (eg. dropping courses and part-load terms). Hopefully future EngSoc executives and faculty will be able to move forward with providing greater flexibility to UW Engineering Students.
The Math Faculty has created Econ 103: a course designed to combine elements of Econ 101 and 102, providing students with a background in both macro- and micro-economics in only one elective. I have inquired as to if this course can be expanded to engineering students.
WatPD
We have been reviewing the role of writing in an engineering education. Clearly there is inconsistent instruction of writing skills in engineering, and we are looking at elevating the standard of writing for students across the departments.
Participation rates in PD20 remain relatively high, with very high success rates. I will be continuing to review the curriculum to ensure it is meaningful to engineering students. If you have experience in this course and comments to add, make sure to let people know, whether it be the course instructors or myself.
Unfortunately, I will be unable to see through to conclusion many of the initiatives outlined in this report. It is up to you to hold incoming VP Education Owen Coutts and other future executives responsible to help improve our education. While I wish I had done a better job at communicating my tasks to the Engineering Society, I had hoped that people would have been less hesitant to ask me questions about what I’m doing, share their opinions and demand action. While I do take responsibility for not sharing enough and being as inviting as possible, the Engineering Society must take action to let the future VP Education (and other executives) know what their priorities are. Best of luck to Owen and others in fulfilling those priorities.
Leave a Reply