We’ve now been through two EngSoc elections this term. We had the posters, the forum, and the endless shouts for people to vote. Through all this, two questions kept coming up again and again. From the people already involved in EngSoc, we hear them asking candidates what they’re going to do to make EngSoc more inclusive and encourage more people to participate. From those not involved, we hear them ask why they should care about EngSoc at all.
I’m in an interesting position in all of this as I sit at the “edge” of EngSoc. On one hand, I’ve been to a whole three meetings in the last four years, all of which occurred this term because, as the Editor-in-Chief, I’m supposed to either go to the meetings or send a delegate in my place. I’ve rarely gone to EngSoc events and can’t really be bothered with most of the internal politics that go on within the society. I’m technically the EngSoc representative for my class, but only because I was signed up without being asked. On the other hand, most of my friends are heavily involved in EngSoc. I have a friend on the current Exec and many of my other friends currently hold directorships. I’ve also been involved with The Iron Warrior since 1A, and as the IW is an affiliate of the Engineering Society, I have had exposure to the Society through that.
All this means is that I usually feel like an outsider looking in when it comes to EngSoc, although I am much more informed than the average outsider. On one hand, I don’t have much interest in the social aspects of EngSoc, but on the other, I understand that they represent engineering students to not only our own university, but other universities as well.
So why don’t people get involved in EngSoc? I know why I never really did. It always seemed like a clique; I didn’t want to just walk into a random meeting or event as I had no idea what to expect. Would it be weird to just randomly walk into an organization where everyone seems to know everyone? I’ve gotten to know a lot of the people involved in EngSoc over the years, but I was certainly intimidated by them in the beginning. Yes, I was shy, but I find that EngSoc doesn’t do much to dispel the impression that you’d be intruding if you tried to join.
There are also the stereotypes that some people hold about EngSoc. Many people in my class seem to think that EngSoc is a social club which they associate with the –OTs and PubCrawls (yes, I know PubCrawls are actually organized by GradComm). In short, the louder EngSoc events tend to be the ones that promote the drinking and partying side of EngSoc (or its affiliates). Not that there is anything wrong with these events as a rule, but they tend to be how some people see EngSoc in its entirety.
EngSoc does have many events which don’t have anything to do with drinking or partying. There are events like resume critiques or cooking workshops, as well as services like the scholarship and exam banks and the C&D. And yet, there are so many students who either don’t know that these services exist or don’t realize that they’re associated with EngSoc.
The elections just highlighted to me how little some of my peers know about EngSoc. My classmates, who have now been around for four years, don’t know anything about what the EngSoc Exec does. They don’t know that EngSoc was involved in the push to get PDEng removed. They don’t know that the VP-Education sits on a bunch of committees which help to determine the direction of our education. To be honest, I really didn’t know these things either until Eric Cousineau became VP-Education and started taking notes for him when he missed class for these various committee meetings. Then, there is the role of the VP-External to represent engineering students to other universities. At all the many engineering conferences held each year, the VP-External is the face and voice of UW Engineering. Why doesn’t EngSoc highlight these parts of their activities? Yes, they publish their Exec reports in The Iron Warrior, but apparently, even after years of editing them, I still don’t know most of the things that the Execs do that directly impact me. Maybe if more people knew about this, those of us who aren’t necessarily interested in watching people chugging beer at TalEng might find that there is more to EngSoc than meets the eye.
So what can EngSoc do to fix their image? What can they do to stop people from taking back their EngSoc fee because they don’t see the point in what they’re paying for? How can they get more of the student population involved? I don’t know what the answers to these are, but I can say that after watching four elections in my time here, despite everyone talking about student involvement, nothing has really changed. There are still definite groups of EngSoc people and non-EngSoc people. Clearly, despite everyone’s promises to make EngSoc more inclusive, whatever they’re trying isn’t working. I have to say, I can’t really hold out much hope that the new Executive team will change things, despite promises made during the campaign. It isn’t that I don’t think they’re competent; it’s just that after four years of hearing the same promises, I don’t really believe in them anymore.
Do you have any comments about this or any other article in the paper? Letters to the Editor can be sent to iwarrior@engmail.uwaterloo.ca.
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