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Welcome to Waterloo Engineering!
Hopefully, you’re ready for five years of hard work, but lots of fun too. Your university career will be a life-changing experience, and you should make the most of it while you’re here. It can be overwhelming at the beginning, so here are some tips I have for surviving first year.
Make sure you meet people in your class. One of the best things I ever did was agree to meet with a study group one day after classes. I didn’t know any of the people, but to this day I still study with some of them. I never liked group work in high school, but I’ve learned that group studying is vital for engineering. Not only will you have many group labs and projects during your time here, but most people can’t do engineering alone. Nobody can be good at everything you’re taught here. There’s way too much material, and way too little time to learn it. A good study group means that even if you have no idea what’s going on, someone else will, and when they’re struggling, you might just have the answers.
WEEF TAs are the best thing in existence. I pretty much lived in the WEEF lab in first year, and it’s one of the reasons I actually passed calculus (note: university calculus is much harder than your average high school calculus). WEEF TAs are there to help you, and they’re upper-year undergraduate engineering students, so they know how it feels to be in your position. The WEEF lab is open in the evenings, so you can get help on your courses and assignments.
Talk to your profs and TAs. Go to their office hours and ask them questions. If you prove that you actually care, they will go out of their way to help you. Don’t be afraid to ask “stupid” questions; it’s better to ask when you’re not sure, than to have problems later on because you didn’t ask. Don’t be afraid to sound stupid; you probably won’t. A lot of people probably have the same questions; they just don’t want to ask them. Most profs don’t bite, and they do want you to succeed.
Finally, and possibly most importantly, find something else to do. Engineering can very easily consume your life. I’d highly advise finding something else, whether it’s a hobby, getting involved with a university activity, or something completely unrelated to the university. Your sanity will thank you in the long run. The important thing is to find balance. You definitely need to spend a lot of time on school, but if you don’t find some kind of balance, you will go crazy.
There are several different ways you can get involved within the university community. Student teams are always looking for new members, and most of them will teach you the skills that you need. They’re a great way to apply things you’re learning in class, or even learn about things you wouldn’t otherwise see until much later in your academic career, if at all.
There are other, less academic-related ways to get involved outside of the classroom. I, of course, highly recommend The Iron Warrior (insert shameless self-advertising here). We’re always looking for people to write articles, layout the paper, proofread other people’s writing, chase down advertisers, or just shout random ideas at us. So, if someone from your residence happens to want to come to one of our meetings and wants to drag you along for moral support, say yes. Even if you have no intention of being involved with a newspaper, you never know. You might just be running it one day. Not that I know this from experience or anything.
Other ways to get involved include the vast variety of student clubs on campus. If there’s something you want to do, there’s probably a club for it. If not, you can start one! There is also the Engineering Society. They have many events and services, and are always looking for more people to get involved. See pages # to # to see what the Engineering Society has to offer.
I hope you have an amazing time this orientation week, and a great first-year experience. Best of luck!
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