Greetings fellow engineers. My name is Joshua Kalpin and I am running to be your next Engineering Society Vice-President Education.
I feel that my background and experience make me the ideal candidate for this position. Firstly, I have served as my class’ EngSoc representative since 1A. I have attended meetings and am well-versed in the procedures of the society. Secondly, I have assisted many people in switching programs and have become knowledgeable in course offerings, and the enrolment and transfer procedures for the engineering faculty. Finally, I’m in a unique situation being a Software Engineer. Being in two faculties allows me to view how things are done with a different perspective and lets me apply that to make our academic experience better.
As the current President-elect said, “The most important thing the Engineering Society does is advocate for you, the students.” I firmly believe in this message, but also that there are many things that I can do to promote this idea. The VP-Education should be the society member that helps you do what you want to do in university. Whether that is directing students to the right faculty member or advocating on our behalf to make our academic and co-op lives easier; I believe it is all equally important. Thus, my goal, among other things, is to improve two main areas of our education at Waterloo.
First, I want make it easier for us to find and choose our co-op jobs. Currently, many programs have limited choice or have trouble securing jobs on JobMine. I think this is something that the society can improve by leveraging our community outreach programs. I want to reach out to employers who haven’t been involved in the Waterloo co-op process, sponsor student teams or even small firms that may not typically hire co-ops and try to convince them to hire Waterloo engineers.
Second, I want to make it easier for us to choose the electives that we want to take. A constant problem throughout engineering is that most of our courses are mandatory and our elective choices are restricted. This makes choices difficult, and each choice becomes that much more impactful. Specifically, a student should never feel like they wasted a credit taking a course that they thought was one thing but was actually something different. Furthermore, there should be information on when all technical electives are offered, when they are scheduled and who to contact for more information on the course.
To achieve this, I want to push the faculty and departments for the adoption of an easy to find location for all information regarding technical electives. Moreover, I will push for the formation of information sessions for all programs, so all of us have the knowledge that we need to choose our electives wisely.
If you want to find more information on my platform, background and experience please visit my Facebook page, facebook.com/Josh4VPEd. And remember, if you want someone to make an impact on the society, vote for me as your VP-Education!
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