Welcome back A-Society!
Hope you all enjoyed a great co-op term! How awesome was uploading your JobMine resume in PDF this term!?! Hopefully that freed up some time to enjoy the lovely spring weather we’re having. Even more exciting than the PDF resumes, CECA has recently signed a contract with Orbis, who will be replacing JobMine in the employment process here at Waterloo. Implementation timelines are still being developed, but more information should be available within the next few weeks. Orysia Soroka (your VP-Ed B-Society) and I will be meeting with a representative from CECA to learn more about what the Orbis platform is going to feature and how it will improve the employment process.
Continuing on the co-op motif, as many of you are aware the university has been contemplating, and in some departments implementing, 8 month co-op terms. I will be attending a meeting next week with the Engineering Co-op Working Group, where will be discussing, among other things, the development of a student survey. It is our objective to represent the best interests of engineering undergraduate students to the best of our ability, but we need your feedback to do this! Please keep an eye peeled for updates regarding when the survey will be running.
A new item on my agenda is a review of the counselling services available to engineering students here at Waterloo. For those of you who aren’t aware, Counselling Services is a fantastic service that is available for you to speak with a counselor about anything from anxiety and depression, to relationship and substance abuse issues, to stress management, and much, much more! Of particular concern, however, is a long wait time for open counselling slots. Emergency counselling is always available for dire situations, but for many students with pressing concerns, while not emergencies strictly speaking, a three week period could be too long a wait for the counselling to be as effective. I would like to investigate what could be done to decrease this wait time so that our University’s great Counselling Services can serve you even better.
Last but not least, I’m sure many of you are concerned about the email you received regarding fees before the start of the term. The email contained wording indicating that some students may need to pay more depending on how fees are adjusted in June as a result of the Ontario Government’s new tuition framework. I will be looking into this and getting back to everyone with more information about what it means, and how the new tuition framework affects students.
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