The Winter 2014 term is almost done, a relief for some but the impending doom of final exams lies ahead for others. For those graduating this year, the exams cannot come fast enough. The excitement of graduating after many years of hard work, the prospects of a new career, new city or even a well-deserved vacation provide the light at the end of the tunnel. Over the years of your undergraduate engineering experience at UW, there were many constants. I am sure you never slept in on a school day, you attended every lecture of every course, completed every assignment and lab with attention… Wait, let’s be real. The process of going through engineering is a series of highs and lows, good weeks and bad weeks, and moments where you might just wonder ‘what am I actually doing?’
Fortunately, there has been one constant to keep the experience beneficial to you and your classmates at the same time – WEEF. In every aspect of your education, WEEF has been instrumental in providing that extra bit of funding that makes a difference for students. Do we explicitly see it every day? Maybe not… Many of the funded projects are hidden within advanced computers in our labs, embedded into nano-scale chips, under the hood of one of the new competition leading, all terrain, aerial or track based vehicles in the Sedra Student Design Centre, or might be a fancy gadget you have used several times in class and still have no idea what it is called or how to decipher the results.
This term, your class elected WEEF representative observed 46 presentations over two nights. In total, presenters from faculty and student groups and teams were looking for $171 595 in funding but with only $60 000 available. With the decision meeting lasting nearly three hours, it was up to WEEF council to go about the dirty business of deciding who gets full, partial, or no funding. In depth discussion regarding the validity of projects, and which projects possess the most notable causes for funding can get heated and at times, very in depth. This forum promotes understanding of not just individual department needs for their students, but the benefits to all of UW undergrad engineering students.
This term we had representation for 25 of the 44 on-stream classes to decide the fate of 15 department, 20 student team and six student group proposals (http://weef.uwaterloo.ca/proposals.phph). Official results of the meeting will be posted by April 4, 2014 after the Board of Directors approves the allocations. For all those seeking funding and especially the student reps that make the time during difficult weeks, thank you for attending and providing the insight and discussion that provides WEEF with the voice of student choice. For those that did not receive funding, or as much as they would have liked, please talk to your class WEEF representative or contact the on-stream WEEF Director to discuss methods of improving your success with future proposals.
This term, WEEF is proud to announce this term’s participation rate is 87.2%! What’s so special about this rate? Well, it is just over 11% higher than the previous winter term and showing an increasing trend each winter. Recent participation rates have catapulted the principal fund to over $12 000 000!
Congratulations to the Geological Engineering 4B class, who stands out as the only class this term with 100% participation. Classes showing high participation are from all across the faculty, each with vast improvements over previous years. Well done everyone!
As this is my last term as A-stream WEEF Director, I would like to thank all the class representatives, student teams and groups, and members of faculty I have worked with over the last 12 months for providing me with this fantastic experience. The new WEEF Directors starting both this Spring and Fall term are Steven Buckley and David Birnbaum; two faces well known in the realm of WEEF, and two motivated gentlemen looking to ensure WEEF is continually improving.
As always, feel free to email us at any time throughout the term at weef@uwaterloo.ca with any questions you might have. For the graduating class of 2014, thank you for your contributions to WEEF over your years at UW. Your contributions have undoubtedly provided many improvements for those that follow in your footsteps. For all the students going on co-op and returning to class, best of luck and and remember, WEEF IS GOOD!
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