Welcome class of 2019! You are about to begin your journey to becoming engineering graduates and earning your iron rings. This will be some of the most amazing years of your lives so hold on and enjoy the ride!
We’re Josh and Permeg and we’re your current VPs Education for the Engineering A (this fall) and B (this upcoming winter) Societies. Our job is to represent the academic interest of all engineering undergraduate students. As a result, we represent the engineering undergraduate population on a number of committees that range from faculty wide to university wide. Specifically, they deal with issues such as co-op requirements, work term reports, course offerings, elective choices and degree requirements.
In addition to attending these meetings, we will be communicating back to the engineering student body information that we receive. If you want to learn or hear more about education news you should attend EngSoc meetings to listen to our exec reports, read our articles in each issue of The Iron Warrior or stop by The Orifice (CPH 1327) to chat at any time.
For the next two terms there are two main initiatives that we will be focusing on: Waterloo Works and Course Critiques.
Currently, to find co-op jobs during a school term, you need to use a system called Jobmine. Starting this upcoming winter term (sorry 4-streamers) this will be replaced by a new system called Waterloo Works. The new system includes a couple of new features that seem like no-brainers to those not acquainted with Jobmine including advanced job search, saving individual job searches and having the ability to see exactly where an employer is located using Google Maps. Our main focus with Waterloo Works is to ensure a smooth transition from Jobmine for engineering students and to keep students informed of any major happenings regarding this new system.
Course Critiques are a way of evaluating both your courses and the professors teaching them at the end of the term. At the end of this upcoming term you will be able to compete one of these, with the results being posted online a few weeks into the subsequent term. Our main focus with Course Critiques is to keep students informed that the results can be viewed online (uwaterloo.ca/engineering/teaching-learning/course-evaluations) and to try to make the critique itself more effective for students.
With those things in mind, our primary job is to make sure that you are getting the most out of your education, whether that be co-op or course related. With the help of the first year office, we are here to help you through the transition between high school and university life. If you have any questions at all about exams, study tips or just want someone to talk to feel free to send either of us an email (Josh: vpeducation.a@engsoc.uwaterloo.ca and Permeg: vpeducation.b@engsoc.uwaterloo.ca) because we are happy to chat.
We are both thrilled to have you all here at Waterloo and we hope to see you around campus in the coming months!
Leave a Reply