Welcome Class of 2019!
Congrats on landing yourselves in Waterloo Engineering. Here you’ll spend what will hopefully be a fantastic 5 to 7 years! While these next few years will certainly be filled with trials and tribulations, you’re bound to have quite a bit of fun along the way. You’ll meet some wonderful people while having some wickedly cool experiences. Oftentimes, high school becomes a distant memory as you leave the safety of your hometown and start to try new things. Orientation Week can be such a blast as you go through a whirlwind of events whilst forming those initial bonds with your classmates and get pumped to be here (note: it’s perfectly normal for the excitement to die after the first week). When the term starts, join a club or student team, they’re seriously pretty darn awesome!
This year is going to be a heck of a learning experience. Many people learn the hard way that they can no longer get by with their old slacking/cramming habits. This may be the first time you’re living apart from your family and suddenly you’re the only one responsible for you making it to class in the morning and getting your homework done.
You’re going to mess up occasionally, and that’s okay. Failed your physics midterm? Keep going, you’ll make it up in the final. Ate Kraft Dinner for a whole week? We’ve all been there (just FYI: Festival Fare on the second floor of SCH is good for balanced hot lunches – just a tad pricey). Stayed up ‘til 5 a.m. three nights in a row? Take a nap and get yourself back on track ASAP. Fake it ‘til you make it.
It’s also super important to keep yourselves healthy, because you’ll feel both its mental and physical impacts otherwise. Try to be consistent with sleep. A common goal is 6 hours per night, at least. Use that meal plan and make sure to eat right. Keep yourselves hydrated (protip: the best and coldest water fountains are the boxy-looking ones that say “Oasis” on them). Also, exercise dammit!
Finally, don’t be too discouraged if it feels like you’re stumbling through the dark while other people seem to have it all figured out. To some of you, the obstacles might be harder to conquer than for others. Please make use of the ridiculous amount of services available to you. Most professors really do want you to succeed and will help you accordingly. Don’t be afraid to lean a little on your peers, you’re in this together. Your TAs can do wonders in explaining things. Help sessions can be the difference between a pass and a fail…it certainly was for me in linear algebra. There are counsellors who will help you with your study habits, and counsellors who will help you with your mental health. There are workshops that will teach you how to make a good résumé and develop your interview skills. There are resources for virtually everything. MAKE USE OF THEM.
Someday, you’ll get to a point where you’ll feel like you’ve gone through everything so many times that it’s not half as scary anymore. Besides, as upper years you’ll realize that all first years look pretty lost and confused. Perhaps by then you’ll have ditched the UW lanyard/campus map look that we all sported as freshmen.
But in the meantime, make the most of this year. Work hard and play hard, as engineers will do. And ROCK those lanyards and maps.
Leave a Reply