Hello first year students! My name is Melissa Buckley and I’m the Vice President Communications for ESSCO this year. I’m also a 2A Chemical Engineering student here at Waterloo! ESSCO hosts a fantastic First Year Integration Conference (FYIC) every year, and I highly recommend you apply to be one of Waterloo’s delegates. It is a great opportunity to meet your peers from other schools and get advice from upper year students, and it just happens to be a ton of fun. I hope to see you there, but first, you may be wondering: what’s ESSCO?
The Engineering Students Societies’ Council of Ontario (ESSCO) is an association of the engineering societies from 14 universities across Ontario. Since 1987, ESSCO has represented undergraduate engineering students to professional associations, academia and government with the goal of promoting “unity, continuity and visibility among Ontario engineering students.”
ESSCO is in a unique position to represent the interests of the over 24 000 undergraduate engineering students in Ontario and as such it is important for their interests to take priority. ESSCO facilitates four annual conferences where executives and delegates from across Ontario come to share best practices, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of their schools and implement positive changes. The First Year Integration Conference (FYIC) takes place in the winter term and motivates first year students to become student leaders and to get involved with their respective societies. ESSCO’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) occurs in May with a focus on professional development sessions and networking among the new VP Externals and ESSCO Executives. The President’s Meeting (PM) is hosted every September for societies to discuss their progress, concerns and develop solutions for current ESSCO and engineering issues. Professional Engineers Ontario Student Conference (PEO-SC) occurs in the fall and introduces the delegates to Professional Engineers Ontario and encourages students to become Professional Engineers. These events are held by ESSCO’s member schools, who place bids for the conferences they are interested in hosting. Waterloo Engineering Societies A and B are treated as separate member schools of ESSCO and both attend these conferences, holding two votes at plenary.
The benefit of ESSCO reaches beyond the students who attend these conferences and receive professional development and networking opportunities; the returning students become engaged in their societies and often go on to serve as leaders within their engineering community. By facilitating productive discussion between its 14 member schools, ESSCO improves student life by helping schools develop new services, improve current conditions, and solve problems.
As well, ESSCO wants to further understand what the Ontario engineering student experiences every day. Through a carefully crafted survey, ESSCO will produce and share data with the community at large in hopes of increasing the quality of education and the livelihood of classmates.
ESSCO is also responsible for facilitating the Ontario Engineering Competition (OEC), where top teams from each school demonstrate their design skills, creativity, and communication abilities through unique engineering competitions. OEC is an amazing opportunity for engineering students from across the province to showcase their exceptional skill and leadership capabilities while competing to qualify for the Canadian Engineering Competition. This year marks the 37th annual OEC which will be hosted by the University of Waterloo from January 29-31, 2016!
National Engineering Month (NEM), and Wonderland and Physics Day are two other major events run by ESSCO. These events have their own directorships and are part of ESSCO’s efforts to promote engineering to the community at large!
ESSCO has recently developed a 5 Year Strategic Plan and hopes to offer even more value to its member societies and students in the years to come. You can find out more about ESSCO and what they can do for you by emailing your VP external, any of the ESSCO executive or visiting their website www.essco.ca
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