Every Civil, Environmental, or Geological Engineering student will probably know who you are talking about when you mention the name Bob. Professor Bob McKillop is a well-respected professor from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering who never fails to make his love for teaching evident during his lectures. Completing both his undergraduate degree and PhD at the University of Waterloo, Bob soon made the transition into becoming a full time lecturer for many of the first and fourth year civil, environmental, and geological engineering courses.
This issue, the Iron Warrior took some time to learn more about this famous professor.
Which courses do you teach?
I have taught CIVE 125 (Civil Engineering Concepts 1), CIVE 126 (Civil Engineering Concepts), CIVE 221 (Advanced Calculus), CIVE 280 (Fluid Mechanics and Thermal Sciences), CIVE 381 (Hydraulics), CIVE 583 (Design of Urban Water Systems), CIVE 486 (Hydrology), and ENVE 320 (Environmental Resource Management). I teach five courses a year, and then the other duty I conduct at the university is that I share the role of Examination Promotions Officer. So I work with our admin team, and a big part of my role is working through our Examination Promotions Committee, and when the students come in to difficulty, such as students who are in academic jeopardy of having to repeat a term or failed a term or whatever, then I’m able to do that. So that’s my service component of the job.
Why did you choose to pursue a career in Engineering?
I actually went to college first and completed a degree in Civil Engineering Technology. Then I went out to work for a couple years at the Grand River Conservation Authority, and one of my bosses there was an alumni from Waterloo. He helped mentor me and steer me back in to engineering. So I quit what I thought was the best job of my life to come back and become an undergrad and go through the whole process again here. So it wasn’t a great big plan to become an engineer, it just kind of happened. There was an opportunity, and sure enough I came back here and did my undergraduate degree, and I loved all of it.
What was your most memorable experience as an undergraduate student?
My memory at the beginning was how overwhelmed I was about first year. Like I said, I had gone to college, I had worked outside, I was very rough with my math, and so my memory of 1A and 1B was just the shock of the workload and how much was going on. The other memory I have is when I’m working on a co-op job, and then go back into the classroom and see the same material, I just remember seeing the linkage between co-op and the education, and that has always stuck with me.
What are your research interests?
I don’t conduct research anymore, but I did my PhD in the 1990s in wetland hydrodynamics, and I did some post-doc work here as well. We had an early retirement package, and a large amount of our faculty took that retirement, so there was a teaching shortage and I was offered a teaching position while I was doing my PhD and postdoc.
What is your favourite part about being a lecturer?
I’m very lucky, I teach about 240 students in the fall and they are all 1As. So I teach the environmentals, the geologicals, and the civils. And I see them again in 1B, and I don’t see them again until 4B. So I get to see when they come in here walking and talking like a high school student, thinking like a high school student, and I get to see them when they are in 4B and they are walking and talking like an engineer. And I think that is one of the coolest parts of being a teacher, just being able to see the growth that they develop here.
What is the most challenging part about being a lecturer?
Again, I’m dealing with first years, so the students don’t have the skill sets that I’m accustomed to with the 4B level, so patience is definitely a challenging aspect. Students still have to learn to transition from a high school student to a university student, and it can be very frustrating and taxing. But everybody gets it done, it’s just that some people get it done quicker than others.
Can you describe your teaching philosophy?
I think I can be no-nonsense and a little bit too honest sometimes, but I still see my teaching as coaching. And sometimes you have to be a director, you have to sit there and make sure that the students understand what your philosophy is, what your expectations are, and you have to coach. I think my strength is in the coaching, and I think if you talk to my students, I hope they say that my course notes are one of my strengths. I spend a ridiculous amount of time making sure my course notes are complete and thorough and clear, and my wife also knows that I’m constantly tweaking and fiddling with my course notes. My philosophy is to make sure that my material is really clear and organized, laid out, and hopefully I challenge my students with the deliverables and the assignments and the labs that I design for them. So there’s a knowledge, there’s a comprehension, and then there has to be an application.
When I get to the fourth year students, their skill set is completely different. They have a problem solving skill set, they can distinguish between nice-to-know and need-to-know, and my philosophy in fourth year is to simply keep giving them the things they need to know, give them their assigned homework, and then get out of their way. Then just let their imagination and problem solving go off and impress me.
Do you have any advice for your students?
The advice I have for the new students coming in is pretty traditional. I think the students we get are very good in knowledge and comprehension, they are just probably not as developed in their time management skills yet, or in their problem solving and critical analysis skills. So when coming in, if you can stay on top of your work, if you try not to fall behind and you really manage your time, 1A will be a lot more doable. At the 4B level, when I’m talking to my students, it’s really more like professional advice. It’s really about where they want to go in life, where they see themselves in 10 years, which is a hard question to answer. But students at the 4B level hopefully have a job opportunity that excites them, that’s what I’m hoping.
Do you have any hobbies?
I’m getting a little old now, but we used to do a lot of kayaking. So for my wife and I, our fun is going camping up in Killarney Provincial Park, packing up the truck, putting a canoe on the top, and off we go for two weeks. So that’s really where we go to decompress at the end of term. My wife works at Western so we both end our academic year in August and we just camp for a couple weeks. I’ve been going to Killarney for about 12 years non-stop, and that is where you will find me during the last two weeks of August.
Any interesting facts you would like to share?
There’s a well-known lecture I do, which I just conducted this week, and it involves a Bernoulli equation. I had named one of my cats Bernoulli, so every civil, environmental, and geological student for the last 5 years knows that there is a Bernoulli McKillop and have seen his picture in my lecture. When I first started dating my wife, she warned me she was a cat person and I said ok. So now our house is run by four cats, and Bernie is the one that all my students know about for sure.
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