Hi everyone. Welcome back to campus! I’m Pat Duong, your EngSoc VP Academic for the Spring 2017 term! I deal with all things co-op and academic related.
WaterlooWorks Works (as best it can for now)
One of the big goals I have for this term is to help smooth the transition from Jobmine to WaterlooWorks and collect feedback from students about the new system through a survey after the main round. I will be posting ongoing updates about WW this term! CECA has been very open to feedback and they, along with our WaterlooWorks workshop directors, talked about the new functionality of WaterlooWorks and some useful links (see notes: http://bit.ly/WaterlooWorksQA). Coming soon to the university’s WaterlooWorks site is a “Response to student concerns page” where concerns based on student feedback will be acknowledged, classified, and prioritized to be fixed! So bring on all the feedback!
Co-op 2.0
Another goal for the term is to spread the word about Co-op 2.0, which are some new changes/additions to the co-op system in the hopes of strengthening the program and making it more flexible for a wider variety of experiences. This has been approved by Senate to include flexible work terms (e.g. the new definition of what counts as a co-op experience is now a minimum of 12 weeks and/or 420 hours) and a research experience certificate (based on completing three research terms, a to-be-developed PD course around transdisciplinary research methods, and a research capstone). The university is currently seeking a professor to develop the research PD course, so please let me know if you have suggestions!
WatPD
The Faculty of Engineering has put together a survey on WatPD after consulting students. The survey only takes ten minutes at http://bit.ly/uwengpd and is open until May 31st!
Survey participants will be entered into a random draw for Amazon.ca gift cards (a skill-testing question will be required to receive a prize and the odds of winning depend on the number of entries received).
Mental Health Awareness & MATES
MATES, a peer-to-peer counselling service, is now in their second term with active engineering volunteers! Drop-in to talk with a MATES peer supporter any time from 8:30am-4:30pm Monday to Friday in NH 2423 or book an appointment at csmates@uwaterloo.ca. They’re there for you if you want someone to talk with about stress, relationships, life, or anything else. I am so glad that there are a growing number of resources available to support students’ mental health and well-being.
Also, check out our lovely MHA Blog: https://medium.com/mental-health-uwaterloo. Want to share your story or to write for the blog? Email Awn at engsocmha@gmail.com.
Got a secret you want to get off your chest anonymously, post-secret service is up: http://bit.ly/UWPostSecret
I want to hear your thoughts/opinions/concerns, so if you ever want to talk to me about anything academic/co-op related and otherwise, my office hours are Fridays 11:30 am – 1:20 pm in the Orifice or drop me an email at vpacademic.a@engsoc.uwaterloo.ca. Cheers!
Leave a Reply