Hello class of 2022! Firstly, congratulations on making it into UW Engineering and welcome to the University of Waterloo! I hope you’re all excited and proud to be engineering students here at UW. Secondly, let me introduce myself, I am Vince a 4A Management Engineering student and the current outgoing Editor-in-Chief of the Iron Warrior (which is the newspaper you are currently reading right now!) I have been with the paper since 2012, joining all the way back when I was in 1B! Despite it being years ago, I still remember Orientation Week and how exciting it all was! So hopefully you’ll allow me to impart a couple of tips for this exciting new chapter of your life. Just a couple of things I’ve learned and especially enjoyed in my time here at UW and with Engineering.
Your adventure pretty much starts the moment you move-in to your new home-away-from-home and with orientation week. You’ll encounter tonnes of new people and without a doubt discover a lot of new things. So that being said, make sure you all take a stroll around campus and your respective future lecture / lab buildings, these halls will pretty much be your home for the next five years. Also take special note of any clubs, design teams, and societies (*ahem* EngSoc *ahem*) that you see in these next few days!
Personally, I have found first year to be the most difficult out of all my terms thus far, as a high school student I was actively involved in a lot of extra-curriculars, and trying to take on the same number of hobbies from highschool along with first year’s rather rigorous all-day class schedules was a struggle for me! If you’re like me, I strongly suggest taking it slow and not to rush getting involved with everything all at once. I still strongly suggest you get involved though, a lot of clubs and designs teams are incredibly accommodating and understanding when it comes to first years and they’d allow you to sit in without a lot of time commitments.
My next piece of advice is not to take things too seriously! I’m sure a lot of you have been indoctrinated to be competitive and perhaps many of you have been the top of your class or even year. Things may be slightly different now that you’re here. You’re getting thrown in the deep end, and a lot of your cohort will also have been some of the best in their respective schools. In any case, don’t take things too seriously! A lot of students will experience grade shock, where they come from all 90s and then suddenly face their first 60 or 70. It’s totally okay. I personally feel that its better to try to learn the material and try to have fun.
My last piece of advice is to try to make the most out of everything and not to get discouraged in adversity. Its University, you’ll meet folks who don’t have a care in the world, and folks who take every little detail as if it could end the world. With either of them, make the best of your time, and the experience. Your university life is what you make of it, and what matters is how you live it, through the easy terms and the difficult ones. This is the perfect chance for you to grow and experiment with who you want to be. Its also the perfect time to try new things and get out of your comfort zone (I certainly wouldn’t be writing this now if I hadn’t)!
If I could tell my first-year self one thing it would be this: Relax a little, you control how your university life turns out and its what you make of it. There’s no cookie cutter university experience. You make it up along the way!
Best of luck to all of you 2022s, here’s to an exciting and new chapter you’ll write in your lives!
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