On September 24, 2011, the University of Waterloo’s Engineering Faculty welcomed back the graduates from the years 1961, 1966, 1971, 1976, 1981, 1986, 1991, 1996, 2001 and 2006. The day featured an open house on campus during the day and a banquet reception in the evening, the only one of its kind at the University of Waterloo.
I personally had the pleasure of greeting several alumni as they asked for their pictures to be taken with the TOOL, as well as throughout the evening events. This included an encounter with William Miller, the first person to graduate from the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Waterloo. Bill, as he asked us to refer to him, was a graduate student of Electrical Engineering at Waterloo, finishing his masters in 1961, a time when the Faculty of Engineering only had 4 graduate students altogether.
Bill had many stories to tell, as did all of the alumni. It was inspiring to see that people were returning 50 years after they graduated. Every alumni there had gone through what we go through every day. The long nights studying, the tediously spent hours in the lab, and yet, through all the hard work and long days, they were proud of their degrees from Waterloo. They all had something in common, something to celebrate, and memories and moments to recollect together at the reunion.
It was in overhearing and discussing these memories with alumni that I got to learn quite a bit about the culture of engineering students throughout the years. This, I found, was the most fascinating part of the reunion. Getting to hear about how things were years ago, getting a taste for the history of our faculty, was nothing less than intriguing. Among some of the fascinating facts are the following:
– The Imprint used to be the newspaper of the Engineering Faculty. It was started as a rival to the Chevron, which has recently reappeared on campus. The Chevron was eventually shut down due to biased political views.
– POETS used to be where the EngSoc office is now. It wasn’t originally a pub either. The story behind why it became a pub is unfortunately unpublishable.
– The EngSoc Office was where the current C&D now stands. The C&D did not exist because Food Services had a contract preventing any such establishment from opening. It was actually engineering students that got the contract revised and gave all the student societies on campus the capability to run their own C&D.
– The jackets used to be navy blue. Why not black? Black leather jackets were considered too closely associated with gang activity, and thus the jackets were ordered in navy blue to avoid any misconceptions.
– Arcade games used to be set up in POETS. We’re talking Space Invaders, Asteroids, Pac-Man, you name it. They were there.
Among these fascinating details were stories of good times had by classmates and friends alike. The night ended with alumni recounting such tales at the podium for everyone to hear and reminisce. It’s just a reminder of what you get to be proud of after all the hard work you put in, and a reminder that you get to share that pride with thousands of successful alumni.
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