Dear first years, first of all—congratulations! I’m sure you’ve heard the word more than once since you’ve gotten your acceptance letter to Engineering here at the University of Waterloo, but it is most certainly praise well deserved. You have an exciting few years ahead of you, and I encourage you to make the most out of every moment of them—starting right from this week. Orientation Week here at Waterloo is packed full of incredible events from dawn until dusk, and all of them are fun beyond belief. This is your week to enjoy, so be sure you don’t miss out on any of the events; after all, you only get one Orientation Week in your undergrad, so don’t kick yourself for not attending that one super cool event everyone is talking about because you couldn’t drag yourself out of bed!
At any rate, I’ll leave it to your Bigs and Huges to give you more about the details on Orientation Week. Be sure to check out the schedule on pages 10 and 11, as well as learn more about your own colour group on pages 4 and 5. First year only begins with Orientation Week. After that, it’ll be time to put on your game face and dive right into classes. I could give you the same spiel about the difficulty gradient between high school and university I’m sure you’ve heard a thousand times over (which is repeated for good reason, take heed of the warning), but instead I will try to give you some concrete steps to help you in the first few weeks of classes.
First off, get a good rhythm going, circadian or otherwise. The weekly scheduling of classes and labs is going to inherently become easier if you find yourself a rhythm of sleeping, working, studying, and relaxing. You don’t necessarily have to schedule your time, although you may find it helps in initially getting a feel for when and were you can make time for the things you want and need to do. But knowing that you can look forward to certain treats on given days, or ensuring that you have time to do your homework and lab reports can go a long way to reducing stress.
Next, experiment and adapt in that rhythm. Your first term is the best term to figure out what style of studying best suits you, what sort of extracurriculars you can excel in, who you can (and more importantly, who you can’t) study with, and so on. I encourage you to investigate student design teams and groups, and see what suits you. If you end up joining a team, but find yourself unable to contribute due to work load, or more interested in investing your time elsewhere, there is no shame in changing your mind.
Finally, know when to treat yourself, and when to exercise restraint. This might seem rather obvious, but there are certain “crunch times” when you might have to give up things you normally can enjoy in order to get things done. Know when to say “no” to that movie night with your friends, and when staying up until 4 am playing Super Smash Bros. is prooooobably not the best idea. And, on the flipside, when you finally finish those four assignments coincidentally due the same Thursday, or make it through midterm week, go ahead and splurge a little! You will thank yourself for it.
Of course, this is all just advice from one new Editor-in-Chief. Much like all of you are venturing into a new chapter in your life by the beginning of your university career, I too have an adventure waiting for me with managing the official newspaper of the Waterloo Engineering Society. I hope that I can practice my own advice in managing my responsibilities, and overseeing the production of entertaining quality content for all engineering students, both new and returning. As always, thank you so much to our contributors this issue, as well as to our previous Editor-in-Chief, Cameron, for making the job look way easier than it actually is. And to any first years interested in becoming a part of the paper, feel free to drop by the Iron Warrior office in E2-2347 on Tuesdays at 6:30 PM to attend one of our meetings. Have fun during your Orientation Week, and best of luck in your newest chapter in life!
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