Hello A Soc, it is your friendly VP Internal Sarb here. March is a term full of project deadlines, assignments, quizzes, tests and most importantly, EngSoc events. Sit tight and wait for March Madness.
MENTAL HEALTH WEEK
First off, I apologize that mental health week was not advertised as well as I wanted it to be. The events were well planned, but I slipped up a bit on advertising.
Having said that, the Mental Health Week from February 29 till March 4 was fairly successful. We had an inter-faculty “Let’s Talk Mental Health” session where students from all 4 faculties came together and collaborated to stand up to the stigma surrounding mental health. The event had a good turnout and many people have mentioned that this event should be held termly (or even more regularly).
We also had Eryn Dickison from 2017 Systems Design, who was our Mental Health Director, running Post-Secret Week. During the week, she was running lunchtime activities such as “Make Your Own Stress Ball” and colouring stations. The secrets from Post-Secret Week are at the entrance of POETS.
Lastly, Awn Duquom (my Student Life Commissioner) and I went around with a whiteboard and camera on Friday afternoon to take pictures of fellow students writing down why mental health is important to each of them individually. Pictures will be coming up on the EngSoc Flickr page soon so do look out for that.
INTER-FACULTY COLLABORATION UPDATES
The biggest inter-faculty collaboration that has been done up to date was during our Mental Health Awareness week, where 4 student societies (EngSoc, Mathematics Society, Arts Student Union and Environment Student Society) worked together to run a session where students are able to talk about mental health in a safe environment. Many attendees told us they would love to see the event be run again in subsequent terms and this is something I want to see happen.
We also have had Eng+Math Hack that happened last weekend (March 4-March 5). This is the first time an actual collaboration between two student societies has taken place, and I would really like to thank MathSoc and my EngHack directors, Akshay Joshi (2017 ECE), Patrick Perrier (2018 Software), Eric Ye (2019 Mechatronics) and Angel Yang (Math Faculty).
Going forward, I am working with the other student societies’ VP Internal (or event coordinator equivalent) to set up a termly inter-faculty event that could one day become a UW tradition. For now we are thinking about doing an inter-faculty dodgeball competition, but if you have any other ideas, please feel free to let me know.
EVENT SIGNUPS
Genius Bowl is happening on Wednesday March 9 at RCH 101. The sign-up form is available on the event Facebook page. TalEng is happening on Tuesday March 15 at WILFs (in Wilfrid Laurier University). The signup sheets are available in the TalEng Facebook page. Lastly, we will have coffeehouse signup soon. Furthermore, we will have a LAN Party this coming Friday and an Exchange event on March 16.
FIND ME
If you have any ideas for events we should do, or would like to talk about what your favorite events were or just want somebody to talk to, email me at vpinternal.a@engsoc.uwaterloo.ca or visit me at the Orifice (CPH 1327) on Thursdays from 9am-11am or whenever you see me in the Orifice. Also feel free to stop me and say “Hi!” whenever you see me in campus or elsewhere. I don’t bite (seriously). This month will be really hectic, and I really wish you all the best as we have fun during this season of March Madness.
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