VPs Academic: We Help You Survive School

Hey there, Class of 2021! We’re Jeff Gulbronson and Andrew McBurney, and we are your Vice-Presidents Academic. Jeff will be on term in the Fall (A-Society), and Andrew on term in the Winter (B-Society).

The main part of our job is to ensure you have the necessary resources and environment to succeed academically, both in school and on co-op. Between the two of us, we’re responsible for representing and advocating for all undergraduate engineering students at various faculty, university-wide and co-op related councils.

There are plenty of ways for you to get involved with regards to academic advocacy in your first year. Within your first two weeks on campus, your class will elect academic reps for the term. Their job is to periodically meet with your profs, and voice any concerns your class may have. This is an excellent chance to get involved right away, with no experience required! We’ll have a first-year academic rep meeting where we’ll discuss issues that affect all programs and provide advice on being a great class rep for your cohort.

In addition to advocating on behalf of students, we help to provide academic resources for your benefit. The Society offers a variety of services to help you succeed, such as our online exam bank. We have old midterms and final exams for almost all of your core courses, many with solutions, so it’s a great place to find study material. We also help run course critiques each term, where you get a chance to provide feedback on both your courses and professors.

You don’t have to wait until the end of the term though! It’s our job to gather student feedback throughout the term, so you’ll receive various surveys from us asking for your opinion on things like co-op, workload and scheduling.

You can also reach us at vpacademic.a@engsoc.uwaterloo.ca (Jeff), and vpacademic.b@engsoc.uwaterloo.ca (Andrew) or in the EngSoc Office (CPH 1327), if you have any questions, concerns, or just want to chat about how first-year’s going. Good luck, and we’re both looking forward to seeing you on campus!