Hey everybody, this is your friendly neighbourhood Sarb here again and here is another dose of my updates. Unlike past updates, this one will be a bit more personal and less about events and and services under me. However, it won’t be a sob story (I promise).
Successful Events So Far
First off, Laser Tag ran really well and EngProv had interesting debates running during their last session. The directors did a fantastic job with those events. Professional Photoshoot went well and all the photos should be coming out soon. Huge shoutout to Victoria Canning-Choi (2019 Systems) and Sarah Madigan (2020 ECE) for working hard to get all the photos.
First year conference also went really well and it was amazing to see the growth in confidence, creativity, and openness in many of the first years who showed up for the conference. We had 35 delegates total and I am nothing but hopeful that the number of delegates in future years conferences’ will continue to grow.
Lastly, I have seen many more care bear nominations made by people (35 nominations in 1 month). I am glad that care bears is getting more recognition and hope to grow that further in the upcoming months and terms.
Overall many of the events have been really successful so far.
Upcoming Events and Initiatives
Other than our biweekly Engiqueers and Engprov, as well as our weekly Mental Health Thursdays, we will have EngHack happening on October 28 as well as our Semi-Formal happening on November 4. Tickets for EngHack will start selling after the break (ticket prices are $5 for engineering students and $7 for non-engineering students) and Semi-Formal tickets are still being sold, with limited $10 early bird tickets and $15 for all tickets after. Please do keep an eye out for these events.
We will also have a massive First Year Mentoring post-midterms event for which we have booked a fire pit, and more details about that will come soon. Furthermore, I will be investigating the possibility of seeing how the Women in Engineering Mentoring and the EngSoc First Year Mentoring can be combined as one in future terms in the next few weeks as mandated by council.
Mental Health
Finally, here is a big part of my past two weeks and I am stating this because I want to be as truthful in my update as possible. Recently, the stresses of school and personal life has gotten to me a bit too much, and my personal anxiety issues were growing worse by the day. A professor of mine who noticed me acting weirder than usual made me seek urgent counselling on Monday the 3rd of October. The counselor has suggested that I take a break from extracurricular commitments as much as I could for at least two weeks and focus more on being myself and spend time rediscovering myself.
Due to that, I have not been too actively involved with EngSoc or with anything else for the past few days, and I heavily apologize to my constituents, directors, commissioners, and fellow execs for not being there for you all. I will promise to be back to serve you all again after the break is over.
Moving forward, I am planning to make sure that mental health resources are more actively known around campus, and my Mental Health Team and I have a few initiatives. We have also been invited to campus wide initiatives that we will be advertising about soon.
Lastly, I want to say that there are many resources available on campus for mental health and we should not be afraid to utilize them. Furthermore, no matter how lonely you may feel or no matter how guilty you may feel about things you have done, every one of you should know that Waterloo engineering as a whole is an amazing community and there is without fail at least one person looking out for you, no matter what.
If you are seeking someone you can rely on, support, or any sort of help, I know I am not the best person but I can try my best to help you all out or direct you to relevant people or services who can help you. Do feel free to reach out to me via email (vpinternal.a@engsoc.uwaterloo.ca) or stop by the Orifice (CPH 1327) on Mondays 2.30PM–4.30PM, as well as any other times you are free, and I will help you to the best of my abilities.
Finally, thank you especially to my commissioners Peter and Mariko who became the VP Internals during my absence.
Leave a Reply