Who are we, you ask? We are your A-Soc First Year Integration Conference attendees. This basically means we spent a weekend at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, hanging out with our fellow first year engineering students from across Ontario. Why were we chosen, you ask? We like to think that we are outgoing, enthusiastic, brilliant, drop-dead-gorgeous, and all around amazing engineering students, and therefore we represent all UW engineering students. We were told we were chosen for other reasons but we’ll stick with our initial hypothesis. In any event, if you are interested after reading this article, be sure to apply to some of the upcoming conferences! Info is always sent over the mailing list.
In our conference-related adventures, we were joined by two B-Soc-ers, Myles Tan and Vlad Katkov, and the ever patient and protective/hilarious VPXs, Mike McCauley and Kevin Ling. Our weekend included several presentations, given by distinguished engineers and organizations such as PEO (Professional Engineers Ontario) and ESSCO (Engineering Student Societies’ Council of Ontario), which were aimed at introducing us to the many facets of being future engineers. We also participated in a robotics competition, got to see some awesome Lakehead senior design projects, and even learned about the design of the Olympic torch. The conference, which showed us the post-graduation side of engineering, reminded us of the reason we decided to undertake the noble quest of becoming engineers. We got excited about our chance to build bridges, design cars, create virtual realities or innovate energy solutions. We feel it was a very worthwhile way to spend our weekend.
In addition to all this serious business, we participated in a variety of jovial recreational activities. These included dog-sledding, ice-skating, swag-trading, bowling-ball-at-pins-launching, and plenty of pop-and-chip-partying.
So, why are we writing this article, you ask? Well reader, it may be because while telling our Waterloo stories to the other engineering students of Ontario, we became slightly misty eyed, and upon returning, we thought we’d tell you how much we love our engineering program. It may be because we loved our engineering conference adventure and we strongly encourage you to embark on your very own. It may be because we wanted to share some inter-University brotherly spirit. It may also be because Mike McCauley asked us to. We’ll let you decide.
Are we done yet, you ask? Yes. Yes, we are.
Leave a Reply