Engineering Live Chat

Started in a few minutes. If you haven't already answered the poll along the right hand side of your screen. Please go ahead, and do that now. We'd like to know what program you're in. Also, if you are from Software Engineering, or the School of Architecture, they're actually separate WebExes running for you right now. So Erica will share the links to those WebExes and you can go ahead and join those. So that's Software Engineering students, or School of Architecture students, we do have separat

e WebExes. Otherwise, just sit tight for a few minutes, and we'll be getting started. Okay, so we'll just give everyone another minute or two to get logged in and we'll be starting in a minute or two. If you're just joining us, please note that we're gonna be using the Q and A button to ask the question. So, please submit your questions there. You can access the Q and A by clicking on the three dots at the bottom of your screen and then selecting Q and A. We have people on stand by, current stud

ents and staff and faculty to answer all of your questions. And then, after the slide show we'll be answering as many of the questions as we can aloud as well. We'll just give people one more minute to get logged in. And just a reminder, if we have any students here, who will be starting Software Engineering, or attending the School of Architecture in the fall, there's actually a separate WebExes that we'll be running right now. And my colleague, Erica, will enter the links to those into the cha

t. So you can go join them. Okay, great. So, I think we'll go ahead and get started first of all I would like to welcome all of you and thank you all so much for joining us today. We're really, really excited to have you joined us in the fall, and we've got some really great information to share with you today. I do also want to thank or want to begin by acknowledging that, the University of Waterloo is on lands that are deeply connected to Indigenous Peoples, who have historically lived, and wh

o currently live in this territory. These groups include the neutral, Anishinaabeg, and Haudeno-, no Hau-, Hau-, sorry. Haudenosaunee peoples. The University of Waterloo is situated on the Haldimand tract, the land promised to the six nations that includes ten kilometers on each side of the Grand River. My name is Daniella Cross and I'm the Associate Director of Marketing and Recruitment for the Faculty of Engineering. I'll be your host for today. You'll be hearing from Mary Robinson and Bill Ow

en, Associate Directors of First Year Engineering who will share some valuable tips to help you prepare for September. We also have several students and other staff members ready to answer your questions, immediately after the slide presentation. On the right side of your screen, you'll see a chat area. If you can't see this, click on the circle with the chat bubble, that's at the bottom of your screen. This is where you will see links that are posted that relate to the presentation. As I mentio

ned, we'll be using the Q and A feature for questions during this event. If you can't see this, click on the circle at the bottom of your screen with the three dots, that says more options. You can then click on the square with a question mark in the middle, that makes the Q and A feature appear on the right side of your screen. All questions will need to be submitted here, please. So just a reminder, use the Q and A for questions, and then we'll be using the chat function to share important lin

ks. We're looking forward to connecting with all of our new engineering students today. If there are any parents or supporters here on this WebEx, we encourage you to sign up for our parent and supportor monthly newsletter. You'll receive great tips and information on supporting your student throughout their first year as a Waterloo Warrior. There will also be a special live chat that you can attend in August. My colleague, Erica, will post a link to that now for more information about those liv

e chats that are specific for parents and supporters. Alright, on that note, I think it's about time that we get started, so I'd like to pass things over to Mary and Bill. Thanks, Daniella! We're happy to be here. So my name is Mary Robinson. I'm one of the Associate Directors of First Year Engineering and my colleague Bill is here with me. Hello, everyone. And so what we're gonna do today, is we'll start off with a bit of a presentation, share with you some useful information, a lot of what to

expect in your first term. And then we'll switch over to some Q and A. So, if you have any questions, as we're going along here, as Daniella mentioned, throw them in the Q and A, or we can answer them live afterwards. So, thank you very much to all of you who participate in the survey. I see that we have representatives from pretty much every single one of our programs here today, which is great. And I also, especially wanted to point out that the students in Systems Design and Biomedical Engine

ering. Your academic advisors are here too. So, Kristen and Igor are in the chat as well, and they are more than happy to answer any questions that you have. So, let's get started! So, what should you expect in your one a term? Well, this is the rough timeline of what the fall term is going to look like. Now, at Waterloo, you'll hear us use the term, term, a lot and that refers to a four month period of time. So, we have academic terms and we have co-op terms. What we're talking about right now

is the fall 2020 academic term. So, it runs September to December, and it's basically twelve weeks followed by a period of exams. So, in our case, we're going to be starting now, to get you ready for your first academic term. So, picking up with where we are at this moment through until September fifth, getting Waterloo Ready. So what should you be doing? Well, you may be getting a little bit excited about what's going to happen. I know, I definitely am! There are a lot of great things under wor

k for the fall terms. You may be asking yourself questions, like, how am I going to make friends? What are my new classmates going to be like? What if I don't like my faculty? My program? How is my life going to change? These are completely normal feelings that students have every single year. And this year, it's well, it's an entirely different level, so we know some of you were getting ready to move into residence and you may be experiencing the last time that I sleep in my own bed. The last t

ime that I see my friends from high school. Those kind of experiences, or some of you might be experiencing a little bit of sadness that you're not going to be moving into residents, that maybe you're going to be staying at home. And your little concerned about what's going to happen now that you're not going to have that resident experience. So hopefully we'll be able to answer some of your questions here. And, of course, we are a co-op program, so that's one big distinguishing feature between

Waterloo and other schools. So, anything you can do over the summer to gain some work experience or skills that would be valuable to an employer, absolutely, get going on that. And it can be volunteering, it doesn't have to be paid. What else can you do? Well, if you don't have a lot of experience doing laundry or cooking or some of those other life skills, now is a great time to find out what your parents favorite recipes are, and start mastering those. Discuss expectations with parents. So Bil

l will be talking a little bit more in a minute about some of the grade drops that we see. So many of you were coming in with phenomenal averages and it's normal to see grades drop a little bit. So, talk about that. Think about a communications plan. When are you going to connect with family? Maybe, it's just a quick text once a day to convince your mom that yep, I am actually eating my vegetables and what you're gonna do to take care of your health and wellness through this time. So, we know ex

ercise and sleep and a healthy diet are very important for success as well. So, start figuring out that equation for you, how you're going to do those things, that'll make sure that you have a great experience here at Waterloo Engineering. Hello, everyone. I'm here. I'm here. Let's talk about moving in and orientation. Generally move-in date is on the Saturday of the long weekend. Whatever that plan for moving in, is still being worked on and housing will be having a live chat on July fifteen. S

o, hopefully information will come out about that for you and you can find out what housing is doing. So, whether you're moving to Waterloo or staying at home, orientation will provide you with the opportunity to meet other engineering students, learn about campus resources and experience the engineering culture. An online orientation for this fall is being planned. One big thing is when the information comes out and we get toward September, take part in orientation. Next slide. So, for those of

you that come to campus, there will be a mixed emotions. You'll be happy that you're experiencing something new and have increased freedom. Yet, this can also be overwhelming. You may find during orientation, or maybe the first month of school, that you feel home sick, that is normal, call home, tell your family about the exciting things you have been doing. For those of you that have stayed home, homesickness won't be a problem, but still get involved and take part in orientation. Parents, one

key thing here don't keep information from your student. Students will find out about sad information anyway. Often it's done through Facebook. So it's better if it comes from you. Okay, and then before you know it, classes will be starting. So our first Day of term, the academic term, will be Tuesday September 8. So, the Tuesday following the Labor day long weekend. Of course, this year is going to be a little bit different than the average 1A term. The large majority of the components are goi

ng to be delivered remotely. A couple of exceptions do exist, such as the CHE180 course. There is an optional on campus module. So, definitely, watch learn. For those of you who have already logged in through the Waterloo ready program, you're familiar with that already. That's where your course information is going to be posted and that's where you're gonna learn about the format of your course. Which components are going to be asynchronous and which are going to be synchronous time constrained

. Now, you may be noticing some pretty major differences between high school and the university, and this is completely normal. I'll go into those in just a little bit. Time management is a huge piece, and as we're going through our spring term online, that's something that we're hearing from a lot of first year students. Is the time management aspect is entirely different online, and of course, being a co-op program, we're going to be talking a little bit more about co-op. So what are the diffe

rences between high school and university? Well, you may notice the pace, something that took four or five months to cover in high school. We'll go through in about twelve weeks, so quite a bit faster. You'll have more classmates in most of your classes. So, it's not unusual to have over a hundred students in a class, whether it's calculus or physics or chemistry. Whichever course it is, they tend to be larger classes and the onus on the student is different. So, we're going to expect you to do

a lot more yourself. So, that may be out of class studying. It may be asking for help. It may be doing some preparation for getting ready for exams or tests and the grading as well. So, in the University, you'll notice that there tend to be fewer assessments, but they tend to be higher stakes. The trends that we're seeing in the spring term suggest there may be more smaller assessments, but it'll still be more higher stakes assessments, than what you would be normally expecting in high school. S

o, you have to make sure you're managing your time well, and staying on top of your coursework. Oh, yes and time. Time management is super important. In this universe, we have a hundred and sixty eight hours in a week. No matter which way you slice it. That's how many we get. To be successful in engineering, you're going to be spending on the average about thirty hours a week, doing class related things. So, on campus, this would be things like attending lectures and labs. Now that we're in an o

nline environment, maybe things like watching lecture videos, participating in virtual tutorials, help sessions, that kind of thing. To be successful, you should expect to spend, roughly an equal amount of time out of class, doing other studying related things. So, that can be homework, getting ready for tests, lab write ups, any of that sort of stuff. Sleep is super important. We encourage students cut about eight hours a night, times seven, that works out about fifty six hours a week. You need

to eat. We encourage you to exercise. Do some laundry. Get out. Seeing your friends, your roommates, if you're in residence, that kind of stuff. So before, you know it, you're up to a hundred and sixty eight hours that have been spoken for. So, having some sort of schedule is super important. And it's especially important due to co-op. So, what we have here is a picture of the Tatham Centre, and these students are looking at the screens, waiting to see when they're going to be heading in to tal

k to their employer. So, a job interview. So, the co-op process is going to be an additional demand on your time. You're going to be applying for jobs. You're going to be going for interviews. Now, that we're online, of course, you're not going to be in the Tatham Centre. You're going to be doing your interviews through programs, which is WebEx, where we are today. And, applying for jobs is also going to be done online through WaterlooWorks. For students in stream four, your first work term will

be in January. So, after four months of school. And believe it or not, your first job posting goes live September fourteenth. So, if you remember, class starts on the eighth, first job posting is the fourteenth, and then interview start September twenty eightth. So, there's a very fast turnaround here, which is why we want to talk to you about co-op specifically. For the eight stream students, who were thinking, "I can relax, I got nothing to worry about". Well, your job search starts in Januar

y. Tends to be pretty close to the same timeline. A week in, you're gonna be starting to apply for jobs and interviews will follow shortly thereafter. So don't think you're Scot-free. If you're in a dual stream program, and you don't know which Co op stream you've been assigned. So, mechanical, mechatronic, electrical, computer, and chemical. Hopefully, Eric has put the look up in the chat so that you can go check it out, if you don't know yet. So, after the first few weeks of class, maybe end o

f September, we're getting into October, the new students are gonna settle in, discover that your classes move at a fast pace. They become more difficult and you might start questioning your academic ability. Is this and we call that the imposter syndrome. Maybe the University made a mistake. Maybe I shouldn't be here. You start comparing yourself to others. How much do other study? How much free time they have? My friend down the-, across the road, he's got way more free time than I do. How? We

ll, don't compare yourself to others. Noting that they are probably comparing themselves to you. Everyone's journey through this degree will be different, and I guarantee you wouldn't be here today, if admissions didn't think you had what it takes to graduate? This is a difficult degree, and you will have to work a lot harder than you did in high school. For co-op. It is normal to have a lot of concern around getting a job. However, it is rare that a first year students will find a job during th

e first round. I think co-op's broken into three rounds. You got your first round, the second round and then continuous. What usually happens, is you will find work during the continuous around. We also understand that work, may be more of a concern right now with a pandemic. Keep looking for work. Keep doing your thing, but just keep your eye on the goal. Stay focused on your academics. That's the reason you're here to begin with. Going home, or taking a break if you're already at home would be

nice. Remember, that says sixty hour work week. And when I went through engineering, the only way I could put in my sixty hours, was to spend a good chunk of the time studying on the weekend. Now, this term we have heard that a number of students think that it's okay to have a part time job during an online term. Oh, yeah, having a part time job during any academic term is a really bad idea. Just think for a moment, both the number of hours we have available in a week. Mary just said it was a h

undred sixty eight. During an academic term, academics, stay focused. So, there are a lot of resources available for you, for academics, even with an online term. Your professors and instructors are available. Weef TAs are available to help. Weef TAs are upper year students who have been hired on co-op to help first year students. So, as you meet your weef TA, ask them, how they got through first year? What did they do for time management? What do they do for studying? Where did they get help? A

nd figure out what they did and what you're going to do to be successful. As you go through Waterloo Ready, there are upper year students that you will meet, and they are also a great resource. They all got through first year. So, how do they do that? Learning how to manage your time is a key skill that you will need to be successful in school and at work. And as a parent, you can encourage development of the skill by asking how your student managed/manages their time and sharing with them, what

you do. And I'm just thinking, and I mentioned time management. Mary mentioned it earlier. You're going to hear a lot more about time management. It could be a rather critical skill to learn. Awesome. So these are your academic advisors. We're here to support you in your transition to university from high school. We can help with study skills, time management, how to approach school. We can help with absences during the term, course selection for future terms. These five people you can see on t

he slide, are your advisors. David Nairn is a Director of First Year Engineering and he's also an Electrical Engineer. Mary Robinson and myself, we're the Associate Directors of First Year Engineering. Mary is a Chemical Engineer, and I'm a Mechanical/Mechatronic engineer. And then, we have Karen Dyck as well, who provide advising support and she's been working with engineers for, quite a-, quite a long time as well. I don't think she wants us to admit how long she's been helping engineers. I wa

s wondering how exactly to phrase that, but she is a great resource. And for systems, Mary, and I, David, Karen, we look after the majority of engineer- first year engineering students on campus. Systems design, and biomedical engineering, you have your own advisor. So, Carolyn MacGregor and Kristen Deckert for systems and then Brian Tripp and Lisa Lachuta for biomedical. If you end up in my office, I'm gonna do what I can to help you, but I'll be sure to point in the right direction as well. Oh

, yeah, a little note about confidentiality. Every year, not sometimes, but every year, parents want to connect with a resource on behalf of their student, it makes sense, it's what you've done before, as you raise your student from childhood to adulthood. However, it is now most effective when your student comes directly to us. It's because of confidentiality reasons due to FIPPA. University faculty, and staff can't give you any information about your student. So, have them come see us. At the

end of the day, it is the student that needs to use a resource and be in the active participant in the process. And it just goes a lot smoother, if they're involved. Identifying a concern, finding a resource, and connecting with that resource are critical life skills, and university is a really good place to learn how to develop that skill. And that's part of what we do as well, is help you learn. And here, you see a five of my favorite people. They are counselors that work out of Engineering. K

ristine, Fiona, Cassie, Spencer, and Lindsay, all provide counselling- counselling supports for our students. If there's something that's non-academic interfering with school. They understand the workload and pressure that you're under, and they're the first people I tell you to go see if you need help, that's not academic. They're awesome. And they've been working with our students for a very long time. Other resources, Health Services on campus provides physical and mental health care. During

the pandemic they have been open, though, maybe on reduced hours. Engineering counselors provide one on one support and through counseling services there's also group support, workshops, seminars, and peer-based support. Accessibility services provides academic accommodation, alternative examinations and so on, if you had an independent education plan in high school, you should talk to accessibility before the end of August. We have students every year that try to not use accessibility. That doe

sn't make sense. A lot of them fail. Be proactive. Talk to accessibility and get the supports in place, that you need. Center for career Action provides a lot of support for job searching, career planning, and they also have workshops. The student success office has international advising, writing and communication center and peer-based support. So, on campus, there are a lot of supports available. I don't necessarily expect you to remember any-, all of this, but remember Bill, remember Mary, we

can help you and point you in the right direction. Yeah, absolutely. There's all kinds of support available. You'll be seeing our first year engineering email address towards the end of the presentation. Jot it down. Send us any questions that you have. So, going back to our timeline here we are. We've been in class for a few weeks now, and we've just arrived at fall reading week. So, this encompasses, the Thanksgiving Monday, the October twelve holiday, and it runs from Saturday the ten, til S

unday the eighteenth. What happens? Well, it's a holiday, but it's also a chance for you to get caught up. What we find is students who are most successful, take this time as a chance to reflect on how the first few weeks of term have gone, make some adjustments, get caught up in those areas where they may have let things slide a little bit, but also take a little bit of time to recharge. So there's a balancing act between spending time with family and friends, but also spending the time on your

academics, so that you come back from reading week, fully ready to go. Now, you may be heading into some midterms. You may have some reports due. It'll depend on what's going on, but always remember that we are still around. The university is still open during reading week. There will be a number of help sessions available. Your weef TAs are still available to ask any questions. So, if you've been struggling in a particular topic area, get the help you need. This is your get out of jail, free t

ime to get caught up and get things back on track. And all of us in the first year office and your academic advisors, We're still around too, so if you have any questions, be sure to reach out to us. What's happening with midterms? Well, if you talk to upper year students, they'll tell you about midterm week that usually follows reading week. Now, due to the switch to online, many instructors have opted to go with smaller assessments scattered throughout the term instead of one big midterm week.

So this year, we don't actually have a midterm week instead the synchronous class needs are going to continue through that week following reading week and you'll need to do a great job of staying on top of your schedule to make sure you're aware of when those smaller assessment, so, smaller tests are planned. Overall advice that we can give, don't cram. Cramming is not going to work very well in this environment. Many of you have five or six courses coming at you in the fall term, and to expect

to be able to catch up while everything else is still coming, is- is going to take a lot of work. So, we would much rather that you manage your time well, continue getting enough sleep, and get help as you need it. If you find that you're starting to get stressed, your emotions are running high. Well, absolutely, reach out for help. So, that might be help from mom and dad. It might be help from a personal counselor, an academic advisor. It all depends, what's going on. Who would be the best per

son to think of that? And then we're back to class for a little bit longer. Yes, so it's time after midterms, can be quite rough on some students. So, whether midterms went well or not, you might be questioning your ability, whether you chose to the right program, faculty, or school. What you as a student should be doing is reviewing your midterms and test and making any necessary adjustments to your study strategies and time management. Again, that's where Mary and I come in, we can help you wi

th changing your approach, give you suggestions what may, or may not work. Keep working on getting better. I would make a plan for discussing your grades, with your parents. What information do you want to provide them? Graces will be available to the student, but they will not be mailed home the way it happened in high school, having conversations about grades is also a good skill for students to develop. I guess you could call it a difficult conversation sometimes. It's a good skill to learn.

For midterms, looking at the numbers a couple years ago. Roughly twenty five percent of a 1A student will fail one or more midterms. Now, the thing there is recognizing that it didn't work. So, make an adjustment to your approach to school. If you just pretend nothing went wrong, it's gonna keep happening. And we don't want that. So you gotta be proactive. Now it's understandable for parents, you may feel disappointed. Listen to them first. Then, take the approach of okay, why do you think this

happened? How can you learn from this and get ready for the rest of the term? Revisit conversations you've already had about campus resources and supports even if you've talked about these before, we find that students need to hear it over and over again. And then me today, yeah, I need that help. And then they're gonna go find it. Your students may be disappointed, you may be demoralized. Failing is not something you may have experienced before, and now it's coming at you pretty hard. Well, tha

t's what Mary and I are for, we can provide you with support. Engineering counselling can also help you. There are options to help you rescue the term such as the reduce load program. So, again, that's where you connect with your academic advisor. And then before, you know it, twelve weeks are up and we are heading into the final exam period. So, this term, final exams run December 9th through the twenty third. So technically, the last day of class is Monday December 7th. Why do we end on a Mond

ay? Well, we started on a Tuesday and we need to get that last Monday in. We have a study day. So, no class, no assignments due, nothing on Tuesday December, 8th. And then, final exams start on Wednesday December 9th, and run through until Wednesday December 23rd. We have Saturday exams. It's entirely possible, you will have an exam on a Saturday. And this fall, exams can also be booked on Sunday December, 13th. So, basically, everything's fair game. And, this is where time management is super i

mportant. As much as possible, we try to ensure that first year students have some gaps between their exams. So roughly one exam every two days, to give you a chance to breathe in between, but cramming is not going to be your friend here. You're going to need to make sure that you're well caught up on your material, so, that you're prepared and just doing the final review before you go into the exam. So, a study plan is critical and of course, being awake is a great way to start, when you're wri

ting an exam. We find students who do things, like pull all nighters, or get very minimal sleep before writing an exam, discover, when they go back, and look at their exam, that they have made a lot of really silly mistakes, and just thrown away twenty or thirty percent of their grade. So, all of those other life skills, the sleeping, the eating, the exercising, the time for having fun. You need to keep doing them, especially during exams. Now, the picture at the top of the screen, that I imagin

e some of the upper years on this call may have how little gasp, that's out of the physical activities complex. So, that's where many final exams normally are written, but that won't be your experience this year. You're going to be writing-, the large majority of your exams and tests are going to be written online. And then, before you know it, December 23rd is here. What happens next well, greats will be recorded through our system called Quest. They will start to appear on Thursday December 24

th. Now, that doesn't mean they all spontaneously appear on December 24th. It depends how quickly your profs get the grading in, and the grades loaded. So, they could appear through the Christmas break, through the winter holiday, Depending on whether you're a four stream student heading out to co-op, you'll be starting your work term on January fourth, or for those of you returning for 1B, classes start on January 5th. Now, an important thing to note, is the University of Waterloo is closed. Be

tween December 24th January 23rd. This is basically the only time of the year that we are shut down. Nobody's here. So, if you have questions, try to get in touch with us, either before December 24th, or after January 3rd, and we'll do our best to stay on top of the phone calls, and the emails, but this time of the year, we tend to get absolutely flooded with questions. What happens in the fall term? Well, it can feel a little bit uncomfortable. You will absolutely be challenged in all kinds of

weird and wonderful ways. We had a dean a couple years ago, who would love to reference that everybody will struggle with something, whether it's calculus or physics or turning your whites pink, because of a red pair of socks got in there. There's gonna be something that's kinda hard and weird and uncomfortable about this experience, but it's an amazing growth experience. So, make sure to connect with your classmates, have some fun along the way, and if you're in doubt, ask for help. My dad, an

engineer always said, the only silly question was the one that you didn't ask. So, absolutely, throw those questions out there. And we will help you find the information that you need. How to connect with us? Well, you have all kinds of channels for connecting with engineering in general. So, between our Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram, all of that, connect with us. First year advisor specifically me, Bill, Karen, David, you can connect with us at firstyear.engineering@uwaterloo.ca. So, you ca

n send questions there now, you can pop them in the chat, or sorry, in the Q and A, we aren't using the chat for questions here. And we'd be happy to get you questions to your answers. Answers to your questions, not questions for answers. Okay. Over to you, Daniella. Thank you so much, Mary and Bill. That was fantastic. And, as Mary mentioned, please, if we don't get to your question right now out loud or if we didn't answer it in writing in the Q and A session, please do feel free to email us.

And we'll do our best to get back to you as soon as possible, and the email addresses listed there, firstyear.engineering@uwaterloo.ca. I do also want to remind everyone that we're recording this session, and the video recording will be available in your Waterloo Ready learn course or in learn within the next week. So, we've had a bunch of questions submitted, which are fantastic. Please keep them coming and we will try to get to as many as possible. We also have several students, who are going

to join us to help answer. So, if our student panelists could go ahead and turn on their video now. I'm going to get them to introduce themselves and then I will be starting to ask the questions. So, we'll start off with Delainey. Delainey, could you introduce yourself please. Hello, everyone my name is Delainey Lindstrom-Humphries and I'm in mechanical engineering. I'm one of the current EngSoc Presidents and I'm going to be on term with all of you in the fall. Right now, I'm on co-op working f

rom home, and that's me. Awesome. Thank you so much Delainey. Olamide could you introduce yourself? Please. Hi, everyone my name is Olamide Olatunbosun. I am going to my 2B term of Chemical Engineering this fall. I'm the Vice President student life for the Engineering Society, so I'll be on term for your 1A term. I'm currently on co-op doing research in a microbiology lab on campus, and my interests are basketball, music and tik-tok. Awesome, love it. There's been some fun chat going on, and som

e tik-toc references in there. So, cool stuff. Melissa, could you please introduce yourself? Hi, everyone, I'm Melissa. I'm actually a recent graduate from Biomedical Engineering. I just graduated last month. I'm currently working as a product manager, and I'm gonna be starting at Microsoft in September. My interests are photography, music, and a little bit of art as well. Awesome, thank you, Melissa. And Ellen, will you please go ahead and introduce yourself as well. Hi, everyone my name is Ell

en, I'm in my 3A term of Systems Design Engineering. So, I'm currently in school, doing online school right now. I'm also involved in the engineering society, and I'm very excited that you are all joining us as engineers in the fall. Sure, I can take that one. Thank you!. Quest is your place for information. Sorry Bill, you can get the next one. You wanna look in Quest for the latest information. So, tuition and fees will be posted there and all of the fee arrangements, paying things, all of tha

t is explained there. I don't have the dates at the tip of my tongue, for when things are due. Perhaps Erica. I think tuition is due around August 25. It will appear on quest generally five weeks, four weeks before the term starts. So, at this point, you shouldn't see any fees being owed, but it will come. Wonderful, thank you so much. Let's go to the students for a minute and then I'll be coming back to you, Mary and Bill. So, for students, who are currently in classes, online classes, or who a

re on a co-op term, but did online classes last semester. Can you share a little bit of what that experience has been like, so far? And maybe any tips that you have for time management or working in a virtual environment. And Ellen, maybe you could start us off because I see you're nodding your head there. Sure, so online classes is definitely very different to in-person classes, but kind of how it's working for me right now, is our profs post, so, once- I think you have access to learn. I'm pre

tty sure you've access to learn already. But all courses are on learn. And our profs post different video lectures, and all the work we have to do, and we watch the videos, watch the lectures. And we cannot complete our assignments, how we would regular assignments. A couple of my courses have options to go to class on WebEx, like this. And our profs teach, like, using a pen on, like, a tablet. So that's pretty helpful. I guess the biggest differences is, you're not physically in class with your

peers, but there's still many ways to connect with them our class has our Messenger chat and a Discord server, and we can still talk and help each other with our courses. I think my biggest piece of advice would be make yourself a schedule. Just because the lectures may be available for you to watch anytime. It is much more helpful, if you're, like, scheduled time each week and every day, and try and keep it as normal as possible. So, that you're dedicating time to fit in all your classes. I th

ink that's great advice. Thanks Ellen. Olamide, did you want to add anything to that? Not a whole lot to add, just because I'm on co-op right now, and I only had the last two weeks of winter term online, but really just back, going off what Ellen said. Just scheduling time making sure you're consistent and going to class, whether it's attending a lecture at a certain time, or blocking off a certain period of time to go through a certain course, because it's very easy to get behind and overwhelme

d with everything being online. So, just making sure you have a set schedule, so, you are on top of everything is really key. Awesome, that makes a lot of sense. Mary, I'd like to go back to you for a second and Bill feel free to chime in. But, we did have a couple of questions from students about deferrals. Can a student defer to the winter semester instead of a full year or how does that work in engineering? So, unfortunately, no, in engineering 1A runs in the fall term and the way engineering

is structured is, you need to complete 1A, before you can move on to 1B. So, 1A is the first half of first year, 1B is the second half of first year. So, your option is to start the September or defer to next September, if there's no intermediate start option unfortunately. Okay, thank you Mary. To go down to our students for a second or over to our students. Maybe Delainey, you can help answer this because I know you're working on orientation for the fall. Are you able to share a little bit of

what the vision for orientation is, now that it's going to be virtual or anything that you can share about that? Or if it's still too soon that's okay. For sure. I can share a little bit of information without giving you too much away as we continue working through the planning stage. But orientation team has been working super, super hard to make sure that students have as many opportunities to connect as possible. There's going to still be a range of different programming/opportunities to sor

t of work with other students. There is rumors of a potential Minecraft server. So, stay tuned for that, but other things that are happening, are a bunch of video voice calls, a bunch of continued programming and a lot of the similar presentations with opportunities to connect with upper year students afterwards. Awesome! Orientation is one of my favorite events and times of the year and is so fun and I know that you guys are gonna do a great job getting it, making it virtual this year. So, that

'll be awesome. I'd like to go over to Melissa for a second and if any of the other students want to chime in as well, but melissa's a recent grad. Can you talk about how you were able to balance extracurricular activities and still have a life outside of the class? Yeah. So, I think that took me a little while to do just because, as you mentioned, and I, I'm sure everyone kind of knows this. Engineering is by no means easy, but it is for sure manageable. And, I think it really depends on person

to person. You kinda need to figure out what your own balances. So, you may see a lot of peers doing a lot of extracurriculars and still having time for academics. And, and, that could be you. But at the same time, I think it's important to figure out what you're comfortable with. So, my suggestion would be, like, start off with a few extracurriculars, start off with one club. See, how much time you can allocate to it and whether you still have enough time for academics and then at the same tim

e, you can slowly start building up your extracurriculars without compromising anything. So, I would take it slow. Do what you can that make sure you're comfortable, and not overburdening yourself. Excellent, thank you Melissa. And Ellen or Olamide or Delainey, did you want to add to that as well? I know you're all very involved. So do you have any tips for students, who are starting out in first year, for example, and just maybe advice for them. Should they get involved right away or just wait

to kind of feel things out and get into a routine. I have an answer for that one. One of my biggest regrets in first year was not getting in earlier. However, there's a limit to that. Start off small. Just, like Melissa said, you don't want to see all of the clubs and think I have time for all of these. You don't. You don't. Take little steps, at a couple at a time. Figure out what you can take on. You're not just adjusting to a new social life, but you're also adjusting to a whole new academic

world. Definitely, seek out the things that you're interested in, as you get more comfortable and confident with your workload, and you find maybe more side interests, feel free to pursue those. I think the major thing that I always have to keep in mind when taking on new involvement is, Do I ask, I still very much working on myself being able to do that, ask, do I have time for this in my schedule? Sometimes, the answer is no, and that's very okay. So, make sure you spend your time on the thing

s that you're passionate about, and you'll have a great time overall. Excellent advice, thank you Delainey. Bill, if I can go back to you for a second, can a students switch their co-op stream, once they've started, if they're unhappy with it? Generally no. Some of the programs are fixed like, civil is stream eight and that's it. And enviro/geo stream four, and that's it. Chem eng, mechatronics, mechanical, electrical computer, both streams. The problem with switching is there's, they're full. 8

stream is a high demand stream and we fill it up and then you go into four stream. So somebody may wanna switch. But where are you gonna sit? There aren't any seats. Okay, thank you. That's good to know. And, I think we've shared the link for streams, so, that you can find out what stream you're in. But you can also just look that up if you're interested. And Bill, another question that came in about the fall semester is, do students need to select classes or a schedule for the fall? Or do they

even have a schedule since classes will be online? They don't have to select any classes, all your courses are predetermined. And so your, for first year, for the programs, we look after, we will enroll all the students in the courses. Systems and biomedical will look after their students, getting them into courses. A schedule should be available towards the end of July. Depending upon whether a professor wanted to keep a scheduled time slot for their class, it may, or may not show up. If it sh

ows up, as you've got a whole bunch of blank spaces, then that's being delivered asynchronously. So, you can study it whenever you need to. If you discovered that you have a slot in your schedule at ten A.M on Monday, then show up for a live session. Okay, and could you talk a little bit about how labs are working? And, and maybe the students who are currently in, in classes right now, can talk about what Labs look like, and how that's currently being structured or how that might be structured f

or the fall. Maybe, Ellen did you want to tackle that one. Sure. Yeah, so I don't have a specific lab course this term, but I do have a design course this term. And so, usually, what happens in the design courses, we have, like, a lab period scheduled, where you can work on your design project. So, how that's working for my class is, is we use teams primarily for this course, which is a great place to connect with our professors and our TAs. And, we still have all our regular deliverables. We're

in our groups, and it's up to us to figure out when we're gonna meet each week and we meet on teams and we still work on our project. So my project kind of transitioned from more hardware to more software for this term, but I, I can just speak for the course I'm in right now. Okay, great. And Olamide, did you wanna add to that at all? Have you had any experience with labs or how that's been structured so far or how you've heard it's going to be structured. Yeah. So, I guess I can talk about the

last, two weeks of the term, winter term. Because I had two labs in 2A, and both of them ran online to a certain degree. So, my chemical engineering lab, we for some of our assignments, we just did online simulations. They were walkthroughs that were posted on learned, so we could recreate it using remote desktop and whatever software we needed in that regard. And then we had our lab exams online as well, done through learn. And, this coming term in the fall, at least for chemical engineering f

or one of the, I think it's just chemical engineering and nano who have the option to actually go on campus to perform labs. And, of course, this is gonna be done in socially safe way. So, limited people in the labs and lots of different times for people to go in. For other programs, I can't speak on that. But, everything we'll be able to, you'll be able to do all your labs remotely online. There's no pressure to, like, have to come to Waterloo. Even, if you're in chemical engineering or nano, a

nything can be done, done online and you'll try. The goal is to get as close to an in-lab experience as possible. It can be difficult, but challenging times. So, we're doing the best we can. Definitely and Mary, I saw you nodding your head quite a bit. Did you want to add to that at all? or? Yes, so the coronavirus website is the best place to go for the latest information. So maybe Erica can pop that up. So, for incoming students and current engineering students, there's the complete list of la

b courses, primarily lab courses that are running in the fall term. The only one that should be touching 1A students, would be chemical engineering students who can safely get to campus. If you can't, it's okay, you can do it remotely. CHE180 is planning to have some in person components, but yeah. What we're hearing from the different teaching teams as they figure out how to bring these design courses and lab courses online. We're hearing a whole bunch of different possible options. Some have p

acked up their labs. Different aspects of them and literally mailed them to students to complete. Others have done video sessions, like, clearly, some chemicals, we just, well, Canada Post won't mail them to you. So, those labs need to be performed on campus. So, the TAs have been in the labs videoing them. And, as Olamide said, some of them are normally simulation labs. So, by using things like eng lab and remote desktop, you can have the same sort of experience that you would have had on campu

s. Just sitting in front of a different computer. So, a lot of creative solutions for these problems. Definitely. Thank you Mary. We're getting quite a few questions about co-op and getting your first co-op job. So, one of the questions that came in was, what are the resources that are available for students looking to create their first resume, or maybe created a co-op, appropriate resume. So, maybe Ellen, or Delainey, did you want to speak to that a bit about some of the EngSoc supports that a

re available and how that happens virtually. Sure, so there's tons of resources on campus that have now moved online to help support you, get your first job, and make your resume. So, there's a lot of resume critiques that happen on campus. There's some program specific ones were upper years in your program host these sessions for your class, that happens definitely in the systems class, the upper year classes will critique your resume and it's super helpful. And also, the engineering society ru

ns a huge resume critique, and we get a whole bunch of upper year volunteers from every program and help critique resumes based on what you want to do. So, you'll come in. Well, I guess in the fall, it will be online. And you can send in your resume, an upper year can critique it for you. You can meet with someone and it's so helpful. Like, I came in, and I think the only thing I had on my resume was like, I was a lifeguard and a camp counselor, and people are able to help me critique it. So, I

was able to get jobs. And, and it worked really well. Awesome, thank you. And to build on that, I was thinking, maybe, Melissa and Olamide could you tell us a little bit about what you feel is most important when you're trying to get that first co-op job. Are co-op employers looking at your grades, are they're looking at personal projects? Do you have a professional experience? Like, if you've never had a job, how do you show that? And, and Ellen was talking about that a bit. But could you maybe

tell us a bit, what that was like, for you getting that first co-op job and then how you built on it from there. Maybe Melissa, we can start with you and then we'll go to Olamide. Yeah, for sure. So I think for your first co-op job, I think it's important, as I think Bill mentioned before, it's really hard to get a job in the first round. So be prepared to kind of go through a few rejections. It's completely, okay, if you have to go to continuous. Sometimes, the jobs are arguably better in my o

pinion in continuous round anyway. But the other thing is, I think it's really important to leverage your personal projects, because you don't really have too much going on at that point. And by no means, do you have to feel pressured to have a personal project with you? But, because engineering is so hands on, you're likely to have some class projects, like, whether that's your 1A design project or a specific course, you're taking, you did like, a really large collaborative assignment for that.

I think you can really include those in your resume and trying to make the most of what you've got. The other piece of advice is really try to leverage your upper years. So, I know, EngSoc has a lot of resume critiques. So, go to those, submit your resume to those. Just speak to upper years, ask them to you critique your resume, see where you can improve, a lot of times its just the phrasing of your resume as well. This, I think in first year, it's also a place where you can maybe include, like

, things you did in high school. If, if you were president of some club, you can add those in. And over time, obviously you're gonna get rid of those things. But at least in the beginning, it's, it's a good place to get started. Awesome. Thanks, Melissa. And Olamide, did you have some advice and what's worked for you? Yeah, definitely building on the high school experience part obviously, as you get into upper years, that becomes less valuable as you'll have actual, real world experience. But, f

or me, the way I actually got my first job was I got an interview for a company and we didn't even talk about the job at all. He just talked about my extracurriculars and all the different things I've been involved with in high school, whether it's being house captain at boarding school, or giving a TedTalk, or basketball, winning provincials. We just talked about the different things on my resume, that had nothing to do with the job. And, just having extracurriculars or things that make you sta

nd out, and just show that you're more than just the person who gets good grades, or more just an employee, you're a person who has a personality of interest. That's way more important than just being an intelligent person. Like, obviously, they're gonna teach you, you're not gonna know a lot about the job as a 1A student or 1B student in your first co-op. So, you're gonna learn a lot, but they want someone who's going to, who is easy and willing to be taught, because anyone can learn job skills

, but also somebody who will fit in with their personality, the company vibe, and all of that. Those things. Awesome. That's really great advice. Another thing that some of the students have been asking is what has been your favorite experience so far, and we've got about three minutes or so left. So, I would like to go back to all of our students. But, I mean, also, Mary and Bill, if you wanted to add to that at the end, that would be great too. But what's been your favorite part of Waterloo En

gineering so far? What is it that you love about Waterloo Engineering and, you know, think back to that excitement of starting your first year in the fall, and what that was like for you. And, if you could maybe share some of that with the students, who will be joining us in September. Ellen, can we start off with you? If that's okay? Sure, I'm trying to think of like, one, thing that's been like my favorite, but I don't think I can think of just one. I think just what I love so much of being a

Waterloo Engineering student, is just like the people I'm surrounded with. I love my classmate. We're all so close and we help each other through everything and I think it's just being able to learn other people, who, like share your interest is so great. I learned so much in class every day. I think definitely in first year, I didn't expect coming in, that I would learn so much in the course of four months. I came out and I was like, wow, that's crazy. I've learned, like, so much. That was just

made me smarter and made me was, like, wow, like, one day I'm going to apply all this and become an engineer. So, I think just look forward to your 1A term. I think it's gonna be different being online, but there's still ways to connect with your classmates and your degrees five years long, like one term or two terms online is not going to impact that much. You're gonna get back on campus and still make those in-person connections and still be able to live the full campus life and it will be so

exciting once you get there. So, it's gonna be, it's gonna be a great five years. Awesome, thank you, Ellen. Delainey, do want to share your favorite experience or just some words of, some advice for the students coming in, in September. I'm too, I'm also struggling to take an exact favorite moment. There's been a lot of great memories along the way. I think one of my favorite memories from first year, was working on one of the design projects. It was a whole new team of people. I never that ne

ver met, never worked with. But at the end of four months, I remember, presenting it. And they, for Mechanical Engineering, we had like the full, full SDC, student design center, booked. And all of the students, were just sort of walking around, checking everyone's out. And I just remember, like, that was the first sense of pride of looking at a project that I had made. I hadn't had a lot of that experience beforehand. So, it was just sort of seeing what I was working on, coming to life, with a

really great team. So, I think that was one of my favorite school related memories. But, when it comes to, coming into Waterloo, so, so well, you have an amazing four and two thirds years ahead of you. Take the time to pursue your passions and, like, be open to putting yourself out there. What I like to say about university is you have like, your comfort zone and then you have your growth zone and university is entirely in the growth zone. So, have a good time. Thanks, Delainey. For students, wh

o are just starting in September, anything that you have a fond memory of your time? Yeah, so I actually think I had a really different experience for most people, because I was an international student. And first year for me was honestly, like, not the best time that I remember. Like, I was little home sick, I was anxious, I was scared. So, I mean, obviously, I just want everyone to know that everyone has different experiences. But I think the most important thing is, I wouldn't take away any o

f that because it's changed so much of who I am as a person today. And, the one thing that I think I've learned through university that I, it's just resonated with me wherever I go, is that everything seems impossible until it's done. You know, like, I remember being in first year, and I was really scared and I was just like, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do this. But ultimately, when I got through 1A and I'm like, oh, I passed, it worked out. You know? So, at the end of it, like, definit

ely do your best, but don't be too hard on yourself. It is a transition. And as long as you're having a good time, and you're learning, and you're doing the best you can, I promise you, you'll be able to make it through. So, I guess that will be my piece of advice. Just believing in yourself a little bit. Thanks, Melissa. And Olamide, did you want to finish us off with some advice for students coming in and your favorite memory so far? Yeah, definitely my advice is to find your community on camp

us, whether it be a certain group of your classmates or the engineering society or a student design team or a club. There's something for everyone. And it's great. It's really important to have an outlet, that's non-academic, where you can relax, have fun, have a laugh, just get your mind off of things. In my first term, I tore my MCL, the day before orientation started in my 1A term. So, 1A was not the best time for me, but by the time, like, I was healed up, my 1B term was absolutely amazing.

I got super involved in the engineering society, ended up becoming a vice president. Ran a lot of events, met a lot of new people, and since then I've been able to see a lot of my friends and other people get involved, and find their passion, what they like to get involved in. That's super rewarding for me. Just, I'm the vice president of student life, I want to see people enjoy their lives as students. So yeah, just definitely finding your passion, finding your community, and just having fun wi

th this. Awesome, thank you so much. That's great advice. And I know we're sort of running a bit late. We're a little bit over time. Mary and Bill, did you want to add anything before we signed off or are we okay to to sign off? And, we will be providing the recording to everybody in your Waterloo Ready learn course. And we do have that email address there. So, if we haven't had a chance to answer your questions, please do email it to that email address. But Mary and Bill, did you want to add an

ything? Are you okay? I'll just add that I'm a grad of Waterloo Engineering. I went out to work and I came back and the number one reason I came back is, the students and the energy that you bring. This program is magic. It's unlike anything else. There are many great events. We're missing a couple of this fall. There are many more to come throughout your career and the help and support between students is amazing. So, like, Olamide said, find your people. They are here. Support each other. Than

k you, Mary. That's awesome. For myself, I didn't go to Waterloo. And kinda paraphrase what Mary said. In September, on a normal term, all the students, the new students are there, orientation, the upper years there, are there helping them. There's an energy that just vibrates. And it's, it's awesome. Yeah. The biggest thing for me is the students. Watching them grow. First year, I, I teach third year. The things they can do, when you get to fourth year and your final fourth year design project

is like, wow, did you do this? It's amazing. Yeah, the students, unbelievable! So true. Thank you, Bill. So, once again, I just want to thank everyone who joined us today. We are so excited to have you starting Waterloo Engineering in September. As a reminder, for any parents or supporters who joined us. Please, do sign up for that monthly newsletter and there will be parents and supporter live chats on August 5th and August 11th. So, if you need more information about those, that will be emaile

d out also. So, once again, thanks so much to everyone. Please take good care of yourself and we're looking forward to September. Take care.