Terri-Jane Yuzda












Fun, Games and Great Opportunities at U of C


Frosh Week Fanatics
Departmental teams welcome new students to the fun side of their engineering studies
with Frosh Week activities at the University of Calgary.


Editor's Note: Alan Martin is an electrical engineering student at the University of Calgary, currently on an internship work term at the university. He's been a university student for three years, and after his work term ends in August, he'll begin his final year of studies. This is his first student contributor column for The PEGG.




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BY ALAN MARTIN
University of Calgary
Student Contributor

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Once again, a new school year has arrived, bringing with it a fresh year of events and opportunities at the University of Calgary. Frosh Week introduced new students to engineering with a full week of fun Sept. 15 to 19.

Six teams competed against each other, including the five departments (civil, chemical, electrical, geomatics and mechanical) and a frosh team. Each team had a theme, ranging from Pirates of the Zooribbean (electrical) to Chemardi gras (chemical). All the teams were dressed for their theme, from the civil engineering Centurions to the kilted Scots of mechanical engineering, showing great engineering spirit the whole week.

The week officially began with the lighting of the torch during opening ceremonies in the engineering courtyard. Each department tried to have its biggest showing at this event, with many people in different costumes showing their spirit and supporting their department.

One Frosh Week event is Adopt-a-Frosh, which has frosh students mingle in the engineering lounge with returning engineering students, who share their knowledge, experiences and sometimes a few drinks. It is a great event, both for the new and returning students.

Another popular event is the chariot race. Each team brought a "chariot," which can be made out of anything from wood to old shopping carts. Team members pulled their chariots down a road lined with people. Blockers escorted the chariots, protecting them from a rain of unusual and often sticky substances graciously provided by the bystanders. While the winner is still the first one across the finish line, just finishing is worth it, as everyone shares in the celebrations.

The final event of Frosh Week is a recent addition, the Minotaur, which joined the tradition with its first run last year. The Minotaur has checkpoints set up throughout the engineering building, and frosh must try to find all the checkpoints while avoiding the "Minotaur" guarding each one.

This can be quite challenging, especially for first years, since the engineering building is a maze itself. Even after spending three years there, I still have trouble finding my way around the basement levels.
All in all, Frosh Week was a lot of fun for everyone. In the end the civil engineering team beat out all the other departments to be named the winner of Frosh Week 2003. Congratulations, Centurions!

Windows of Opportunity
Helping engineering students to learn about careers is an important duty of the Engineering Students' Society at the U of C. Sept. 25 was the University of Calgary Engineering Career Fair and Clubs Day.
This event, which has been gathering steam for two years, saw companies, organizations and clubs come together to give students the chance to see what's out there. In addition to companies' displays, there were displays set up for APEGGA, Engineers Without Borders, U of C Career Services, engineering departments and more.

A lot of useful information was available and many people came to take advantage of it. Workshops were also available before the career fair, both for resume writing and career fair preparation, in order to better prepare the students for this important event.

Said Career Fair Director Chris Popoff: "By measuring the success of this year's event, ESS can hope to see this become one of the strongest and more time-honoured events that we hold annually."

This event was put together through the efforts of Mr. Popoff and the rest of the organizing committee - Keith Knudsen, Allison Hagerman, Rob Johnston, Derek Kormish and Megan Cropper.

"I would like to thank the committee for all for their dedication and hard work over the long summer months, for putting up with my sometimes overbearing orders. I would also like to thank everyone who came down to represent their companies to our students, and would like to extend an open invitation for anyone interested in attending this event next year to contact me."

Reach Mr. Popoff at chris.popoff@baytex.ab.ca or by phoning (403) 267-0755.

APEGGA Mixer Succeeds
Oct. 1 featured another event designed to give students a better idea of what happens in the work world. The APEGGA mixer, organized by current Vice-President Academic Rob Johnston, with help from ESS and APEGGA, featured professionals from the engineering community and garnered a very high student turnout.

Refreshments, such as pizza and soft drinks, as well as a cash bar, were available at this event. The free food quickly disappeared as many students and professionals mingled, discussing what it's like to be working as an engineer and what kinds of opportunities are out there. There were also several booths set up by organizations related to engineering.

Prizes were awarded at the end of the day to several professionals and students who had filled their "bingo cards" for the day with names of other people fitting specific characteristics, such as "third-year engineering student," or, "attended university outside of Alberta." The cards encouraged people to mingle and provided a good icebreaker. Throughout the two-hour session, people were coming and going, but the room was always full. A big thanks goes out to all the professionals who attended, the organizers, and the students who took part.


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