To the absolute shock of everybody in the world, Waterloo is actually fun. I mean (rolling back a bit, and my apologies to UW and its people) Waterloo has a certain reputation. And I can confirm that it is true. HOWEVER, it’s also more than that—it’s what you make of it. I feel like that is a universal cliche true about any post-secondary experience. My point to anybody reading this is that you can definitely find community and things that inspire you at Waterloo. I’m writing here to share what I’ve found in the first half of my first semester in university.
If you don’t know who I am, my name’s Bill. I’m in my 1A term studying Mechanical Engineering at the University of Waterloo. I’m originally from Vancouver, and moving across the country for school was liberating. The day I got to Waterloo, I got my ears pierced. Sorry mom. Then, the Faculty of Engineering hit the ground running with:
O-week!
Orientation week was honestly insane. I did event planning-related things in high school, and when I saw how much was going on at once during O-week, I was just amazed. Again, you just gotta commit to the bit, and the bit will commit to you.
Purpling + Hardhats
I got pretty purple. I woke up at 5 AM and used the potent stuff on my face. Since I became Grimace, I thought I’d stain my white bed sheets a gory purple. Thank goodness, later that day, I got to crawl through a giant mud pit, which exfoliated my entire epidermis along with the dye off.
Junkyard Wars
I was on Team Dark Green Loki for O-week, and, sure, we only got 3rd place on the final podium, but we killed junkyard wars––and that’s the only thing that REALLY matters. Sure, I can complain about how the scores were scuffed and how we had to wait in the blistering sun for an entire afternoon (and also how I was so dehydrated that I started drinking water out of my hard hat), but just check the scoreboard.
ScavEng + Shenanigans
So another big event was ScavEng in the evening. If it wasn’t abundantly clear from the pun, it’s a scavenger hunt. I think I remember it being a lot of fun, but I was so beat, bruised, and exhausted from the rest of the day I CANNOT remember it. Also, it was dark out and I was disoriented. Some of the things I do remember include running back to my dorm building and crawling up the stairs to find a friend who donated to me a safe sex package with lube in it. I also remember rapping Nicki Minaj’s Monster verse with my full chest. Additionally, because I am an excellent decision-maker, I went to build a particular “project” with friends and pulled an all-nighter right before the first day of classes.
Dillon Francis
To wrap up the week, we had a Dillon Francis concert. Am I a Dillon Francis fan? Well, I can tell you this: there were like 3 openers before the man himself came on stage, and I thought each of them was Dillon Francis. It was raining and empty when the doors opened, but as soon as it got dark and the LED batons actually looked like LEDs, it was pretty sick. Since I went early with a friend, we were at the barricade and got the best bass treatment.
School + Work
Classes
Never in a million years would I think I would say this, but I’m glad I did IB because I swear on all that is good in the world, I would not be able to stay afloat if I did not. The concepts have been the same as in high school but with new approaches. For example, there are more calculus and linear algebra-based problems in physics than algebraic ones. Likewise, chemistry and maths (calculus and linear algebra) are the same stuff but with more complex questions and proofs. I can only hope and pray that the midterms will be ok.
Job Search
Thanks to the charity that is EngSoc and the UW community, I was able to get my resume torn to shreds—and through the scraps, I was able to improve it. I think I got my resume reviewed 5 times in 2 weeks. Although I thought my resume was pretty good, I got a grand sum of zero interviews in September during cycle 1 on WaterlooWorks. It was as humbling as it was stress inducing. But the only thing I could really do was continue searching, and I did on external job boards. Only outside of Waterloo did I finally get interviews at two really cool companies. Fingers crossed that I do well on ’em.
Concerts
CharliXCX & Troye Sivan
Ok, seeing the SWEAT tour was not planned. The tea is that a friend I met 2 days prior at an escape room had an extra ticket because his friend couldn’t make it anymore. On the day of the concert, I went to a thrifting event and bought a tennis-ball-coloured t-shirt that I edited into a shoulder-drop brat shirt for the concert. We took the brat bus (GO bus) to Toronto and concluded brat summer. Luckily, I hitched a ride back to Waterloo with him because his parents wanted to drive him home and see him since it was his birthday the next day.
Sabrina Carpenter
Seeing Ms. Carpenter was on my bucket list though. Back in June, I woke up at 6 AM to beat 10,000+ people for some presale nosebleed seats. The highlight of the night was when Carpenter herself RESPONDED TO ME. She was interacting with the crowd when she saw a pair of exes looking buddy-buddy and said, “I wish I could be that close to my ex.” At the top of my lungs, I belted, “OH NO, THE F*** YOU DON’T!” She was in the middle of saying something when she laughed and said, “I just heard someone yell ‘No the f you don’t girl.’ yeah, you’re right.” It CAN’T be a coincidence. She repeated what I said verbatim and directly after. Ask anybody in Section 312 of Scotiabank Arena that night. They can confirm. Afterwards, I crashed at my friend’s apartment and took the 6:30 AM train back to Waterloo.
Extracurriculars
EngSoc
Because of how hot and sexy EdComm was, I decided I would join EngSoc (they’re related somehow, idk). Each program’s cohort ran elections to vote for reps, and I managed to squeeze out the EngSoc rep role. So far, I’ve been to two overtime council meetings with meagre amounts of food at the end. Within the two councils, I won a patch for best-dressed first year and got voted onto an award-selection committee, which was exciting.
Waterloo Rocketry
Before coming to Waterloo, I knew I wanted to join a design team—I just didn’t know which one. At the Design Team Fair, I got to see all of them and their projects. I chose Rocketry because a) one of my orientation team leaders was the airframe co-lead, and b) airframe made their own composites and materials. The tutorials and projects I went to were super cool, and I got to build, design, and work in the machine shop. Then, I was roped into the flight dynamics subteam because I couldn’t say no. Now I’m struggling with determining if coning will happen on the upcoming rocket and if a spin can is needed.
EngPlays
EngPlays was out of left field for me. I went to the auditions for fun with a friend, and then I was promptly abandoned by said friend. Despite all the allegations, I am NOT a musical theatre kid. I didn’t do drama or musical theatre in high school. For the audition, I did not know I had to prepare a song excerpt to sing, so I made something up on the spot. I don’t think I did well on the script reading either. By the end of my audition, I was asked to improv a professor who just got divorced and whose wife took everything. Later that week, I got the role of the professor who just got divorced and whose wife took everything. Rehearsals for the show have been a lot of fun, but I swear the choreography and harmonies are harder than school right now.
The Wannabes: A Rock Band
I formed a rock band with some friends. We’re the Wannabes because we want to be a band. Fortunately, we were. We agreed to perform at the TalEng Show (you won’t believe what that is a pun for) but only got together to practice 4 days before the show. It took a lot of scavENGing to find a place on campus with a drum kit to rehearse. Within 3 practices, we settled on our setlist of 3 songs combined into 1 and got on stage. Me? Well, as someone with no experience in singing, I sang Freddie Mercury.
Sidequesting
Here’s a buzzword that’s (almost) everywhere in Waterloo: sidequesting (or SYDE-questing if you’re nasty like that). It’s a general phenomenon where people here are just doing something and you can find yourself doing something too. Here’s some other stuff I’ve just been doing:
Socratica
I’ve been going to Socratica! It’s a super cool (and sometimes bougie) workspace where people work on anything and everything except school, so basically abetted procrastination. I’ve been working on my personal website and portfolio during the sessions—I also wrote most of this blog thingy there. It’s been super cool watching the demo showcases at the end of the sessions.
Model rocket competition
This competition was run by Waterloo Rocketry. We ran some sims and built mini rockets, fins, and parachutes. I’m not biased, but my group made the best rocket: The Jollibee.
Petting zoo
One day, there was a petting zoo that just appeared and then disappeared. I had a chinchilla on my shoulder and tried petting a nonchalant alpaca.
2:00 AM UofT Tour
Right after the Sabrina Carpenter concert, I went to crash on my friend’s couch. However, after some instant hotpot and a musical conversation with my high school French teacher on iMessage, I went out with my friend’s roommate to wander UofT. We saw a fox and a skunk chilling together and ended up in Myhal.
Stargazing & Aurora Borealis
On a night we thought there would be northern lights to see, there weren’t. Still, we drove 30 minutes out past Fergus and parked on the road to stargaze. Then, on another day when we didn’t expect northern lights, there were. So, we climbed the V1 roof to take some photos.
Semi Formal
Semi Formal hosted by EngSoc was as fun as it would get for engineering majors. The decorations, music, and drinks were all there; all you could bring was some dance moves.
Conclusion
And yeah, those are some of my highlights from the term so far. I need to get back to studying for midterms, so see y’all in two weeks.
Cheers,
Bill
tldr: People do things, and I am a person, so I did stuff.
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