University of Victoria
Over on the extreme west coast of Canada, we at the UVic ESS try to get as many of our events planned during our co-op terms. Our mandatory co-op program lends nicely to 4-month planning session leaving us with 4-months of execution time.
As far as non-social events, in spite of their being exceptionally social, our charity events are run in each of the 3 yearly semesters. Usually in February or March, we have our Order of Pi charity; in May or June we host our Sausage Fest; and in October we run Bug Push. Order of Pi tends to be our most lucrative event, routinely raising a few thousand dollars. This event is synonymous with Pi Throw, Pi Day, or any of the cream-filling based events that many engineering schools host, with our proceeds going to a children’s hospital in Victoria. Sausage Fest is a fundraiser for the Canadian Prostate Cancer Research Foundation. This event is focused on outdoor activities like races, fun in the sun type stuff, and barbeques. In the fall, we host Bug Push, a fundraiser for the United Way of Greater Victoria. This event hinges on our being able to push a Volkswagon around Ring Road (the circular road which encircles UVic) for 12 straight hours, with the car never coming to a complete stop. This event is widely publicized in Victoria, and routinely challenges the Order of Pi for the fundraising records. Each of these charities is run by a student, often a member of our ESS executive though not necessarily, and is supported throughout the faculty. Our dedication to charity is one of the focal points of the UVic ESS, and while being widely appreciated by our supported charities, is also recognized by our faculty, our school, and the professional community as a whole. The UVic ESS is exceptionally proud of our ability to run successful charity events in spite of our small school size, and our small engineering faculty.
Charity and philanthropy aside, we also take run many social events each semester. Our pub-crawls and keggers are always raging successes, though aren’t particularly unique. This past summer, UVic was proud to host our first Industry Social. This event brought 80 engineering students (approximately a third of the engineering student population during the summer) together with a dozen or so industry representatives from Victoria engineering companies, and potential job-sources. This event was a raging success, being attended with enthusiasm by our Dean of Engineering and also by our co-op department. Our hope is to continue to run this event, making it at least an annual event. Some other social events we have include sports tournaments (we’ve done ice hockey, soccer, volleyball, foosball, dodgeball, and a few other balls) which are always well received. Ice hockey usually takes the care for most popular though. Most semesters we try to also have a surf-trip, where we drive to Tofino to shred west-coast gnar for a weekend. This event is always looked forward to, especially in the winter where our waves (and near-zero water temperatures) can be nothing short of impressive. Finally we annually host a FROSH week for our new students, run by a pair of elected chairs. This is not uncommon for universities around Canada, but is unique at UVic. In past years, FROSH has fallen out of favor with our administration, leaving UVic Engineering as the only faculty on campus to have a FROSH celebration. This week includes scavenger hunting, some construction project (cardboard/duct-tape boats are a favorite), and a massive slip and slide in the middle of our main quadrangle, among many other events. We are hoping to follow FROSH week up with an event previously known as Dis-Orientation for our bridge students (3rd year engineering technicians bridge to UVic to complete their B.Eng). This event has fallen into obscurity in past years, but we are hoping to re-introduce it this January.
As far as CFES and WESST involvement, we have had a number of WESST executives and a handful of CFES ambassadors in past years. We current have none in either of the groups, but have an unusually young and eagre ESS coming up through the ranks, which will likely lend well to CFES and WESST involvement. Currently, UVic is also proud to be hosting Presidents’ Meeting on the west-coast. In recent years, we have also hosted the Western Engineering Competition (WEC) and the WESST-Retreat and Olympics. We look forward to hosting more as the years go past us.
University of Victoria Stream A
essa-vpx@engr.uvic.ca
essa-prz@engr.uvic.ca
University of Victoria Stream B
essb-vpx@engr.uvic.ca
essb-prz@engr.uvic.ca