Hello
everybody. Thank you for joining us today for the Study STEM programs at
the University of Guelph webinar. We'll just give everybody a few seconds to trickle in
before we officially start, but it's nice to see so many of you joining us.
Hello again to everybody still trickling in. Welcome to everybody who's here with us so
far. While we wait for just a minute before we get started, I invite all of you that are here already
to just open up the Q&A button and type in the name of the city or the country that you happen
to be watching this webinar from, and I'm happy to read off a few responses so everybody can hear,
you know, where you're from, because you never know who's interested in studying at Guelph and
is from the same area is you. So please let us know where are you watching this webinar from,
and feel free to add in what program you've applied to, uh which major you've applied to,
and I can certainly start us off. Although I work at the University of Guelph, I'm coming
to you from the city of Kitchener today, doing this webinar from uh just outside of Guelph. So,
Kitchener is located in Ontario. I do have a real University of Guelph campus location up
as my background though, but I'm curious to know where all of you are joining us from.
Okay, I'm seeing a few people from the GTA, so we've got Toronto, we have Vaughan,
also Kitchener, Guelph, um uh looks like a few people from the US as well, Houston,
Texas. Welcome, that's amazing. Ottawa, Caledon,
Hamilton. Interested in computer engineering, someone wrote. Perfect. Animal biology.
Bachelor of Science. Environmental
engineering. Peterborough, a few more from Guelph, Windsor. Argentina!
Welcome! That's fantastic! That's incredible to see the range of places, so thank you to all of
you who've shared that with us so far. I hope that gives you all some um an understanding
of just the breadth of how many people are in this room and from uh how many regions.
So that's wonderful, thank you, I think we can officially begin now. So, hello again,
and welcome to everybody to the University of Guelph's presentation today on STEM programs.
So we'll be covering the degree programs in science, technology and computing, engineering,
and mathematics. My name is Purvi, and I'm a recruitment officer here at the University,
and I'm the main host of this webinar today. I am joined by another staff member, Hillary,
and a whole team of current students that are pursuing their degrees here in the STEM areas,
so you'll get to meet them very soon too. We're so excited to have you join us and learn more about
these incredible program areas at the University of Guelph and as we've just seen so many of you
are joining us from different regions and time zones uh around the world, so we really appreciate
you taking the time to visit with us today, and learn how Guelph can play a significant role in
your future as it has for so many other students. I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge that the
University of Guelph resides on the land of the Between the Lakes treaty number three,
the territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit. We say this as a reminder of our responsibility
we have to the land where we live, learn, and work. So today's presentation will be about an
hour maybe just uh over a couple of minutes, including some time for question and answers
based on what we're seeing you put into the Q&A and what we know incoming first year
students usually want to hear about. So we'll talk about the four different academic degrees today,
plus you'll hear from our students and what opportunities they've experienced so far,
and then you as the attendee will learn about your next steps as a future student. Please
feel free to use the Q&A function throughout the presentation. My wonderful colleagues from
the admission team are with us today and they will be monitoring and answering your questions
behind the scenes for us, so thanks in advance to those of you working away on the chat today.
A little bit about me and then I'll pass it over to the others to hop on camera shortly after. I'm
a staff member now at the University, but I'm also a University of Guelph alumni. So I came to Guelph
years ago when I turned 18, and I moved here from a really small country in Southeast Africa called
Malawi. I earned a Bachelor of Science degree, I worked in the veterinary industry for years,
before doing a career change and then coming to work at the University um in the marketing
and recruitment sector. And I never thought I'd work on campus again once I graduated,
but even well over a decade later you never know where your journey takes you and it is certainly
great to be back on my old stomping grounds. My G reason why or the reason that I said yes to
accepting my offer to the University of Guelph, was because I knew that the vet school at Guelph
is a top ranked School in the world um it's number one in Canada, so it was a very obvious
choice for me. But also when I lined up all the brochures of all the schools I was considering,
because remember I lived overseas, so I couldn't pop over for a quick campus tour, or I didn't have
a rep come to my school and do a presentation. So I did have to literally choose, you know,
judge a book by its cover, um and I was most attracted to the University of G viewbook and it
was just an intuitive feeling that served me well and I couldn't have been happier with my choice.
I wholeheartedly recommend this institution as a place to live and learn, and I'm sure a lot of
you will get something just as positive out of it too. And with that, I'm going to pass it over to
Hillary to introduce herself. Thanks Purvi. I am Hillary Rooyakers. I'm the Engineering Recruitment
Officer at the University of Guelph. So a little bit about myself, I have a bit of a mixed
background. I did not go to the University of Guelph as a student. I was one of those students
that, it took a while for me to figure out where my interest laid and and what to do that how to
make money sort of tie my interest into a career, and that's what I encourage students to do here
today. Consider what are your interests and how can you pursue that into a career going forward.
I am from a small town of Bellwood, Ontario. That is just about 40 minutes north of where Guelph is.
And my G reason why, from a staff perspective, I guess, is our green campus, it's very beautiful,
um staff like taking walks during their breaks, um going down to the Arboretum, and things like
that so definitely our Green campus is what I love Guelph so much. Awesome, thanks Hillary. And then
these are our amazing student panelists who can speak to each of the STEM areas that we cover
today from the student perspective. So I'll invite everybody on screen now, just take a few moments
to turn your camera and mic on, and introduce yourself, where are you all from, and what are you
studying in order of the photos. We'll start with Anna and we'll end with Peter. So go ahead Anna.
Hi everyone, uh my name is Anna and I sorry if you can hear noise. there's a garage door being opened
in my house. But I'm in biological engineering, I'm in my second year right now uh, my hometown
is Kingston and um I was actually originally born in Ukraine but now I'm studying here thank you.
Oh, I think it's me, um hi everyone. My name is Vinay Joshi, um I'm a uh fourth
year undergraduate in the BMath program. I'm originally from India, southern part of India,
but um I moved here less than a decade ago, so yeah. Hi everyone, my name is Sarah. I'm
in my fifth year in the software engineering program with co-op. I originally am from Jordan,
um but I'm currently living in Mississauga, so it's just a city a little bit outside of Guelph.
Hi everyone, my name is Karen. and I'm in my third year of biological and medical physics with a
minor in computer science and I'm from Sterling, Ontario which is kind of near Belleville.
Hey everyone, my name is Peter. I'm in alumni, I was in the biomedical toxicology program
with co-op, and now I'm pursuing my MSc in chemistry with a specialization in toxicology,
and I'm actually from Guelph so I decided to uh stay in my hometown.
That's great, thank you so much to all the students joining us uh even in the
you know in the middle of your very busy midterm season. So they all volunteered to be here and
share their stories with you because they were just in your shoes uh just a few years ago so,
uh I really hope that our audience members will learn some new things from you all
today. A few interesting facts about Guelph, just because this may be your new home away from home
for the next four to five years, so a couple things you can look forward to. If you look
at the map on screen, Guelph is the big red dot. So we're very close, we're about an hour
away from Toronto, and 45 minutes from Pearson International Airport. The other two red dots are
our smaller sister campuses located in Ontario, as well, but all the programs we review today
are delivered at our main Guelph campus. Guelph is a great midsize city, rated as one of the top
places to live across the whole country, and it's also known as one of the safest. As someone who
has lived in Guelph for nearly 20 years, I can vouch for what a beautiful atmosphere there is.
We have a river and a lake here uh in the city for a beach day, we have sports arenas and stadiums,
lots of small and large events, artsy and musical festivals happening year round. It just makes it
a really vibrant place to be, and our University is considered midsize too. So there are those that
are much bigger than us and those that are much smaller, and I always think when you're living
alone for the first time at 18, it it's really helpful to have a place that's a very comfortable
size, easy to navigate, not overwhelming, and ideally with lots of nice outdoor spaces, to study
or hang out with your friends, and our campus is known for being one of the most attractive in
Canada. We do enjoy having a well-known reputation for a number of things, uh particularly research,
where we are the number one school to receive the highest amount of funding from research dollars
for discovery. Guelph is also very famous for its agricultural programs, along with
being Canada's food university, and of course our Veterinary Medical School, as I mentioned earlier,
which is ranked number one in the country and sixth in the world. We are also proudly among
the top 10% of the most sustainable universities globally. Before we uh dive into the programs,
here's some terms that you'll probably hear today from our students that you may not yet be familiar
with, so I'll quickly explain with an example. So what is a degree, what is a major, and what is a
minor. So we'll use the Bachelor of Science for an example. So a BSc is the name and the level of the
degree that you graduate with, and it's a defined academic area of study and then within that you
can select an area to specialize in and that's called your major. So for example, you could
select chemistry. So you would take about 75% of your courses um in the subject area of chemistry
and then the other 25% are usually there's room for electives. So you could use that space,
this next part is optional, but if you have or you develop a secondary area of interest to you,
and you formally want to pursue 10 courses in that specific subject area, then we call it a minor,
and it will show up on your transcript. So business is a popular example of what STEM
students often take and it just adds to your portfolio when you graduate. I didn't take a
minor, so it's important to know that that part is completely optional. What is co-op? Co-op
might also be a term some of you hadn't heard of. I know I didn't know what that was living
overseas until I got here. But co-op is an option and you can see if your program is available in
in it. We'll review the ones that are and if you qualify for it at the time of application. It's
just based on your academic marks, then you can spend some terms at a fulltime paid job
and then other terms back in class studying. This way you get about four to five work terms
in, and you can earn while you learn, and you get industry experience, references, and a
professional network before you even graduate. If your program is not available in co-op,
there's still plenty of experiential learning opportunities for all students to get involved
to still give you those hands-on skills. And I'll show you what a sample co-op schedule might look
like. So in this schedule, uh anything in gold means you are in class on campus studying in your
courses, and in the red blocks, you're expected to secure your own job and be working full-time with
no academic classes. You'll see your first two years in this schedule, you're fully in class,
and you've already done half your degree before you even start your first work term. Each block
here represents four months, so when there's two back-to-back red co-op blocks, like in year three,
um you know at that point you could uh line up two different jobs for four months each, or spend one
eight-month term somewhere. Remember you are responsible for securing your own co-op job,
but we do provide you with lots of resources and assistance to help our co-op students make that
possible. And with that, let's dive into talking about our academic STEM programs, and we'll start
with science. So our Bachelor of Science Program is our largest degree with 22 majors or areas that
you can specialize in. We normally divide them into the biological science majors and physical
science majors. Physical sciences are more related to chemistry and physics, and the biological
sciences focus more on human and animal health, nutrition, and molecular biology. Anything with
the red square next to it means it is offered in co-op and regular. There is a difference in the
math courses you need for admission when you're comparing biological science majors and physical
science majors, um so just make sure you look carefully at what your high school requirements
are, whether you're applying to a major in the top half or the bottom half of the slide. Those of you
interested in healthcare have several options from either section to choose from, including physics,
neuroscience, biomedical toxicology, to name a few. Biological and pharmaceutical chemistry
students actually do have the option to do a local exchange with nearby Seneca College,
and take courses in your third year in applied areas like pharmaceutical formulations,
manufacturing, and advanced drug analysis. It's a very popular major for those interested in going
into pharmacy or the pharmaceutical sector. For our animal related majors, there's a few
here you can choose from, such as animal biology, marine and freshwater, biology wildlife biology,
and conservation and zoology. Your courses can include subjects focusing on animal genetics,
nutrition, physiology, and even ecology, which is the study of how animals and plants interact
with their environment. These majors are often the most popular, and certainly the most linear path
for future veterinarians, but you don't have to limit yourself to an animal-based undergraduate
specialty. You can pursue science however it interests you by even taking something
like chemical physics or microbiology. They can still lead you into the veterinary field. One of
our physics graduates complimented their degree with a minor in computer science,
and ended up working on the movie Shrek where they were able to add in the shadows to make
the animations look more realistic. In biomedical science and human kinetics, our students are among
the only undergraduates able to participate in a human anatomy dissection lab. So those future
doctors and healthcare practitioners really have a major advantage to studying at Guelph. This is
the perfect place for me to introduce our first science student Karen. So Karen would you like
to come on screen and just chat a bit about each of the points here, and then I'll ask you some
questions. But mainly take some time to share with our audience today what drew you to Guelph and to
your physics program. Absolutely! So hi everyone, uh my name is Karen, and I'm in my third year of
biological and medical physics. Coming out of high school, I was very interested in biology,
especially medicine related to human biology, but I was really good at physics and math and I would
get pretty good grades. So I figured I would do a combination of the two, something that I'm really
interested in, combined with something that I'm good at, and biological and medical physics was
kind of the perfect thing for me. Um I also have a minor in computer science, and that actually
started near the end of my first year. In the physics degree at Guelph, there is a mandatory
first year computer science, just introductory to computer science course that you need to take,
and I took it and I absolutely loved it. I really loved the logic and kind of solving little puzzles
with little coding pieces um and being able to learn and and develop in that kind of environment.
Absolutely loved it, and so towards the end of my first year, I chatted with one of my program
advisors, and we kind of scheduled out how I would be able to take that minor. Biological and medical
physics doesn't leave a lot of room for electives, so it is a little difficult to put in a minor,
but with help from the advisors, who are really quite helpful and nice, we were able to figure it
out and kind of plan that all out. I'm from Sterling, which is a really tiny town near
Belleville, Ontario. And so coming from a little tiny town and wanting to pursue a science degree
at a university, I was a little nervous about getting into a big city. So I came to Guelph,
I came for a tour um before I had accepted my uh offer, and I found the tour kind of the perfect
experience to realize that Guelph was the right place for me. It's a really nice campus, first of
all, and although it's a pretty reasonably large university, it gives off some small town vibes and
I definitely felt at home here. And then we went for lunch on campus, and the food was incredible
and that was the kind of final piece that made me know that this was the right place for
me. Perfect, thank you for sharing that, and so a couple questions for you Karen. Can you think
of a really interesting course you've taken in your program so far that you enjoyed, and can you
tell us a bit about it? Yeah, yeah so in second year of the biological medical physics degree,
you take a course called Biophysics of Excitable Cells in your second year. And coming out of first
year, where first year you kind of take a lot of different fundamental courses, biology, physics,
chemistry, math, that are all very separate, and you may not be interested in all of them. I know
I'm not the biggest fan of chemistry, uh but I do love biology and physics. And so coming
out of that fundamental first year, and getting into Biophysics of Excitable Cells, which for
me is one of the most interesting courses I've taken. It really combines physics and biology
into one. You take all the things you hear about in biology, like neurons and action potentials,
and you really place it into a physics state of mind, and you understand what
those Action potentials are on a fundamental level, and that stuff is very fascinating to
me. That sounds really fun. And another question for you would be um that a lot of students are
torn between whether they take co-op or the non- co-op version of their program,
and you've actually done both, so can you tell us a bit about that journey and your ultimate career
goals? Yeah absolutely, so coming into uh my first year I was in the co-op program, and initially I
joined this major biological and medical physics because it interested me, but I had no idea what
kind of career path that would lead me to, no idea what kind of jobs were even an option. And so I
joined co-op to figure out what I wanted to do, to do different co-op jobs with different options,
whether it's industry research or clinical based, and be able to do that discovery. On my first
co-op term, I worked at a optometry clinic and absolutely loved it. I uh really fell in love
with it and now I'm going to pursue optometry as a professional degree after my finished my
undergrad, but optometry school is another four years after undergrad, and I realized that since
I found what I want to do I no longer really need co-op. Co-op had kind of served its purpose for
me and so I did end up leaving the co-op program, simply just to shorten the amount of time so I my
undergrad would be four years instead of five but co-o,p without co-op I probably wouldn't
have been able to have that experience, so I definitely appreciate joining it in the first
place. Great, yes, thank you for sharing that. Um so if anyone has any further questions uh for
Karen please pop them in the Q&A and then at the end of session I'll come back and see what we can
answer together. So there are several reasons why one should study science here, and one includes
our facilities. We have the largest DNA Bank in North America, so every living animal and plant
is assigned a barcode so we can identify all the different species, and that information is stored
in a library, if you will, and cataloged. So that attracts a lot of world renowned scientists,
geneticists, and researchers to come to our school and access the barcodes we have. We also have the
Hagen Aqualab on site, which can simulate any aquatic environment in the world. This
is a center for studying things like, behaviour, disease, genetics on aquatic animals that live in
a variety of water habitats, and I love that our physics department at Guelph uh has helped NASA,
where one of our physics professors built an important instrument that lives on the Mars rover,
which analyzes mineral content of the rocks on Mars, which was a major part of the mission that
it was sent to do, which was determining if Life on Mars is possible. So we actually have a super
secret NASA communication control room on campus, which is cool. Even if your major is not available
in co-op, there's plenty of ways to still get hands-on learning, through labs research,
and field courses. Some cool field courses you can take could be right here in Ontario, but some of
them will actually get you out of the province and over to Nova Scotia, and you can do some
oceanography work on the Atlantic, or you could go to the Midwest us for a crop science tour, or even
find yourself in Costa Rica studying agriculture and visiting coffee and pineapple plantations.
First year labs can have an average of about 30 students so that's a great
ratio to have and probably very similar to what you're used to in high school,
which is nice. So this is not a final list by any means, but some very real career outcomes
that our students have secured include using your degree to pursue any medical practitioner role. Um
so there's a few listed on screen now, so doctor, optometry, chiropractor, vet, etc. Um you could
also work in nuclear energ,y forensic scienc,e environmental analysi,s drug development, uh the
list is endless. Here's a snapshot of what some of your typical first year courses can look like,
and it'll depend if you're on a biological or a physical science major. We won't go through this
in any depth, but I would recommend scanning the QR code if you're interested in seeing
the specifics for your major, as there can be some variety um from what's on screen now. But
first year again is really establishing the solid fundamentals across all the sciences,
so biology, chemistry, physics, and math, and leaving some room for electives to to explore
other areas. And now I'd like to introduce our second and final science student representative,
Peter. So he's a graduate and proud alumni from our Bachelor of Science program,
so Peter if you'd like to come on screen and just introduce yourself through the points here,
and then I'll ask you a few uh questions about your experience too, but uh again what drew you to
Guelph, into your program? Yeah so my program was the biomedical toxicology program with co-op. I'm
actually from Guelph, so the decision to stay was kind of hard, kind of tricky, but the the
main reason why I decided to um stay is because the biomedical toxicology program, I think it's
one out of two in all of Ontario. Um and this program was kind of perfect for me because I
was on the fence of whether I wanted to go into academia, um, research, or into medicine, and I
think that this program kind of bridges all three categories um very nicely into one package, um
which would be the program. As well as it offers real work experience in the form of co-ops. Um
the big reason why I chose Guelph also is because they have this new Summerlee Science Complex with
a bunch of different types of uh instruments and and uh facilities that I'd never be able to get
access to if I went to different schools. As well as I thought that the teacher and student ratio
was very good. I think that because I wanted to do research, the more professors um that were in
a department in comparison to students, uh gave me more opportunity to work for these professors.
Thanks Peter! Uh so you were a co-op student, so could you maybe elaborate on an interesting work
term that you did during undergrad. Yeah it was uh, it'd be my first co-op term, so um you can
split them up into kind of however um or whatever sequence you'd like. I did an eight-month Co-op
term at a private toxicity firm called Aqua Tox. And every single um provincial manufacturing plant
would have to kind of report uh like samples and affluent um to to our company, and we would test
them to see whether or not they met the provincial guidelines. And I thought that was awesome because
it gave me an opportunity, I had very little lab skills at the time, but it gave me an opportunity
to hone my previous lab skills, as well as new lab skills, so a bunch of stuff to add to the resume,
but it also got me exposed to what it's like working in an actual like company with deadlines,
um lots of networking opportunities, and a high ceiling to grow. So I thought that experience was
very eye opening, um and it led me um to a bunch of different co-ops in Guelph as well. Wonderful,
and as a science student, uh there can be many challenges in managing workload. So you
were very involved as a student, you did a lot of extracurriculars and research on top of your full
course load. So can you talk us through what that looked like for you, what were you involved in,
um and how you managed it all? Yeah so in my first, I think it was my second year,
I think it was my second year I joined the uh uh the cancer awareness and support association
here at the University of Guelph. This is where we did a lot of fundraising events for um just people
that are going through cancer and for people that have loved ones that are going through cancer. I
thought that experience was very fulfilling. As well as, right now I am an executive member for
the Guelph chess club and that's pretty recent, but I fell in love with chess,
and then um I just decided to make one of my passions into just a hobby that I could do with
others at the University. Um my biggest advice for joining clubs, is join clubs that you you
know actually find interesting, um but go to a bunch of different meetings, you know at these
meetings you can kind of fall in love with the club, and what they're about, as well as meet
uh really interesting, exciting people. Um for the work balance with my research, it's more so,
again, like you need to research stuff that you're actually interested in. It's easy, um, it's easier
in Guelph to get research experience because there's so much um to offer here. Um but you
just have to make sure that what you're studying kind of fits with what you want to do later in the
future. Awesome, awesome. And finally um can you talk a bit about your ideal career
outcome. So what kind of job do you hope to pursue with your degrees. Yeah absolutely,
so right now I'm pursuing a uh a master's uh in chemistry and my focus is on protein biochemistry.
As well as oligonucleotide chemistry, which would just be DNA chemistry. And I'm trying to bridge
the two worlds and right now I'm trying to design a drug that's made of the same thing as your DNA,
but it actually inhibits proteins that are um throughout your body and cause uh different
types of cancer. And with this master's degree, I want to do a PhD degree right
after I complete my Master's and, then I want to work at a biotech company,
trying to develop a cheaper alternative to um the common cancer drugs that we have
today. Amazing, thank you so much for sharing that. So if anybody has any questions for Peter,
or for Karen, remember just put them in the Q&A for us and we can
circle back to them at the end. And now I'll pass this section over to Hillary,
and invite her to come on screen and take you all through our accredited Bachelor of
Engineering program. Thank you, Purvi. All right so next is the E of stem. All right,
so just a a brief overview of what I will talk about in the engineering section of
this presentation. So first of all why would you pursue a BEng. So I'll touch on a little bit of
that. Um next we will summarize each of our eight majors that we have at U of G. We did have seven
but we've recently added mechatronics, that is new this year. Um then we will meet a current student,
so you will you will get to meet Anna again, she will talk a little bit more about her program.
And then we'll go a little bit more in depth about our program. I will make a note here there is a QR
code on the screen. feel free to catch that right now, so that just takes you to a a PDF version,
of our engineering brochure. So anything that I am talking about now or in the next few moments,
you can read a little bit more about it. Of course with the interest of time, we got to fit
everything crammed into a short presentation for you so please feel free to do that
now. All right, so why would you study a BEng? So first of all, we've got uh complete four
major design projects in interdisciplinary teams. This is what I like to say is unique
to Guelph. Um so when you come into Guelph, if you are a first year engineering student,
you select your major right away, so it's a direct entry program. So when you
apply to Guelph, you will select biomedical engineering or mechanical engineering,
but when you start you are taking a common core across the board, and you share four major design
projects with your peers. So these are in mixed teams starting right away in year one. Next,
is probably the reason why most students choose Guelph engineering is our strong community. So
whether you're in year one or year four, you can always sit down in a lab and you'll start
a conversation with the person beside you. There's a lot of um help surrounding you,
a lot of opportunities to join some clubs and groups, and social connections a lot
of chances to meet people that are on campus. Networking is very important within engineering,
and it's just a it's a nice feel within the building. So it's extended from the campus,
but a little bit strong within engineering. Um next, we are ranked 16 on Maclean's list of top
20 engineering programs and it is from 2023. We have a lot of opportunities for experiential
learning. I have a few slides that cover a lot of these details moving forward that I'll touch
on a bit more. But there is a few listed here and additionally we have a supportive academic
environment, so we have three engineering program counselors right in our building if you need any
help regarding your courses, or your pathway through engineering program, and we also have
engineering peer helpers. So if you're maybe not so comfortable talking to a staff member, we have
your peers that are in paid positions that are in upper years that are there to help you as well.
All right, so we'll get into our eight majors, so I've got four on this slide, and four on the
next. You'll notice the theme going across all of these, the theme at Guelph is Improve Life,
so it's improving life in these different areas of engineering. So the first one we here have
here on the left, is biological. So that's for our students that are interested in chemical
engineering. This is a sort of chemical major with a mix of biological processes within. So they're
Improving Life by producing safe and abundant food, developing sustainable environmental
solutions for agriculture and designing life enhancing and life saving products. There's
a little bit of overlap with biomedical, but think a lot smaller with the biological side,
less human health, there's still some human health in biological, but this one's more
chemical. This program is unique in that it has three specializations, where are other
majors you can focus your electives in an area of emphasis, this one will show up on your degree
when you graduate. So those three specializations are biochemical engineering, food processing,
and environmental sustainability. So next in blue here, we have biomedical engineering. So
these ones are concerned with human health. I will say that you can go into veterinary medicine after
biomedical engineering, as well. We have had animals in our motion capture lab as well, so
that's really cool um so they're apply engineering principles innovating or innovative technologies,
and designing solutions to improve human health. The next two majors are computer themed majors.
The one on the left there, the brown major, they improve life through advancing computer tech. So
to summarize it, they're building the computing machines, they're making them work better, faster,
they're making them smaller, and more discrete. Um so they're working on the computers themselves,
how they work. Beside that, systems and computing, in red, they don't care so much how the computer
was built, but they wanted to complete what they need the system to do. So they're using knowledge
from all of our other majors to create a system. So if you're thinking of, as an example um,
an ambulance. An ambulance has a whole bunch of different working parts, it's got the sirens,
the lights, the sounds, a systems engineer would figure out how to get all of those systems working
together as one. So on to our next four, so mechanical is our most popular major. It is
also the most widely recognized major across all industries. So they they have very hands-on, it's
not just automotive, it is incorporated into a lot of different industries, but they are applying
uh innovative design concepts and engineering principles to the world around us to improve the
quality of life. So I kept that one very general because it is a pretty general engineering major
to pursue. Uh next is mechatronics, so this is our brand new major. So this one combines a few
of our majors to create this new one. It is very programming, coding heavy, as well as our computer
and systems engineering. But it combines the mechanical, on the left here, to electrical
and computer engineering, with a bit of AI um to design these cutting edge smart automation
and robotic systems that improve life in general. Again this one, similar to biological engineering,
also has specializations. So students come in and they select one of the two listed here, so
you've got robotics, control, AI or manufacturing and automation. The last two are for our students
that are all about environmental advocacy and sustainability. So the one on the left, the green,
environmental they advocate for local and global change by working to improve life on our planet.
It is very general, it includes a little bit of water, there there's a lot of overlap with these
majors, but the one on the right there, Water Resources, they design solutions around preserving
and protecting our planet's water resources, so it's very water focused. Both of these majors are
um I'll say they're unique in a way that they are very civil based but they're niche areas
of civil engineering. So those that are on uh the call today that are interested in civil,
you might have an interest in one of these two majors as
well. All right, so I will bring Anna on, she's the biological engineering student that we have
here today to give a little bit more detail on why she chose Guelph. Uh more about specifically
why she chose biological engineering out of all of our majors, um and what she hopes to do when she
graduates, and anything else she wants to share with you. Thank you Hillary. Um so my name is Anna
uh and I come originally from Ukraine, and I lived in Winnipeg, but now my hometown is Kingston. And
one of the reasons I chose biological engineering at the University of Guelph is, when I was in high
school, I'm sure as all of you are going through it, it was very hard to choose a degree that you
wanted to do because you don't really know what you want to do. Uh I was specifically interested
in like food systems and food science, but I wanted to incorporate technology into it, and so I
thought engineering was the perfect option for me. And uh Guelph has biological engineering, which
is a very niche degree. Not many universities in Canada have biological engineering. And so that's
kind of the main reason I even started looking at Guelph, because that really interested me.
And then as Hillary mentioned earlier, the three emphasis programs in biological engineering which
include um biochemical engineering, environmental sustainability, and food processing, those were
the perfect kind of options for me to tailor my degree to what I wanted to do in the future. And
you get that option to do in third year, so you have some time, two years to figure out
what exactly you want to actually do in biological engineering. And I found that in this degree I get
to incorporate kind of, I still learned very basic mechanical, computer science, um I still learn
coding, and build kind of mechanical components, while also learning biochemical processes,
which are Incorporated in biological engineering. And um I actually didn't even tour Guelph,
uh I think before accepting because I was very sold on the program. Um and um uh another reason,
kind of uh the the other main reason I chose Guelph is because I was one of the President
Scholarship recipients uh for that year. Uh that is the biggest scholarship in Gueph and
it's worth $42,500. So I would really recommend for anyone who's considering going to Guelph,
I would really recommend applying for scholarships. Guelph is very uh considerate and
it's very um common to get scholarships. I have a lot of friends who have come here on scholarships
and I think it's a very good opportunity to uh try and help you pay through university.
Great, thank you, Anna. I'm going to touch on that a little bit as well or expand on
the scholarship piece. Um unique to engineering as well, we have $1,000 scholarships per each
major for women in engineering, as well. So we are really trying to promote women in STEM,
especially in the engineering field, which traditionally has been pretty
male-dominated. Um so that is another thing um if you're one of the female identifying
people in the call um just remember that as well to apply for the women in engineering
scholarship. All right, so next is our core foundation so this touches a little bit more
on that um earlier one I mentioned that is direct entry, that we don't have year one engineering, so
all students come in in their major, but they do share all the courses on the left hand side here.
So we do have an interdisciplinary foundation, a lot of these courses are taken over your first
year, and then you differentiate immediately right away, by two courses is on the right hand side. So
if you remember the colors from before, I can sort of remind you if you need some reminding,
um the top two there is biological, biomedical, enviro and water. And then the second down is our
two computer majors, computer and systems, and then we've got mechanical, the orange,
and our new mechatronics, at the bottom is the purple. So the major differentiator here is the
programming, so the computer and systems, and our new mechatronics, all take that um the programming
for engineer. So it's an advanced programming course, so if you are pursuing a switch,
because I get often get that question if I start as one major since it's direct entry can I switch
to another major, the answer is yes. It is a bit of a process but it is hard to switch from one of
the other majors into a computer-based major versus the other way around because you will
need to retake that programming course. So the other notes here are at the bottom, so we've got
the chemistry. We have two different versions of chemistry now since uh mechatronics entered
our um engineering program. So we've got some of our students we call them
or majors we call them the wet majors, so the two or four at the top sorry, the biological,
biomedical, enviro, and water they will take a different CHEM 1040, and they'll take another
year they'll take second chemistry, where the rest of the students will just take CHEM 1140,
as they were taking a um they're not in the lab it's a hypothetical lab so it's an online lab.
All right, so next we're going to get into Design. I'm usually in front of the design
showcase on a tour explaining all of our major design components of the program. It's neat to
see the different projects that have come out of Guelph. Um, first year design students do
something called teddy bear wheelchair. We call it the mix major design challenge, but we have since
brought accessibility back into the project, so now we're calling it teddy bear wheelchair
again. So what it is is students in about four or five people per team, and these are mixed majors,
like I said, across all of the majors. Um they're given a mechano set, and they need to build a car
with an Arduino they program the car to perform based on the constraints given that year. Uh the
teddy bear needs to stay in the car at all times, and then there's a projectile component as well,
which makes it a little bit fun with either a hockey net or a dart board of sorts. Second year
design is Prototype Design and Build Challenge, also known as the Kinder egg toy design. So those
on the call that know what a Kinder egg is, I know there's a lot of Canadians that know,
but for those that don't, it's a toy in a small container and you dump the container out,
the toy scatters out in pieces, you have to follow the instructions, put it together and
then, I'm going to say the larger Kinder Egg toys often have um a motion component to it,
so that is this project. It has to use stored energy to either fly, drive, or shoot a
projectile. There's a few other components to this project, um a commercial, a social media page, you
essentially a toy company selling your toy. Um so the first two years you've been given the problem,
year three, so in third year design, you have a creative solution project. For this project, you
need to fully define your problem on your own. So it's problem definition with a designed solution,
and this is a presentation and a report. Fourth year design, it comes all together. It's similar
to third-year design, but you have a giant 3x4 foot poster that you need to design, and print,
and you have a prototype of your project, and you present these ones at a trade show style event,
called design day. So we bring in about 90 to 100 industry judges from various industries,
and they come in, and they will watch you uh present your project, and then you will get
graded about three times on that. Um at the bottom half of this slide, these are major specific
design courses. So you don't just have the four design courses through the engineering program,
you will have additional design courses specific to your major or shared across a two or three
majors. So those are listed below. I'm going to ask Anna if she has done any of the biological
engineering design, I don't know if she has yet. I have not done any biological engineering design,
I think that course, when I actually get to do hands-on biological design, that comes in third or
fourth year depending on the co-op uh stream. And uh but I did some biological work in research last
summer, that's where I got my first ever hands-on experience in biological engineering. It's not
part of the course, but um it's a research opportunity that students can apply to. And
if you had to pick, which one of the major design courses have you completed, or which one are you
looking forward to? Um I'm so I've completed the first design course, the teddy bear wheelchair,
and I'm currently in my second design course. So I'm actually doing the an animation and the Kinder
toy right now. Um I would say I'm looking forward to the most for the fourth year project, just
because it's very kind, of it's putting everything together so I'm excited to see how it all comes
together and getting to present everything. But I'm really enjoying the design course right now
that I'm taking, just because it's just, it's just fun. It's like a game, we get to, it's a
lot of work for sure, but um you get to actually use engineering software online to um design like
3D parts, and then put like, make an assembly, put it together, make an animation, and you can choose
what design you want to make. And we're making an elephant. So actually, it's the deadline is
this Friday, so every single day right now, just before this, I was working in the computer lab
and assembling the whole, like all the pieces. And uh it's, it's fun, it's a lot of work, but if you
enjoy it, that's, that's all that matters. That's awesome. I will say that the second year design is
my favorite one. I get to see them 3D printing. um in the labs when they're starting to put the
pieces together. and then seeing the top five or six uh present at design day is really neat
as well. So that's awesome. All right, I think this might be our last slide for engineering.
Yeah. Awesome, thanks so much. That was great engineering information, so if anybody has
any questions for Hillary or Anna, or anything regarding um engineering please put that in the
Q&A, and we'll uh review that at the end. And now we'll move on to the Bachelor of Computing degree,
and chat about what makes it unique. So the title of this degree is somewhat unique to Guelph,
as there's very few uh degrees in Canada called Computing. So at other schools, you can study
Computing, but it might fall under an arts degree, or applied science, or engineering,
or something else. So we're lucky to have it both as an engineering degree. You can study
uh Computing through the BEng degree, but also through this BComp degree. Um and the main draw
for this program, in contrast to the engineering one, is that there is no science needed to enter
this program, and there is no science built into curriculum, unless you choose to add it
in as an elective. So it's a huge advantage for those students who want to avoid the traditional
sciences. There are two majors in this degree, so you would have to select between either computer
science or software engineering, and I'll get to the differences between the two on the next slide.
But given that the science part is not mandatory in this degree, our software engineering major
is not considered an accredited engineering major, in case any anyone was interested in
that professional engineering designation. A brand new curriculum change starting this fall will be
that students must select one of the four areas of emphasis listed on screen. So you would take
eight courses in your chosen area, and you'll see it's artificial intelligence, or data science,
or cybersecurity, or human computer interaction. And then it will show up on your transcript
after completion. You don't need to declare this now, it's not part of your application,
but usually by the end of first year, um you can start thinking about which of those four themes
might align with your goals and interests the most. The location of our school works
in your favor too. All the major tech and commerce companies, or big Canadian banks,
government offices, large health care facilities, they all have central offices or headquarters
uh within a 1 hour radius, in what we call North Silicon Valley. So that kind of corridor between
Toronto and Waterloo in which Guelph is right in the middle. So for summer jobs, co-op placements,
internships, and graduation opportunities, uh a lot of them are within really close proximity.
So that's a big advantage to our students, and uh, and something that local employers really
enjoy too. Uh we'll talk about some companies our graduates and co-op students have worked at later.
Uh so you'll see the range of industries that you can apply your computing skills to. And at Guelph,
we recognize that some fields like computing, and and STEM sometimes in general, have historically
been more masculine, and we want to change that narrative, and make an inclusive environment for
women um and non-binary people to feel comfortable to join and excel in their chosen field. So the
computing department does have clubs like GWiCS or Guelph Women in Computer Science to create those
female communities, and they host female industry speakers, and have workshops to support you as
needed. So when differentiating between the two majors, uh and remember they're both available
in co-op as well, computer science is your more traditional computing degree. There's a few sample
courses listed there, uh there are more math courses that are required, uh when compared to
software engineering. But in your upper years, there's fewer required courses with computer
science, which means there's more freedom to take the electives that really interest you. So you can
tailor your degree to match your interests. In software engineering, there's fewer math courses
that you're required to take, and still some of the traditional computer science aspects, but more
of a focus on software design and development. Remember if your area of emphasis that you
select is data science, then just know you will be taking a few extra math courses as part of those
requirements though. Every year you take a course called software design, and it could be looking
at Legacy systems, or best practices for code development. And in software engineering, there
is a real focus on group work and collaboration, and your taught project management methodologies
as well within your teams. And now I'd like to introduce you to our computing student, Sara.
So if you'd like to join me on screen now, and just let us know a bit about where you're from,
and uh what you're studying, and what drew you to pursue computing at Guelph. Hi everyone,
so again my name is Sara, and I'm in my fifth year um here at the University of Guelph. My major is
software engineering, and I also have a minor in project management. Um I was actually born
in Jordan and was raised there for my younger years, and then I moved here to Mississuaga for
the past few years. Um like I mentioned earlier, Mississuaga is not too far away from Guelph,
so I do commute back and forth, which I can touch on later if anyone has any questions. I guess my G
reason why would be when I was in grade 12, which a lot of you are probably in that position right
now, that was actually the year that Covid hit, so that was 2020. And pretty much everything went
to shutdown mode, and I was going through and scrambling like which university am I going to
go to, how am I going to see how universities are because you go there and they're all empty right.
All the universities were shut down. However, my brother was in alumni um so he graduated the year
before um I entered grade 12, and he was telling me all about Guelph and he was "like trust me,
not only is the food the number one food," which Purvi has spoke on earlier, "but it's a beautiful
campus that gives you a sense of community" and that's both just the campus itself, but also the
people there. You genuinely feel like you'll find your people and that you'll kind of always feel
like you belong. So I never really felt like I was like you know stood out like a sore thumb in
any terrible way. I never really felt like "oh I don't belong here". From the get go that was kind
of like this is what's really important to me as I want to be able to feel supported by my community,
by my peers, by my professors. And honestly when going through all the options, I just really felt
like the University of Guelph, stood out to me the most under those categories, so I went
ahead and I took the risk. I listened to my older brother's advice and I never looked back since.
I've been here for the past five years, um I've participated in a lot of these types of events
because I truly believe that coming from a student telling you that this is the type of campus that
you're going to get both your academic support on, but also build long and lasting uh friendships,
and being able to network, and also being able to communicate one-on-one with your professors,
you'll never really feel like a number here is what I'll say. You'll always kind of feel like
you have somewhere further, so that would be my G reason why um as to why I chose to study here,
and continue to study here. I always love hearing that story, that's great, thanks
so much for sharing. Um and Sara, as a computing co-op student, you know that's a big part of um
why students want to study that here you, and as a senior student you've done several work terms,
so can you share one of your experiences, and what you learned at a company that you
worked at? Yeah so I worked um at four different companies, or sorry three different companies,
throughout all my five terms. I just wrapped up my last one, but by far one of my more favourite ones
would be one at a small uh tech startup called Tulip Retail. And just a quick overview, Tulip
Retail does the POS systems for a lot of more uh luxury brands. And the reason why I specifically
choose this one to talk about is because this was my first software engineering type role,
um and I was thrown right in there, and I was, uh believe it or not, literally participating in
conversations with uh companies like Coach, Dolce and Gabana, all of these really really big names,
and I remember being sent a meeting invite to talk to the Dolce and Gabana to develop our technical
requirements so we can build the POS system out for them. And I was literally sitting in that
call, and I was like "oh my gosh" like this is crazy, like I'm actually involving myself. I'm,
my want to participate is there and I'm being heard, and I built out the POS system that I
actually see in stores today. So when you go into Dolve and Gabana, and they take out their little
iPad and they pull out the POS system for their retails, I actually contributed to the software
there. So I always think that's such a cool piece to know that the co-op experiences at
Guelph really let you go in there, and just dive full deeply into what it is you want to study,
what you want to learn, and what you want to pursue, and you'll see meaningful impacts that
you have on your work. So that's something that I always can carry at the back of my mind. I'll
pass the store be like "hey I did their POS system there," so it's just really nice to see that your
work is being valued here. For sure, that sounds so interesting. Um and as a computing students,
what are some programming languages you learn, and did you need any prior coding or programming
experience when you started. So you need absolutely zero programming experience when you
start. Going into your first year the professors are all under the assumption, whether it's true
or not, that no one knows anything about code and they'll start you off from scratch. So that was,
I had previous ones only because I took a grade 11 and grade 12 ComSci course, but even then,
going into my first year, a lot of it was just review. And I had a few peers and a few
friends who've never touched code before and they were able to pick it up really quickly
because of that underlying assumption that all the professors have. So it's a really,
really fair playing field. In your earlier years in your studies, you'll uh focus a lot on C,
so that's the programming language. And then on those software design courses that Purvi touched
on for the software engineering students, you'll start picking up Python in those courses, and um
kind of differ away from that mainstream. And then as you go into your middle and final years,
you'll start learning more about Java, and then you'll learn more backend programming languages
as well. You'll pick up SQL for databases. So the main programming language I would say is C,
and then as you go and evolve throughout your degree, it becomes more flexible, especially
with your projects. So my senior course right now is a capstone project, and the language that you
uh complete this project in is completely up to you. So we'll start off with C, like I mentioned,
then work your way through Python, and then go through Java oriented, so it's flexible
throughout. Good to know you get exposure to a couple different uh languages there. Um you
touched on, and I touched on, that software engineering students do have to take an annual
course on software design. So can you share an example of a design project or what what was
the undertaking like in one of those courses? Yeah I'll speak on my second design course.
So like I mentioned earlier, I was admitted to the Guelph or the University of Guelph, sorry,
during Covid years. So a lot of the covid data was was really, really flushed out,
and there was a lot of it going on at that time. And so during this course, we actually had the
opportunity to work with our group members, so we were in groups about four or five,
and pretty much have an open-ended project using the CSV files, so those are just data
files from the uh Ontario government website, to answer any type of inquiry that we'd like.
So the question that my group chose was to see if there was a correlation between school closures
and Covid-19 numbers throughout different districts. So we were able to pull in the
from these CSV files from the government site, and this was all done in Python, by the way, the way
we approached it. And then we were able to analyze the data regarding school closures, um versus the
data of case counts for those same time periods compare them, and then output them in graph
formats and visuals. So that one was really cool because I've never really took the time to A) work
with a group in a software setting, but also B) seeing how we can use tech and software to answer
these real world applicable questions. I know a lot of us as students were a little frustrated
with the school closure, some of us may have liked it, some of us maybe not, but it was really
cool to actually see hey schools closing down actually reduce our Covid numbers in these areas,
so it was really cool to see a practical example, and also just seeing it from scratch that you
built. Definitely. Thanks so much for sharing that, Sara. Um and I'll move on now, but again,
if anyone has any student questions for Sara, please put those in the chat. So here's a quick
look at first year courses that you can take in your computing degree. So if anybody's interested
in what that looks like, I'll leave that up for a few seconds, feel free to screenshot
that or have a look. But the top half is if you're interested in computer science,
and the bottom half of the slide is if you're interested in software engineering. And where
it says AOE, that would be your area of emphasis from those four um themes that we showed a little
earlier. Okay and certainly not an exhaustive list of careers, but you will recognize some of
the logos of the bigger companies that our students have worked at. Right like Apple,
Microsoft, Tesla. But remember there's tons of opportunities,
more realistically at small and midsize companies, perhaps in non-tech related fields,
that could really open up your skill set when you work at, say an insurance firm or
a smaller cybersecurity company, or in the retail space as well. Something like D2L,
stands for Desire to Learn, uh they provide software and support to academic institutions
and we use their products here at the University of Guelph. So they're a really good example of
where students have been able to successfully land jobs because they've already used their
products. Okay and with that we'll move on to the last subject area, which is mathematics.
Um so we've had our Mathematical Science major as part of the Bachelor of Science degree for
many years. We now have a specific standalone Bachelor of Mathematics degree. Um that's been
a very welcome change and has created a lot of interest and applications into this program,
and I will share why. Okay so this program is really unique because it gives students a
chance to study math but also choose what other types of courses you would want as part of your
degree. Many students love math but don't enjoy uh the sciences, so this degree was created so that,
similar to computing, students can use their electives to complement uh math with other subject
areas and not be required to have to have high school science courses for admission. You have the
option to further take your mathematical science major and choose an area of emphasis if you wanted
in either mathematics or statistics. After your four years, you have a set of valuable skills
like quantitative analysis, modeling, critical thinking, and problem solving, and those can
be applied to absolutely every field. If you're not sure what modeling, is mathematical modeling,
it's a central technique that we use with many services that we all, you know, use in our daily
lives, like weather forecasting, disease spread and prediction, or consumer behaviour analysis,
just to name a few. In our library on campus, we have an area called the Science Commons,
in which that provides dedicated academic support to students that are in math, chemistry,
and physics subjects. So you can visit there and then have teaching assistance in those departments
help you understand any challenging concepts you may have encountered. Our friendly math
and stats professors are approachable and really lean into creating a community for their students
that offers a personable approach to education. And that's something that I've always valued
about Guelph, is how much peer helping there is and student support services that are on campus
to help you transition to a new learning style. Some of the roles that our mathematical science
graduates have succeeded in are shared on screen. So we've had our grads work at medical tech and
pharma companies like Fortrea in the US, Price Waterhouse Cooper's firm in data management and
analytics, or they can work at global universities around the world and healthcare departments or uh
pursue teaching among other options. a very memorable grad that I had heard of was Emily,
who worked for ION Geophysical in Scotland, and she helped develop and test a software that was
used on earthquake detection vessels. So she would be able to tell the crew where to position the
ship to detect the behavior of the currents in the water as they relate to earthquake activity.
That takes enormous detail and precision, and I thought it was a really interesting application
of her mathematical science degree. And this is what most first year students experience as
part of their recommended sequence of study, so I'll also leave that up for a second for
you. Okay and Vinay, if you'd like to come on screen now, uh you're a current math student
and just chat us through um you know how did you hear about uh math at Guelph, and what led you
to pursue the study of it. Um yeah, thank you so much. Uh as as Purvi mentioned, my name is
Vinay. Um I actually used to be a former employee of the University of Guelph uh where I had a past
career in biological and chemical lab testing. And so summer, and I so I've been in Guelph for
quite some time now, since I'd say 2019, 2018. And during my time I realized I started to like data
and statistics more, and so it was for me it was a natural transition to go back to school to sort
of pursue uh a mathematical science degree. And so and that's why that was my G reason why why I
picked Guelph because I was here, I already worked here for for a couple years, I knew what the
culture is here like, the food here is amazing, if no one has mentioned it yet. Um and yeah so I love
um the statistics of things, and I love how um we interact with so much data all around,
and the thing that excites me about my degree and my future is that I get to tell stories,
or discover stories and insights the data around us um yeah. Awesome. Now our Bachelor of
Mathematics program is not available in co-op, but there's still plenty of ways to get summer jobs
and build up your professional network. Can you let us know some of the your internships and where
you completed them? Yeah totally, so it is true uh the BMath program as it stands does not have uh a
co-op program, but that does not limit you from applying for internships by any means Um there
are a lot of resources on campus, like the Math and Stats Club and the department, the professors,
the academic services that helped you sort of get those internships. Uh some of the cool ones that
I've had are research internships working with a few different professors, where I build software
for detecting epidemics within Guelph. Uh another cool internship that I had done was I worked for a
gaming company called Electronic Arts, where I got to work with, um sort of play tasting play testing
studies, uh I worked on FIFA, Apex Legends, um Sims, uh and um college football. So those are
some of the things uh that, so those are some of the companies that I've worked for. Um I've
also worked as a consultant for, as a freelance data analyst where I work for smaller companies,
where I would sort of help out with their data and such, um yeah so that's about it. Awesome,
uh and as an upper student you're also a key part of student leadership in the Math and
Stats Department because you're the Math and Stats student club President. So what
is being part of that club like, and how might future students get involved. Oh yeah totally,
it's um the yeah the Math and Stats Club, the undergraduate Math and Stats Club uh is a
it's a very cool initiative, uh driven by the department. So it's uh I guess it's leadership is
technically the department, but the students sort of run it including myself, and uh my teammates.
Um I think it's very cool because it it gives an opportunities for the students in the program to
sort of interact with other students, um but more than that, we run so many different workshops,
and so many different academic events, but not just limited to academic events, we also have
like these fun cool ones. And so so forth um uh for example uh day after tomorrow we're going
out to University of Waterloo to uh to take some of the students from uh from Guelph, and we're
presenting some of the research work that we've done at the University of Waterloo, so that's
something we've done, that's something we're doing this year. But similarly we run uh these large
scale uh trivia events and um these fun game shows that are math and stat related as well.
Perfect, thanks so much for sharing your perspectives, Vinay. So I'll circle back
to you shortly at the end, uh so if anyone has any questions about uh math or the student experience
as a math student for Vinay, please enter those in now. Perfect, thank you. Thank you. Okay and
with that we've completed the academic part of the presentation, so we'll just spend the last
few minutes talking about your next steps as an applicant. and reviewing any questions that
are um that we can answer as a group for our from our current students. So here are some dates that
might be useful to know if you're applying this year. Uh for all applicants remember that June
2nd is the last date to accept your admission uh offer. Uh please use the QR code on the
bottom left to see a complete list of dates and deadlines to help you with your planning. Uh in
case you didn't know, because we do have a few out of province applicants and international
students on this call, uh those two groups so out of province and international students,
you are guaranteed residence if you submit your uh residence application and deposit by June 2nd.
And we would love to invite all of you to visit us on campus on Sunday, March 23rd,
where we have a university-wide open house. You can attend Academic Program sessions, get a campus
and residence tour, check out labs, lecture halls, and meet other current students and faculty. We
have another set of open houses happening in May, those are exclusively for students that have an
admission offer. So similar format but information will be pretty targeted to sort of simulate what
you can expect in first year. And lastly if you enjoy connecting with current students
in your program or from your hometown, uh we do have some ambassadors on our Unibuddy platform,
so please make a free account, search the University of Guelph, and then find some students
to text your questions to, uh about anything to do with living and learning at Guelph and they
will respond within 24 hours. Okay so I'll just briefly uh kind of look through the Q&A here,
and see if there are some questions that we can um answer live for you, so just give me um a minute
here. Okay so
um Sara can I call you on screen? Um some interest in the process of selecting a minor.
So I know you're a computing student minoring in project management. When did you know you
wanted to add that in, and what was that process like? Yeah, for sure. So going into my degree,
in my first year I knew I wanted to pair my major with some sort of minor, just to kind of give me
a little bit of um an edge I guess you would say compared to my peers when it comes to job applying
and all that stuff. But I also knew that although my heart does lie in software and programming, I
love organizing things. And I love kind of taking a really, really messy problem and fixing it,
and making it kind of coming a solution out of it. So I went through um online, and hopefully
someone can maybe share a link if that's possible, there's a list of all the minors that we offer at
the University of Guelph. And um with those lists you're able to click any that you'd like, and so I
went through the entire one, I said "heyy, project management. I feel like that would complement my
software engineering degree very well" because we do have to work with groups a lot of the time,
there's a lot of cross collaboration with teams in the real world, so it was just one that kind of
like clicked a lot of and checked a lot of boxes for me. So once you click on that on the website,
you're then um redirected to a list of all the courses um that you could possibly take within
your minor in order for it to be declared as an official minor. And there's some flexibility
within that so I believe uh you need 10 credits for it to be your minor, um Purvi please correct
me if I'm wrong on that. But within 10 credits, that's about like a decent chunk of courses,
um and then within that, I was able to kind of go through the list that they provide and I was
like" hey this sounds like it would be really interesting to take, oh this course sounds
really like applicable to what I want to do with my life." So it was kind of just a matter of going
through those minors, kind of selecting the few that I felt were of interest to me personally,
and that would pair really well with my major. And then after that kind of going through the courses
that they have in order for it to be declared as an official minor and seeing if they're actually
of interest to me. So it's super easy to say "oh I want a minor in mathematics", for example, or I
want a minor in project management, but what does that actually entail? What courses are you going
to deep dive into in your four or five years here? So the University does a really good job online,
kind of giving you what those courses going to look like, and offering you some flexibility
between a couple of them. So I knew right from the get go that I wanted to do a minor. It was
just the process of actually selecting one and committing to it, which was very, very, very easy
uh to do because of the wealth of knowledge that's just readily available for you on the University's
site. For sure, thank you. So yes for anybody who's curious about a minor, it's not something
that you have to even declare, but if you were interested in doing one or you discover an area
of interest while you're here, you start by going to your program counselor once you're
enrolled here and you've taken some classes. Um and then they can facilitate the formal paperwork
part by getting that added in. Sara, one more question for you. Um in for students that are
struggling between computer science and software engineering, do you have any insight or advice
um beyond what we sort of mentioned? You know we said computer science is a little more math heavy,
um but is there any other insight, you can kind of help uh offer some clarity to some students
who are still you know ideating between the two? For sure. So uh this obviously differs
from individual to individual, but what I've seen for the past five years is, in my opinion,
if you're someone who likes to work with groups, if you like that collaborative part of coding,
if you like kind of looking at more of a high-level approach to a solution,
uh software engineering is probably where you want to be. And that's just because you're get
you're able to go through those software design courses that Purvi and I mentioned earlier,
which are all group, collaborative courses within the software development um path and stream. Um
like she mentioned it's less math heavy, so again there's just a lot of emphasis on that
group collaboration. What are the different roles when you're collaborating with a software team?
So there's an agile coach, there's a product coach, there's a scrum master. So all of these
different roles you're kind of digging and diving further into them within the software engineering
stream. Whereas maybe if you're not really a big fan of going into that collaboration,
you prefer to work by yourself, maybe you want to pick up research post-secondary,
things that would you would prefer to go lower level on, so more theory-based, more math based,
more individual work, so I always say go to the computer science route. You're not uh obligated
to take those five design courses, so you're not collaborating a lot so with your peers,
but do not get me wrong, the computer science individuals do still have those group projects,
as any degree would. It's just not to the extent and depth that those software engineering kids
have. Perfect, thanks so much for that. Okay another question was, if this webinar will
be recorded, it is being recorded and if you've signed up for it register, then um you the link
will be shared with you so you can revisit some of this information afterwards. Um how about Peter,
can I call you on now? There seems to be some interest from our audience about uh participating
in research. So um I know that you uh had a chance to do that here, so how does one get involved,
and can everybody do it, or is there is is there an application process for that? Yeah,
yeah, so uh research is um it can be pretty difficult to crack into sometimes,
but I think once you get your first position um the you know the opportunities keep coming.
Uh the way I cracked into research was that um I volunteered at a professor's laboratory,
where I just kind of just did the groundwork, you know, did the dishes, made sure that other
grad students, as well as other undergrads that were were conducting research had everything they
needed. Um and this was just, I just shot out a bunch of emails to different profs I was pretty
interested in working with. Um and after I did my volunteering, I did co-op, where I was able
to hone some research techniques. Um and then this experience kind of put a lot on my resume,
and then I was able to apply for um something called a URS or USRA, which are summer research
positions that Guelph offers for most of its departments and labs. Um and then a professor
chose me, gave me an opportunity to work in lab, and then after that research opportunity,
I was able to get into the lab um that I currently work for doing my master's degree. So
it's really all about making the first move. Um a professor will never, well it's very rare,
but it's very rare for them to come out and uh give you the opportunity. So research is really
what you invest in it, is what you get back. So you need to just be knocking on everyone's door
yeah. One more question for you, Peter. I guess somebody's wondering, um was there a
lot of time between your undergrad and master's, in terms of how did you find that transition,
or what was it like post-graduation after undergrad? Yeah so when I was graduating,
um I was pretty torn on whether I want to take that uh gap year kind, of um maybe work full-time
see what that's like. Um but I realized that I want for what I wanted to pursue,
I needed to do um postgrad education. So I just leaped right into it. I I was looking
at the job market for what I was trained for, and right now it's it's protein biochemistry,
and if you're in any type of pharmaceutical field right now, it's it's booming. Um so this program
definitely got me prepared for the workforce, but for what I wanted to do, I knew I needed to
further educate myself. So I went right into my master's degree and I couldn't be really happier
with what I chose to do. Um it's been awesome, um I've been you know in the lab all the time.
I really enjoy it and I'm with a great group of labmates, I guess, that I can always depend on.
Awesome, thanks. Let's do one more question, in just in the spirit of time, since we're going
over we're going to wrap up right after that. If you're still expecting, if you've got a question
in the in the Q&A, and you're still expecting an answer, just don't drop off the ,call even though
we wrap up. Uh the staff members on the call will take a moment to just type out an answer
to you if we weren't able to get to it live. Um but if we did one more question, um Karen,
can I bring you on screen? Um and I'll ask you two questions. One would be non-academic, so what was
living in residence like? Yeah, so I lived in South uh Residence in Prairie Hall. And so I'm
a pretty introverted person, and so I had applied to be in all single rooms, uh but I was put into
a triple room which initially wasn't my favorite thing in the world. Um it ended up working out
very well my two roommates have become two of my closest friends. I hang out with them all the time
now and I'm in third year, so two years later. Um and then residence itself I really enjoy,
being on campus was really convenient, having uh food available, uh laundry very close,
little things like that that made the transition from living at home to coming
to school um a lot easier. And I definitely uh definitely enjoyed living in residence for
sure. Thank you, and then uh if I can just ask you one um question about your first year. So um when
you're taking a variety of courses, somebody's asking, like physics and you know math and
chemistry, um what is it like if for in first year university, doing those courses were they
challenging, were they pretty fundamental, was it easy to jump from the high school level into first
year do you do you recall? Um definitely it lays out a fundamental concepts for each, like biology,
physics, chemistry, math. And it really depends on where you're coming from from high school. So
I had friends who um absolutely breezed through chemistry, and found it complete review from high
school. And I had friends who came from high school and hadn't covered um the topics that
we were talking about yet. But the good thing was that they did uh cover all of those topics
and let you kind of, even if you hadn't covered them in high school, you had a good opportunity
to learn them um in first year. It is a big jump in the sense of content, um and the speed
of which you receive content. It's a lot faster paced um and so it it can be a bit of a jump,
you have to kind of really get on time management, get on your Google calendars, and sort out um what
your study time is, when assignments are due, and things like that because it is pretty easy to fall
behind. But if you stay on top of it and have a group of friends that you're able to study with,
discuss problems with, um it it isn't too difficult um and it's definitely
possible. Awesome, thanks so much for that. So just again in the spirit of time,
um we'll just wrap up, and just uh introduce you to some ways you can still stay in touch with us,
in case you have questions that occur to you after this uh information session. So please
stay in touch with us at cepsinfo@uoguelph.ca. Um and again, if you've got any unanswered questions
in the chat that we couldn't answer live, we will stick around to type out an answer to you,
so don't log off just yet. But for everybody else we hope you all found the STEM session
really helpful, and maybe it introduced you to something that you uh didn't know before.
So please stay in touch with us through any of the means on screen. Um and we hope you
can join us for that open house on Sunday, March 23rd to everybody who's able to come
to the University of Guelph to see everything that we've talked about uh come to life. So
with tha,t the webinar is done. We'll be turning our cameras off, just sticking around to answer
some uh questions still in the Q&A, but thank you all so much for joining us we hope you're
just as excited as us to have you attend the University of Guelph in September. Good luck
to everybody who's applied, and congrats to those of you with an offer, and we'll say bye for now.