Category Archives: Student Life

Alright fam let’s get to it. I’ve had a really crazy week. I joined lots of intramural teams and was really excited to play with them but suddenly I twisted my ankle while jogging. Aside from that everything is still pretty smooth. My plane in Aerodesign is built and ready to fly and my workload in classes is still at a medium. I feel that if I don’t start reviewing for my classes now I’m going to be behind for a very long time. As a mechatronics student I get to take a lot of cool courses. My favorite is CPEN 312, Microcomputers. It’s really cool because we get our own boards and get to do a lot of hands-on work rather than the traditional on-computer style. Apart from school my job application process is accelerating and I am applying for jobs almost every night now.  It is important to remember that job applications can’t just be a basic template; it has to have something that is unique to the employer. This will give you an edge because a lot of individuals will just have a standard cover letter for all the jobs they apply to. If you want to find out more about some companies and employers I recommend checking out the job fairs and networking events that UBC holds. This is a great opportunity to meet employers face to face and get to know them. There’s always an opportunity to sell yourself for the job. It gives you the chance to show that you’re interested in the position and allows you to make contacts at the companies. I have even had some employers give me their business cards so that I can contact them directly to discuss the details about the job. My job search is taking off!

Key to Success: Drink lots of water

-Siddhant Malik

I’ve always loved the second semester of school more than first. Don’t get me wrong – I love the feeling of coming back to school after summer (well, for the first week anyway) and all the events/parties that take place, but second semester is when the UBC Engineering community gets busy!

In the next few weeks, E-Week 2016 (Engineering Week) will be underway. From February 1-6, you’ll have the chance to represent your department in a series of events and show your Engineering pride. If you haven’t heard of E-Week or haven’t yet participated in E-week, I highly encourage that you do it! There are events such as: Chariot Races, CaPPture the Flag, fEUSball Tournament, Pit Purge, Annual General Meeting, E-BALL Soccer, and 4-Legged Race – just to name a few!

On top of this, the annual EUS Career Fair will be taking place on February 4-5. This is a great opportunity for students to network with representatives from big companies. In some cases, these companies may also be looking to hire students for the summer. Words of advice: dress appropriately and it doesn’t hurt to have a few copies of your resume or business card on you! When I attended the EUS Career Fair in my first year, I hit off an awesome conversation with a HR Rep from SNC-Lavalin. She was telling me about this Project Management Summer Student position that sounded really cool. When I told her I was interested, she said that she thought I would be a great fit and asked if I had my resume… And I didn’t. Looking back, it was a pretty big mistake on my part, but when I think about it some more – in my first year, nobody really told me what to expect from a career fair/networking type event. Even today, I still feel like people aren’t sure what to expect or how to prepare.

This was a big topic that was brought up during the EUS Industry Committee meeting that I sat in on last week. Upon discussing this with other departments, we are working on implementing a “How To Network” type event for all engineering students because we believe this is pretty important information to have. Over here in MECH Student Services, we are planning a First Year Networking event with our senior MECH students and alumni! This will give you first years a chance to practice your networking skills AND learn more about our awesome department. Details have yet to be confirmed – we will keep you posted!

Prepare yourself for some very exciting weeks to come!

Cheers,
Ashley

PS: Click here for some deets on E-WEEK

So after 2 weeks of winter vibes I’m back at the battle ground for another semester. So far so good. The best thing about the first week is that there are no labs. This means huge 3-hour gaps for Netflix. I have had a very easygoing start to the semester but things are ramping up really fast. I have my Aerodesign competition coming up, midterms next month, and I have to apply for coop jobs. Applying for jobs is the most dreadful thing because every cover letter you write has to be customized to the job posting. Of course you can just use a standard one for everything but it really helps you get the job if you tailor your cover letter to the company and the position. Lastly, I have a MECH tour coming up that I have to prep for. I have to go through all the rad MECH labs and student teams so that the noobs that are coming into MECH know what they are getting into. If you want to come on the tour shoot me an email and we can work things out. I, oddly enough, take pride in my tours, cause I give really awesome tours. But also because I think it’s really important that kids know what they want to do and it is my job to provide them with the necessary information.

So yeah, I’m pretty busy. From now on, in every blog post I write, I will include a key to success à la DJ Khaled. Key to Success: minimize Netflix binging.

Happy new year! I hope the holiday break treated you all well.

Winter break was awesome. For me, it was filled with lots of family and friends time, catching up on sleep, snowboarding, checking out local bands at The Imperial on New Years Eve and more food than I could have ever hoped for. The break was much needed…Let’s just say it wasn’t the best idea to mix job interviews with six final exams. Although my stress levels reached all time highs, some good did come out of it. I have passed all of my courses (thank goodness) and I have also been offered a student engineering job for the summer!

For you first-year readers out there, I highly suggest getting experience early. Apply for a summer job/internship or even volunteer to work for a company. I’m sure you’ve heard it before, but I think it’s worth saying it again: the more experience you get, the better!

This semester will be a busy one, once again, but in all the best ways. Club Mech has some pretty good events coming up this semester. ASME will be hosting the annual Boeing trip down to Seattle to visit Boeing and MTM Ltd. E-Week will be happening the first week of February (if you haven’t participated in E-Week, do it).

Again, we would love to hear from you readers. Feel free to send Siddhant or me an e-mail at: ambassadors@mech.ubc.ca with comments or feedback about what you would like us to post about!

Cheers,
Ashley

Well, here we are in the home stretch of the semester…the last week of classes. There isn’t too much going on this week other than submitting final projects, and assignments. It’s the calm before the storm, also known as finals.

Academically, things are slow right now, but Mech has been busy with other things! This week, Club Mech is hosting a Mech Student & Staff Party on Friday, December 4th from 12:30-1:30pm. This is an annual event with Christmas treats and drinks; and presents are given to department professors and staff for their hard work and commitment to the students.

Also on Friday, December 4th, Club Mech is also hosting an end-of-term party in the Club Mech room (CEME 2207) starting at 2:00pm and will go on laaaaate into the night. Everybody is welcome to come by and spread the Christmas cheer!

Ashley

What’s good y’all. So last Saturday we had this crazy awesome day. It was called Open House. MECH had an awesome event going on. Kaiser 1180 was bumping harder than the VENUE nightclub on a peak Friday. We had Charlie the robot throwing down some moves, Formula and Baja were grinding their gears and I, the head intern, was making magic at the strawkets (straw-powered rockets) table. Yes it was a magical day, but it was also a hectic one. I am not going to say that I wasn’t tired but I would do it all over again. I am the type of dude that just loves to talk to people about their prospective futures. It is important to me that they understand everything completely before jumping into it. I didn’t have this privilege. Being the eldest child I was new to this whole application process and naturally it was a very tense time at the dawn of December as the application deadline approached. So yes I gladly cleared up people’s confusion and helped them understand the path of UBC engineering and why it is the Holy Grail that everyone says it is. It was hard for me not to rep MECH considering how much I love it. (MECH IS LOVE MECH IS LIFE.) But I had to keep in mind that people will discover what they want after first year, so it was important to describe to them the general prospects of engineering rather than just MECH, even if it is one of the better programs.

Siddhant

Well the semester has almost come to an end. We have 2 weeks left and I’ve just wrapped up all of my midterms and now I am just cruising by and waiting for finals to come. I have been very busy this week and this time it’s not because of exams, but rather because I’ve been involved with organizing the Engineering Open House. This is an awesome opportunity for high school students and current students to come and check out all the amazing programs we offer. It’s Saturday, Nov 28, which is my B-day, so it sucks that I have to come in that day. But, I love to help kids out so that they don’t come into UBC with the same state of confusion that I had. Open House is an awesome opportunity to just check out all of our labs–we have a ton of cool stuff and free stuff to give out. So tell your squad, tell your siblings, tell everyone. This is something you don’t want to miss. Event of the year y’all.

All this is awesome and all, but let’s face the inevitable future. Finals. This is going to be a grind. So brace yourselves, finals are coming.

Siddhant

Hey guys,

Sorry for the delay in posting – it has been a crazy few weeks here in Mech (to be expected, but yet, you never quite get used to it).

On Friday, I had to submit a 300 page technical report for MECH 328 (Mechanical Engineering Design Project). The project this year was to propose design modifications to the Martin 16, a sailing boat used by disabled sailors, for the Disabled Sailing Association. The project was really interesting and open-ended. We were given suggestions for areas of improvement, but the actual designs were up to us as students. The project was meant to mimic a real-life engineering project. We worked in teams of 6-8 and had weekly briefing meetings with our “supervisors” (a professor and T.A).

Unlike the project in MECH 223 (2nd year design project), this project revolved around paper prototypes. This means that no physical prototyping was required, but was still an option. Most of the prototypes consisted of iterations of calculations and simulations. Now that the report is finished, the next part of the project is to do an oral presentation. That’s coming up this Friday and shouldn’t be too bad!

On another note, last Friday, the Club Mech executives got together to get our executive/ex-officios group photos done. We all met up at Evangelos Photography studio on West Broadway and Balaclava. We took a variety of photos – from very serious to super silly. Keep an eye out the Club Mech Facebook page to see the photos. Afterwards, we hit up the Coppertank to relax and start our weekend!

What did you all do this weekend?

Ashley

On another note: 32 days until Christmas!!

OMG. I just had the craziest couple weeks. It was full of quizzes, midterms and psych papers. But what I loved most about my week was the Mech Engineering Networking Event that was held at the wicked new alumni center. This was a fun-filled evening in which I just got to talk to a bunch of faculty and staff members and have a good time. The best part was that the UBC alumni were invited. This was particularly awesome because all the alumni work for cool companies so it was a great opportunity to network myself for potential co-op jobs. I cannot stress how valuable it is to network yourself during your undergrad. You maximize your chances of finding a job if you have a great network. The alumni event was so cool because they had all sorts of food and drinks available for you, so it was a great time to grab a beer with a prof. Along with food, drinks and faculty, the event also included a great tour of the alumni center which has been given the gold LEED standard award. That’s kind of a big deal. This means we are slaying the sustainability competition. Siddhant out. Peace

At this time of the year, I always finds myself asking: “How is the semester almost over?!” I feel like I just started classes yesterday.

I just finished up a crazy week of midterms – I had 4 exams in one week: MECH 325 (Mechanical Design I), MECH 326 (Mechanical Design II), MECH 368 (Instrumentation), and MECH 392 (Manufacturing Processes). They are all super interesting and practical courses – if you’re in the General Mechanical Engineering stream, all of these courses will be apart of your standard time table – but I’m certainly happy that I don’t have to stress about exams anymore…Until finals.

Now, I finally have time to catch up on assignments, project work, extracurricular clubs, and my favourite TV shows. Sweeeeet.

We would love to hear from all of your readers out there. Send Siddhant or me and e-mail, or leave us a comment about what you’d like us to post about.

Cheers,
Ashley