The commonly forgotten species on campus, especially on campus mediums: Engineering students. We do exist, we do have chances to apply our knowledge and compete like every other program. And even more hidden are us women in engineering! So imagine this, 4 women coming together to compete on one team.
This past weekend was the annual Ryerson Engineering Competition!
A yearly competition where students compete in teams to fulfill different tasks given in each category. For me, it is my 4th year at Ryerson and my 4th year competing. It is a monumental time for many of us Engineering students as we put our brains to use. Because hey the other 90% of the time we are stuffing it with knowledge that we just pray will come to use.
I competed twice in Junior Design, once Senior Design and this year in Consulting. In second year, we placed in the top 4 for Junior Design and this year, my team placed in the top 3 in consulting with our results being released on November 19th! Imagine and all women team (potentially) representing Ryerson in the Ontario Engineering Competition in January.
Consulting this year was very applicable to many of our lives. We had the task on improving our transit system to make it more accessible for folks to travel between the 6 boroughs. It was a daunting task but something that we were all passionate about as my commute from Etobicoke is longer than my current commute from Mississauga due to delays etc. Transit is a huge part of our life and it is imperative that competition continue to have relevant and real topics
Why is this so important to know as a Campus Life piece? A lot of campus life is structured towards students that are not in STEM. While that is okay, I think it is so important to show that Engineering is a lively place despite our 30+ hours class time a week. We work, we grind but we do enjoy what we do. We have a lot of great talent that isn’t always showcased and it needs to be.
The Ryerson Engineering Competition is a fun and monumental for so many people. It is a weekend we look forward to bringing hoards of food (you should see what some folks bring) and use our brains for a chance to represent RYERSON in the Ontario competition. (FYI, Ryerson is hosting the Canadian Engineering Competition in 2018 and we are so excited!!)