Purvi: Hello everyone, thanks for joining us for the Study STEM Programs webinar at the University of Guelph. We'll just give everybody another moment or two to join us before we officially start. I can see some participants still trickling in, and that's great. Welcome to everybody who's here with us so far.
While we wait, I invite all of you to open up the Q&A button and type in the name of the city, province, or country you're joining us from. Please let us know where you're watching this webinar from, and don't be shy-go ahead and type it into the Q&A. Feel free to let us know as well what major or program you've applied to.
Perfect, we've got a couple of people joining us from Toronto interested in biomedical science, engineering, food science, and animal biology-that was my program, and I'll be touching on that shortly. Someone from BC-awesome! Wildlife biology, Waterloo, Markham... This is great, thank you so much for sharing.
A couple of people are interested in animal-related majors, like zoology and animal biology. It looks like that's a popular theme here. A few others are interested in engineering-wonderful.
I'm coming to you from the city of Guelph, Ontario. Although it's March, it's been unseasonably mild and warm, which I'm not going to complain about. It's incredible to see the range of places you're joining from. Thank you for sharing that with us.
Let's officially begin now that it's just past seven o'clock. Hello again, and welcome to the University of Guelph's presentation on our Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math programs, also known as STEM.
My name is Purvi, and I'm the main host of this webinar today. I'm joined by a team of people connected with the university, who you'll meet soon. We're excited to have you join us and learn more about these program areas at the University of Guelph. We'll also share a bit about the geography of our location and some fun facts about the university itself.
We know many of you are joining us from different regions and time zones, so we appreciate you taking the time to visit with us today and learn how Guelph can play a significant role in your future.
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 the responsibility we have to the land where we live, learn, and work.
Today's presentation will be about one hour, and we'll also have some time after that for questions based on what we're seeing in the chat and what incoming first-year students usually want to hear about. We'll cover some quick facts about our community, features of the university, academic elements of the STEM programs, and insights from current students in those areas.
We won't take live questions during the presentation, so we ask that all cameras and microphones remain off until the end.


Purvi: But please feel free to use the Q&A function throughout the presentation. My colleague Julia from the admissions team is here with us today, and she'll be monitoring and answering your questions behind the scenes. Make sure to take full advantage of this opportunity and don't leave without getting all of your questions answered.
A little bit about me as your host, and then I'll pass it over to Hillary, another staff member from the engineering department. After that, our students will hop on camera shortly. I'm a staff member at the university now, but I'm also a University of Guelph alum.
I came to Guelph years ago when I turned 18 and moved here as an overseas student from Malawi in East Africa. I studied animal biology, as many of you mentioned in the Q&A, with hopes of becoming a veterinarian. Plans changed, and that isn't where life took me, but my education is in that field.
I also spent two years at our regional campus in Ridgetown, where I earned a diploma in veterinary technology. I worked as a registered veterinary technician at hospitals throughout Kitchener, Waterloo, and Guelph for about 10 years before transitioning to my current role at the university. It's great to be back on campus, which feels like my old stomping ground.
The reason I chose Guelph when I was applying to universities was the program. I knew the veterinary school at Guelph is top-ranked, number one in Canada, which made it an obvious choice. As an international student, I couldn't visit for a campus tour, attend an open house, or meet with a representative, so I relied on brochures. Of all the schools I considered, the Guelph brochure stood out to me. It was an intuitive feeling that served me well-I couldn't have been happier with my choice.
Now, I'm going to pass it over to Hillary from the engineering department to introduce herself.

Hillary: Thanks, Purvi. I'm Hillary Rakers, as Purvi had said, I'm the Engineering Recruitment Officer. I've worked in Engineering at Guelph since 2017. I have a little bit of a different background than Purvi does. It's not as "Guelphy," but I do live just north of Guelph in Belwood, Ontario.
I have quite a mixed background. I've gone to a lot of different colleges for different things. I was one of those students who didn't quite know where they fit in until I really pursued a passion, and that was sort of in the Arts. Marketing, photography, web design, and overall just content creation-I love making things online. Similar to what Purvi said about the print stuff that attracted her to Guelph, I helped make some of that for Engineering as well.
And my "G" reason why is the green campus. It's a very beautiful place to come out and visit, so if you do get a chance to come to campus, I definitely recommend that.

Hillary: Awesome, thank you. And of course, as I mentioned, we are joined by some currently enrolled students 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. If you just want to turn your cameras on, it'll just take a few seconds to introduce yourself, your hometown, and your major, just in order of the photos. We'll start with Rafael.

Rafael: Hello everyone, my name is Rafael. I'm a third-year Mechanical Engineering student, and I'm from Mississauga, Ontario.

Rashi: Hey everyone, I'm Rashi. I'm a fourth-year Software Engineering major with a Statistics minor and a co-op. I'm originally from India, but Guelph has been my home for the past three years.

Laura: Hey everybody, I'm Laura. I graduated from my undergrad now, but I majored in Human Kinetics and minored in Nutrition. I'm from King City, Ontario.

Emelia: Hi everyone, I'm Emelia. I'm a second-year Biological and Pharmaceutical Chemistry major, and I'm from Pickering, Ontario.

Emma: Hi everyone, my name's Emma. I'm in my third year of Environmental Engineering, minoring in Project Management, and I'm from Brantford, Ontario.

Gage: Hey everyone, my name is Gage, and I'm from Aurora, Ontario. I'm in my third year of Mechanical Engineering.

Purvi Patel: Wonderful, that's great. So thank you to all my student panelists for joining us, even in the middle of your very busy midterm season. They all volunteered to be here and share their stories with you because they were just in your shoes a few years ago. So hopefully all of our audience members will be able to benefit and learn some new things from all of you today.
A few fun facts about Guelph: if you look at the map, Guelph is the big red dot there. So we're very close-about one hour away from Toronto and about 45 minutes from Pearson International Airport. For those of you who are from out of province or out of country, that is usually where you would land. The other two red dots are our smaller sister campuses located in Ontario as well: one is Rown, which I mentioned I studied at as well, and the other one is in Toronto at Guelph Humber.
Guelph is a great mid-sized 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's lived here for nearly 20 years now, I can vouch for what a beautiful atmosphere it is. We have a river and a lake in the city for a beach day, sports arenas and stadiums, and lots of small and large events happening year-round that make it a really vibrant place to be. Our university is considered mid-sized, so there are schools that are much bigger than us and some that are much smaller. But I always find, when you're living alone for the first time, especially at 17 or 18 years old, having a place that's really easy to navigate, that's a comfortable and digestible size with lots of outdoor spaces to just study or hang out with your friends-that was key for me.
Our campus is known for being one of the most beautiful and attractive in Canada. We also enjoy having a well-known reputation, especially for research, where we are the number one school to receive the highest amount of funding in that area. We're also ranked in the top five for the range of diversity of our academic programs that we offer. Of course, our Veterinary Medical School, as I mentioned earlier, is ranked number one in the country and fifth in the world.
Here are some terms you're going to hear today from myself and from the students that you may not be familiar with yet, or maybe you've heard but it's hard to fully grasp. I'll explain these with examples: Your degree program, your major, and your minor. What are those?
Your degree program is the name of the degree that you graduate with, and it will show up on your parchment. For example, if you wanted to earn a Bachelor of Computing degree, that's the name of your degree. Then, within that, there's an area that you specialize in, and that's what we call a major. That's where you take about 75% of your courses, typically in that subject area.
This next part is completely optional, but if you have-or develop-a secondary area of academic interest and you want to formally pursue about 10 courses in that subject area, we then call it a minor. It will show up on your transcript, but it's important to know that this is completely optional.
So, for example, your degree program could be a Bachelor of Computing. Within that, you would specialize in an area, and here we've written Computer Science. You would take about 75% of your courses relating to Computer Science. Then, if you wanted to add on a minor-business is a popular one, but we've got over 60 different options here at the University-there's lots to choose from. Business is a popular one because it intersects with a lot of fields, so it just adds to your portfolio when you graduate, and it will show up on your transcript as a formal minor, which is just that smaller secondary area of specialization.
I did not take a minor, so again, it's completely optional.
Co-op might also be a term some of you haven't heard of. I know I didn't know what that was while I was living overseas until I got here. But co-op is an option that you can see if your program offers it. Not every program will offer it, but if it does and you qualify for it (based on your admission average), you get the opportunity to spend some terms at a full-time paid job, and then other terms back in class on campus studying. This way, you would get about four to five work terms in, and you can actually earn while you learn and gain industry experience, references, and a professional network before you even graduate.
Purvi: "So, if your program is not available in Co-op, there are still plenty of experiential learning opportunities for all students here to get involved and still gain those hands-on skills. Now, I'll show you what a sample Co-op schedule might look like. So, in this schedule, if you are a Co-op student, it does usually extend your duration of study to about five years as opposed to four years if you're in the non-Co-op stream.
In this particular schedule, you'll see that your first two years you're fully in class, it just says academic terms, so in your fall and winter semester. And then you get that summer off, so it's yours to do what you want. You have no obligations with the University of Guelph to take on a summer job unless you wanted to. And then you're back in class in second year again, and you have two academic terms. And then your first work term here would be the first summer after second year. So, typically at Guelph, that's fairly common that a lot of your work terms will start in second year or even after second year. So often you've actually done half of your degree before you're even out there in the workforce.
In this one, you can see that there are two back-to-back work terms lined up. So, that's where it's up to you, you have the choice to line up two different jobs for four months each, or you can spend one eight-month term somewhere. It's important to know with Co-op that you are responsible for securing your own Co-op job, but we do provide you with lots of resources and assistance. So, you usually have exclusive Co-op coordinators with every degree program. You do a mandatory Co-op preparation course as well. So, all of that, we have our own job boards and everything internally, and that just helps our Co-op students with the job search."
With that, we'll now dive into the academic STEM program, starting with "S," which is for Science. So, our Bachelor of Science program is one of our largest degrees here with 18 majors or areas that you can specialize in. We normally divide them into physical sciences that are more related to chemistry and physics, and then biological sciences, which focus more on human and animal health, nutrition, and molecular biology.
Anything with a little red square next to it means it is available in Co-op. So, those of you interested in healthcare have several options from either section, including something like physics, neuroscience, or biomedical toxicology, just to name a few. In biological and pharmaceutical chemistry, you actually have the option to do a local exchange with nearby Seneca and take courses in your third year in applied areas like pharmaceutical formulations, manufacturing, and advanced drug analysis.
One of our physics graduates complemented his degree with a minor in computer science and worked on the movie Shrek, where he was able to add in the shadows to make the animation 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, for those future doctors and healthcare practitioners, there's a major advantage to studying these at Guelph."
This is a perfect place for me to introduce our first science student, Emelia. So, Emelia, if you want to come on camera now and just chat a bit about each of the points on screen now briefly, and then I'll ask you some questions. But please introduce yourself and just let everybody know what drew you to Guelph and why chemistry?"
 
Amelia: Of course! So again, hi guys! My name is Amelia, I'm a second-year Biological and Pharmaceutical Chemistry student, and I'm also in Co-op. I'm actually on my first Co-op term right now. I'm originally from Pickering, Ontario, which is fairly close to Toronto, so this school is about just over an hour away from where I grew up. The main reason I chose my program in Biological and Pharmaceutical Chemistry is because of the biology aspect in chemistry. The one thing that's really cool with this specific program, and that makes it a little bit different than a straight chemistry major, is the fact that it does have that biology aspect, which gives me more electives in the biological field, which I really love because I'm considering going into some kind of healthcare or research, things like that.
So, for my reason... the reason why I ended up choosing the University of Guelph is mainly because the campus is absolutely stunning. The day I came to visit the campus, I fell in love. I also love the fact that the campus is fairly compact, so it's not ginormous that I'm running like 15 minutes from class to class. Basically, there's no more than a 10-minute walk for me to get from one class to another. Major reason that I chose to come to the University of Guelph is because of this program. I absolutely love the idea of the program, and the fact that when I was looking in the brochure, it gave me so many future career options. I could go anything from forensics to medical research, which I absolutely loved.
Purvi: That sounds great, thank you so much! Now that you're in your second year of your program, can you think of an interesting course that you've taken in your program so far that you really enjoyed? And just share a bit about it with us? 

Amelia: Sure, yeah so probably one of the most interesting courses I've taken so far was actually last semester, so in the fall, and that was Principles of Toxicology. So basically, Principles of Toxicology, if you don't know, is talking about poisons and basically things that can go wrong with different kinds of chemical compounds. The one really cool thing about Principles of Toxicology is it's very introductory. So we actually do environmental toxicology, so chemicals and things like pesticides that, if they get into the environment, into waterways, how they can negatively affect the environment. We also do biomedical toxicology, which is kind of like how poisons and things like that-chemical compounds-can negatively impact the human body. So that was really interesting to see the complete array of how things can negatively affect. We also had chemical toxicology in there, which is specifically how the chemicals work to have a negative impact, as well as regulatory, so just kind of like different levels, like how much you need of something before it actually becomes toxic. Because technically, it's the dose that makes the toxin, not the toxin itself, because any little thing-generally, it kind of depends. So yeah. 

Purvi: Awesome, that's a great answer! I'll ask you one non-academic question too. So, if you cast your mind back to first year, did you live in residence? And if so, what was your room arrangement like? Did you live in a solo, a double, a triple? And how did you find that experience?

Amelia: I did live in Residence, yes, and I was in a single, so I had a room to myself. I personally loved my residence experience. I found I made a lot of friends in Residence, even though I was in a room by myself. I became really close with a bunch of the girls on the floor, which was really nice because I was living next to somebody I didn't know. When I came to the university, I didn't come with a friend, so it was really nice to be in Residence because I was able to make friends really quickly. I was also able to join intramurals through residence, so they had intramural dodgeball. Basically, my residence would play against other residence buildings, which was super fun. Also, I loved the convenience of having the dining halls in my residence building, which was really convenient if I wanted a snack at night.

 Purvi: Definitely, which all of us did! So that's okay, sure. Thanks so much for your answers there. If anybody has any further questions for Amelia, please pop them in the Q&A, and then at the end of the session, I'll come back and see what we can answer together. So thanks for now, Amelia.

Amelia: Thank you!

Purvi: And actually, while we're on the subject of residence, I'll also just mention Guelph does also offer what's called academic clusters. So, if you want to live on the same floor as other students that are in the same program as you, like science students, arts students, or business students, etc., that is possible. There's actually a box that you check on your residence application that says, "Do you want to live in an academic cluster?" and you can just check that box. It's an opportunity to live and learn with like-minded people in the same degree as you.
There are several reasons why one would want to study science here, and one of them includes our facilities. We have the largest DNA Bank in North America, so every living animal and plant is actually assigned a barcode to identify all the different species. All of this information is stored in a digital catalog, so scientists, geneticists, and researchers from around the world come to our school to access these barcodes for their research.
We also have the Hagen Aqualab on-site, which can simulate any aquatic environment in the world. This is the center for studying behavior, disease, genetics, and other factors in aquatic animals living in various water habitats.
I love that our physics department at Guelph has helped NASA. One of our physics professors actually built an important instrument that lives on the Mars rover, which analyzes the mineral content of rocks on Mars. This was a major part of the mission to determine if life on Mars is possible. We are one of the universities that has a control room that communicates directly with NASA.
Other fields that your Bachelor of Science can lead you to include, but are not limited to, nuclear energy, forensic science, environmental analysis, drug development, quantum computing, academia and teaching, wildlife conservation, and more. Even if your major is not available in Co-op, there are still plenty of ways to gain hands-on learning through labs, research, and field courses.
Some cool field courses could include oceanography work on the Atlantic in Nova Scotia, a prop science tour in the Midwest US, or studying agriculture in Costa Rica while visiting coffee and pineapple plantations.
Our first-year labs typically have about 24 to 30 students, which is a great ratio and probably very similar to what you're used to in high school. Here's a snapshot of what some of your typical first-year courses might look like, depending on whether you're in biological or physical science majors. We won't go through this in depth, but if you're interested, you can scan the QR code on the left to see the specifics for your major.
In first year, the focus is generally on establishing solid fundamentals across all the sciences: biology, chemistry, physics, and math.
Now, I'd like to introduce our second and final science representative, Laura. She's a graduate and proud alumni from our Bachelor of Science program. Laura, if you'd like to come on screen now, please take a moment to introduce yourself to our guests using the points listed here. Then, I'll ask you a couple of questions about your experience as well.
 Laura: Sounds good! Hi again, everyone. I'm Laura. Yeah, like Purvi said, I did my undergrad at Guelph in Human Kinetics, and I minored in Nutrition. But I wasn't done studying at Guelph yet, and I'm now doing my Master's here as well in Human Health. I'm from King City, Ontario, so not too far from Guelph-just about an hour away.
There are a few different reasons why I chose Guelph. This has been touched on by a few people now, but when you come to the campus, you'll feel the vibe of Guelph, and you'll know if it's for you. I felt it on my first campus tour. The campus is beautiful, the people are really nice, and that homey vibe of Guelph, with the small-town, down-to-earth feel, was really apparent to me. It was similar to where I grew up, and I really liked that feeling.
I also played varsity soccer at the University of Guelph, so that was a big part of my decision-the soccer program here. But whether you anticipate being an athlete here or not, the athletic facilities at Guelph are amazing. They're newly renovated, huge, and there's so much space for all different types of activities, which was really important to me. I've been an athlete my whole life, so the athletic facilities here were a major drawing factor.
The program itself was another reason. Not a lot of schools have the Human Kinetics program, which was really important to me because I wasn't sure what the difference was. But the more I learned about it, I really liked Human Kinetics compared to Kinesiology at some other schools. Human Kinetics was just more broad, and there were some unique opportunities, like the Anatomy Lab at Guelph, which was one of the only schools that had that. Those couple of things about the program were really interesting to me.

Purvi: Wonderful, thank you! So, yeah, as she mentioned, she's a graduate of the Human Kinetics program, which is-and as she touched on as well-one of the exclusive perks for our Bachelor of Science students only. If you're enrolled in two specific majors, one of which is Human Kinetics, and the other is Biomedical Science, those students have exclusive access to the Human Cadaver Lab, where you can actually dissect real deceased human bodies. Out of 18 science majors, only two have this exclusive ability to unlock those privileges. So again, if you're interested in human health care and medicine, then Guelph is one of the few places that lets you get that hands-on opportunity at the undergraduate level, and you don't have to wait until you're in medical school.
So, Laura, you did the Human Cadaver Lab. Tell us more about that experience-how did you find it?

Laura: Yeah, definitely super cool! It's something I was really interested in, and I really enjoyed. I mean, I'm sure maybe there are some people on the call who are like, "That's not for me," but if you're interested in biology and medicine or any clinical practice, it's truly an experience that will change your perspective. It makes you gain such an appreciation for the human body.
It's really cool because you get to go into the lab and there are lots of different cadavers and things to learn about. You work in a small group with other students in your class, so for Human Kinetics, it's in your third year when you're taking Anatomy and learning about the entire body's anatomy. You're in a small group, and you can literally do the dissections with your group.
If you're like, "I really am interested in this but I'm not sure I'm ready to do the dissections," you can also take the course in a pro-section, where you're not actually doing the dissection but you still get to see everything and touch everything. It's super cool-you're walking around that lab as a third-year student, fully surrounded by bodies, brains, and anything you want to learn about.
There are even more opportunities if you're really interested in it-you can volunteer in that lab or take another course in Anatomy in your fourth year. If that's your thing, there are lots of opportunities to keep being in there and even doing research. It's definitely a unique experience that not many people I know have gotten to do, so it's really cool.

Purvi: Amazing, yeah, I know that's something that a lot of students really look forward to. And we can see on screen now that you've also got a minor in nutrition. So, can you let us know at what point did you decide to add that in, and what prompted you to do that? And how do you find it complements your work? You're also a research student now doing your master's, so does it tie into what you're studying now?

Laura: Yeah, I chose to add my minor in second year, at some point throughout second year. The reason I chose to do that specifically for me was I had already taken human kinetics, which requires some nutrition courses, so I had a little bit of a background in nutrition, and I really enjoyed those courses. And with human kinetics, because you're learning a lot about nutrition anyway, there's a lot of overlap between the nutrition minor and the human kinetics major. So, to add that minor, I really only had to take a few additional courses-basically just make my electives nutrition courses. So, it didn't add any extra time or anything like that for me, and I got to get that extra thing on my degree. But I knew I really liked the nutrition courses anyway, so adding those in as my electives was something I had probably planned to do either way. I guess the minor was just making it official that I was taking those courses and getting that extra education. My research now is in the Human Health and Nutritional Sciences department, so I guess it's a little tied in. I don't really do specific nutrition research, but that was more of an interest for me-that I liked those courses, so I decided to put the minor on. There are lots of minors at Guelph that you already take some of the courses for in your program, so if you talk to your program advisers about potentially adding minors, it's not like they add extra semesters or extra time a lot of the time.

Exactly, yeah, great answer, and that's a great point. So if anybody's wondering how to go about the process of adding a minor, don't worry-you don't have to have that decided at this point or on your application for OUAC (Ontario Universities' Application Center). A lot of you may not know that you're going to declare a minor, so after you've taken a couple of courses at university, you may, you know, take the plunge and formally declare it, just like Laura did.
In that case, you simply go to your program counselor, and they will organize and arrange the paperwork for you to get it formally added to your degree. But again, a minor is totally optional, so it's not something you need to actively be thinking about just yet.
Thank you, Laura.
If anyone has any questions for Laura as a human kinetics graduate, please pop them in the Q&A, and we will circle back to those at the end. But now, I'm going to move on to cover one more degree.

This isn't a Bachelor of Science, but it's still health-focused and overlaps quite a bit with the other programs. It's called the Bachelor of One Health. We won't spend too much time here, but I'll briefly go over what it entails.
This undergraduate program is the only one of its kind in all of Canada. There are other universities where you can take a course in One Health, but we are the only university that offers it as an actual four-year undergraduate program.
So, if you've heard of One Health, or if you haven't, here's what it is:
One Health is an approach or a philosophy that says to create lasting solutions to health on this planet, you have to consider three pillars together:
• Human Health
• Animal Health
• Ecosystem Health
This program is also available in co-op, and instead of having a major, you choose one of the areas of emphasis listed at the bottom of the slide. All of these areas include the word "health" in common, but the first and second words on each line differ.
Whether you study health with a focus on disease, environment, culture, or policy will determine the specific courses you take. This program is versatile and can lead to fields like law, medicine, environmental science, business, and government.
I've always found this program incredibly versatile and think it would open a lot of doors for you in terms of career options. It wasn't available when I was a student, but if it had been, I think this would've definitely gotten an application from me.

Okay, now I'll pass it over to Hillary, who will take you through our accredited Bachelor of Engineering program.


Hillary: Thanks Purvi, you can go right to the next slide because there's a lot of reasons to choose B.ENG. So I've had so many points here that I've had to put them on two slides for you.
Right at the top there is complete four major design projects and interdisciplinary team. So this is one of the reasons to choose Guelph, a lot of schools have you go in as, let's say, a mechanical engineering student and you're just with that mechanical group all the way through. At Guelph, while you do differentiate, you also have common courses and these are design courses. I do have a slide in a few slides from here that we will talk about design further on.
Next is strong community. You ask any student in Guelph engineering why they chose Guelph and more often than not, it's going to be the strong community at Guelph, so this will be your family away from home.
Next is we are ranked 16 out of 20 on Maclean's list of top engineering programs in Canada for last year. And also the B.ENG, once you've completed B.ENG at Guelph, this makes you eligible to pursue a professional engineer certification through Professional Engineers Ontario. What this means is our program has the academic requirements that qualify students to pursue this professional designation.
Last on this slide is our supportive academic environment. So in Guelph, we have three academic advisers or program counselors and they have all taken the engineering programs. They are there for if you need an online appointment or if you want to meet in person, anything course related, they're there to answer questions. In addition to that, we have a peer-led group which is called the engineering peer helpers and they're there to set up any study groups or help you with any of your design projects.
We'll go to the next slide.
So right at the top here, so we know that school can't all be about academics, so in engineering, we have 14 engineering student clubs. We've just listed a handful of them here. These are some of the more popular ones I want to say, so concrete toboggan, robotics team, the Gryphon racing is the photo on this slide here. I believe that car was from right before COVID. Women in Science and Engineering or WISE, Engineers Without Borders, and of course, we have a lot more at Guelph.
It's create your own intellectual property, so any ideas that you have at Guelph are the property of you, so Guelph does not take property over any of your ideas, creations, or designs at Guelph. There's an emphasis towards hands-on collaborative learning, so that is evident by our design spine. Lastly, on this page, if you love Guelph so much after your bachelor program, you can stick around for a graduate program to further your studies in engineering. Those, of course, are the master of engineering, master of applied science, and the PhD program.
Next is the core foundation at Guelph. So like I said before, a lot of schools will have you take a year one engineering. We have something very similar, but it's a little bit different. So students come in and take all the courses on the left side of this screen, so this is the interdisciplinary foundation, and then on the right side of the screen, those are the two courses that differentiate you right away in first year.
So the colored circles on the right, those represent the majors that we have at Guelph. So from left to right in the first section there, we have biological, biomedical, environmental, and water resources, and they take General Chemistry 2 and intro to programming.
Next, we have computer and systems, and they of course take the harder programming courses, that's introductory programming for engineers and object-oriented programming for engineers. So if you're interested in programming or coding, those are the majors for you. And then lastly, taking intro programming and their first elective already in first year is our mechanical students.
So this is the interdisciplinary design sequence, so it sort of represents a spine through your entire program at Guelph. So in first year, you will take a mixed major design challenge. So it's more popularly known as teddy bear wheelchair. You get a kit with a Meccano set and an Arduino, and you have to program a car.
In year two, it's prototype design and build challenge. So this is also known as a 3D printed Kinder egg toy design. You need to design your toy in SolidWorks or AutoCAD, and it's 3D printed, and it has to be assembled and it performs an action.
Year three, so up until this point, you've been given the problem. So year three, you have to design a problem or define the problem and design a creative solution around that problem.
Year four, you take it one step further. This is your final Capstone design project. This sort of wraps up your time at Guelph, and you're creating a presentation, a prototype, and you present at design day.
The program's on, oh sorry, the programs on the right side of your screen. So of course, you have these major four design components of your entire studies at Guelph, but on the right there is a lot more than this list that I've listed here, but you can take design courses specific to your major as well.
So we can go to the next slide.
Alright, so we've got three engineering students here today. I think two of them are Mechanicals and Emma is environmental, so if I'm gonna call on Rafael, since he is on the left, but he is also just been renamed. I think he will be the incoming president for your year if you choose.

Rafael: Well yes, hello everyone, my name is Rafael. I'm a third-year mechanical engineering student on my second Co-op term currently, and I'm going into the mechatronic stream of mechanical engineering. Like I mentioned, I'm from Mississauga, Ontario, so not too far from here.
One of the main reasons I came to Guelph, I came back in 2019 just to visit a friend, and I saw the Formula SA team just rolling down the road with their car. There was a whole group of them just running along, and that's just really the community that I really wanted to have. And that's really what I feel today-it's just a really great community where everyone gets along really well, and you meet people from other majors, other programs, which is really cool.
So that's really great. And the great food! I just-I couldn't stop hearing about all the great food that was getting cooked up at Guelph, so it does live up to the expectation. Definitely 100% recommend it.

Hillary: So now, you mentioned the FSA racing team. Were you a member of the team? Are you still a member of the team?

Rafael: In first year, I was part of the low voltage team. Recently, they've moved into doing an electrical car, so in first year I was, and then I moved towards our engineering society, which is our student body government group that kind of oversees a lot of the events and a lot of advocacy that goes on for engineering students. So I've definitely been around and part of a lot of clubs over my years. Engineers for Sustainable World, I know Em and Gage can talk about GNC, the Concrete Toboggan team. So we have really great clubs that are 100% really involved in our community. They really like to outreach to students to come in and have fun through those clubs and meet people and network. So I would 100% recommend joining a club.

Hillary: Great, thank you, Rafael. So we'll go to Emma next. I'll let you go through your intro, and then I'll ask you some questions about design.

Emma: Okay, hi everyone, my name's Emma. I am majoring in environmental engineering. I've always been a big outdoorsman, I guess, and so I felt like this was a great opportunity for me to make an impact on protecting the natural environment. I've also chosen to minor in project management. So through my time involved in clubs here at Guelph, I've moved into some leadership roles, and I thought this would really complement my studies and where I want to go in my career. I'm from Brantford, Ontario, so again about an hour away, it's not a long drive.
My G reason why... So I heard a lot about the supportive and welcoming reputation that Guelph had from my family members and friends who'd gone here when I told them I applied, and so that was really important to me going into engineering-having a good support group and network of my peers, knowing that that degree program could be difficult at times. And I can say that it certainly has lived up to expectations. There's so much opportunity for collaboration and support through our student clubs, a lot of the events that are run, as well as through our multidisciplinary focus on design and all those different courses you can take with people from other majors.

Hillary: Now, Em, I know that our Enviro students and our Water Resources students-I think I saw one of the students that is attending this is interested in water resources or has applied-those two students get to take a lot of outdoor labs. Is there a favorite lab that you've taken?

Emma: Oh wow, yeah, so this past semester I took hydrology. It's one of the common third-year courses between Enviro and Water. We completed a stream gauging lab here in Guelph in the Speed River. So, we met our lab tech downtown, got suited up in our waders, and went out to measure the speed of the water traveling through the river across the cross-section of the river. That was really cool to incorporate a lot of the kind of math that I built the foundation for in my first and second years and then apply it to the environmental field specifically.

Hillary: Thanks, Emma. So now we will speak with Gage.


Gage: Hey everyone. So as I mentioned earlier, I'm from Aurora, Ontario, which is just over an hour away-about 40 minutes north of Toronto. My major is in mechanical engineering, and I've chosen an area of interest in sustainable and renewable energy. That broadens my elective choices that I've been taking.
Yeah, so my Guelph reason why is, like a lot of people have mentioned here, the beautiful campus. It's really nice to walk outside and just see the campus and the surroundings and all that stuff. And then, additionally, the co-op program. When I was applying to universities and going into first year, I researched Guelph and read about the co-op program. I learned about what they had to offer and just the amount of co-op possibilities that they had, so that kind of brought me here. So, those are probably my two reasons why.

Hillary: Great, those are good reasons. I'm going to ask each of you, because I kind of skipped over asking you about design, but design is a huge component of engineering. A lot of the hands-on making, designing, creating... what was your favorite design course and why? I'll start with Rafael.

Rafael: So my favorite design course was actually one we took this past year. It's one of our core mechanical courses, and it's called machine design. We apply a lot of hands-on learning in that course. We get to go into the machine shop, and we get to use some of the machinery that they use to actually produce this stuff in the real industry, so that was super cool. We were able to, in a group of three, make a bucket elevator, and it was really cool. We had some electrical components to it, and we had to order our own parts through our endowment fund, so that was really cool. We had a lot of support from our professor and our TAs, and it was a very much hands-on course. We got to learn the ins and outs of manufacturing and kind of mechanical engineering while also learning the theoretical parts, like all the calculations that go behind it, all the physics, and everything surrounding that. So, that was a really, really cool experience.

Hillary: Great, what about you, Emma?

Emma: Yeah, the design course that really sticks out for me was Design One, which you already kind of touched on, Hillary. The course does have kind of a different-or rather the project has a different focus every year. So when I took that course, there were two components to it. We were required to build a car using a mechanical build kit and then program it using Arduino.
And then, on top of that, we had to build a boat that was mechanically powered out of recyclable materials. For me, that was really interesting because I don't have a background in coding, but I ended up getting pretty involved in programming our car to complete the course that had been assigned to us. So I challenged myself and got to learn a new skill right off the bat in the first semester of my degree.
On top of that, too, we were put in multidisciplinary teams for this, so I was able to learn a lot from some of my peers who'd had experience and were in computer engineering who had programmed. And then I ended up meeting one of my best friends through that group because you're paired up with, I guess, random people, which is a great opportunity to meet new people.
And then, yeah, it's a really great introduction to the design process, and it just shows you, like, how iterative it can be when you're problem-solving in engineering.

Hillary: Great, thanks. And what about you, Gage?

Gage: Yeah, so I'd say my favorite design course was probably Design Two, where, as you mentioned earlier, the design-and-build project involved 3D printing a toy. So I'll talk about the other one that we did, which involved reverse engineering a mechanical piece of equipment.
For our group, we were given a sewing machine, and the task was to basically disassemble the whole thing and analyze and document where each of the components fit, how they all worked with each other, and how it all collectively worked to make the sewing machine function.
From there, as a group of four students, we had to model the whole piece of equipment in SolidWorks and then make an assembly that animated the sewing machine in its function.
It was really cool to take a piece of equipment, basically tear it apart, identify how all the pieces worked with each other, and then rebuild it. This is pretty similar to what my current co-op work term involves, so it was really interesting to gain that hands-on experience working with machinery and learning how each component works together to accomplish the overall task.

Hillary: Awesome! I think that sort of resonates with a lot of students who want to take engineering. I often ask students when they come for a tour, "So, why engineering?" And they'll often say, "I like taking things apart and putting them back together," so that reverse engineering project is really cool for students. So I think that is it I will send it back to Purvi.
Purvi: Okay, thanks, everyone-all the engineering panelists-for the great information! If anyone in the audience has questions for our students, please put them in the Q&A for us to review, and we'll see what we can circle back to together. Now, we'll move on to the Bachelor of Computing degree and what makes it unique.
So, the title of this degree, right off the bat, is somewhat unique to Guelph. There are very few undergraduate degrees in Canada called a Bachelor of Computing. At other schools, you can study Computing, but it might result in an Arts, Applied Science, or Engineering degree.
Here, we're lucky to have both options. You can pursue Computer Engineering as a Bachelor of Engineering degree, or you can pursue it as a Bachelor of Computing degree.
The main distinction between the two programs is that the Bachelor of Computing degree does not require science for entry, nor does it include science in the curriculum-unless you choose to add it in as an elective. This is a huge advantage for students who want to avoid traditional sciences.
There are two majors in the Bachelor of Computing program: Computer Science and Software Engineering. I'll explain the differences between them shortly.
One unique aspect of this program is its interdisciplinary structure. We encourage students to take courses in non-computing subject areas as well. Our Software Engineering major, however, is not considered an accredited engineering major for students interested in pursuing a P.Eng designation.
Another great feature of this program is Guelph's proximity to many major tech hubs. Within a one-hour radius, you'll find central offices for major tech companies, Canadian banks, government offices, and large healthcare facilities. This "North Silicon Valley" setup offers abundant opportunities for summer jobs, co-op placements, internships, and careers after graduation. Local employers also rely heavily on our students to fill roles.
One of the standout features of this program is the Area of Application (AOA). Every student must identify a secondary area of interest and take eight courses in that area. If you extend it to 10 courses, you can declare it as a minor, which will appear on your transcript. However, the AOA itself does not appear on transcripts.
With over 40 options to choose from, the AOA encourages students to view problems through multiple lenses, use diverse dialogues, and approach projects with multidisciplinary insight. This versatility gives Guelph graduates a significant advantage in the job market.
At Guelph, we're committed to inclusivity in fields like Computing and STEM, which have historically been male-dominated. We strive to create an environment where women and non-binary individuals feel comfortable excelling. Initiatives like GWICS (Guelph Women in Computer Science) foster supportive communities by hosting technical workshops, industry speaker events, and other resources.
In addition to your core Computing courses and chosen Area of Application, you can use free electives to explore diverse areas within Computing, like game design or artificial intelligence. There are plenty of options to customize your degree!
Now, to differentiate between the two majors:
• Computer Science: This is the more traditional computing degree. It includes more math courses and offers greater flexibility in upper years, allowing you to tailor your electives to match your interests.
• Software Engineering: This major includes fewer math courses and focuses more on software design and development. Each year, you'll take a course on software design, which might cover topics like legacy systems or best practices for code development. Software Engineering emphasizes group work and collaboration, including project management methodologies.
And now, I'd like to introduce you to our Computing student, Rashi! Rashi, please join me on screen and introduce yourself to our guests with some additional details. What drew you to Guelph, and why Computing?
 Rashi: Sure!
My name is Rashi, and I'm a fourth-year Software Engineering major with co-op, and I'm also pursuing a minor in Statistics, which I can talk about later.
I'm originally from India, specifically Indore, which is known as a very foodie city. I love my hometown, but Guelph has been my home for the past three years, and it's been fantastic.
My reasons for choosing Guelph are definitely the location, which Purvi talked about earlier, and also because I have some family here. They were able to share the pros of the campus with me, even though I couldn't physically be here for most of my first year because it was during COVID.
 
Purvi: awesome thank you for sharing that and as a Computing Co-op student I know you've done some interesting work terms, so can you share one of your experiences and what you learned at a company that you worked at?

Rashi: Sure! So I'm actually on Co-op right now, so unlike other students who are in the middle of midterms, I'm in the middle of my Co-op term. I've had the opportunity to work at some really great places and learn a lot from each experience.
My first Co-op was at the University as a research assistant. My second was at Nokia, where I worked with both hardware and software. I could make a code change and then see how it impacted their network architecture and operations.
My third Co-op was at Amazon this past summer, where I took on a full-stack development role and worked on security.
Currently, I'm working at Arctic Wolf, which is a cyber security company. I'm involved with their sensors and scanners, and it's been really interesting so far!

Purvi: Awesome, that sounds great, thank you! I'll also ask you-what were some programming languages that you learned as a Computing student, and did you need any previous coding or programming experience when you started this program?

Rashi: Absolutely not, if I had needed that it would have been a problem for me because I knew nothing in terms of coding when I started. So at the University of Guelph, we start off with C, which is a relatively low-level language and it teaches you a lot about how programming works behind the scenes almost because you have to do your own memory management. We also learn Python. We also learned languages like Python, Java for object-oriented programming, JavaScript for front-end development for the Angel of Death course, but it's really interesting name and it has history behind it. So yeah, all of those things as well as a lot of design principles on how to use those tools that are the programming languages.

Purvi: Awesome, thank you so much for sharing that. So I'll move on now and I'll call you back on screen when we get to the math section because Rashi also has a statistics minor that she can talk about, so we'll learn more about how that intersects with her work. 

Rashi: Sure, catch you later!

Purvi: So here's a quick look at the first-year courses that you take in your Computing degree. So if anybody was interested in what that looks like, you can take a look at it here between the two majors. So I'll just leave that up for just a couple of seconds.
Okay, and then the last of our STEM programs is the M for mathematics. So we've had our Mathematical Science major for many years, but it was actually part of our Bachelor of Science degree. So I'm proud to announce that in 2024, and some of you may have already gotten your offer, so you'd be part of the first incoming cohort, and this is the first time we're able to offer the newly developed Bachelor of Mathematics degree.
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 math students love math but don't enjoy science, so this degree was created kind of similarly to Computing in that students can use their electives to complement math with other subject areas and not be required to have to have those high school science courses for admission.
You have the option here to further take your Mathematical Science major and choose an area of emphasis if you wanted to 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 in the province of Ontario. They also released some exciting news saying that they anticipate statisticians and mathematicians to be among the top 10 fastest growing science-related occupations over the next five years. So that just really tells us where the province is going to be expanding on for job growth, and that will include graduates from this group. Some of the roles that our Mathematical Science graduates have succeeded in include policy, healthcare, medicine, wealth and asset management, etc.
So Rashi, I'll call you back on screen and just ask you some questions about how you included Statistics as part of your degree. Can you share with us when you decided to add this in as a minor?
 
Rashi: Yes, so my decision to add it as a minor kind of happened at the end of the first year and the start of the second because I had taken the first statistics course in the winter of my first year, so the second semester of my first year. And that just really, that course just really inspired me a lot in terms of statistics. Early, I used to think of statistics as just calculating means and averages and all of that, but taking that course opened the gates to analysis and critically analyzing any research that has been done. So I felt that that was one of the core skills that I would want to have, and I also realized that learning statistics outside of school was kind of difficult. Also, it complemented my software engineering degree very well to open opportunities into data. So that's how I got started in it. 

Purvi: Perfect, and you're very involved at the University as well, so between your Computing degree and also your statistics minor, can you talk a bit about your role as a teaching assistant or TA and any clubs students can get involved in relating to math? Rashi: Sure, so I've actually worked as a TA for the introductory computer science courses as well as a TA in the Statistical Learning Center at the library. The Statistical Learning Center is a drop-in help table, which is manned by TAs during all work hours at the library. It's a place where students can get help for the courses offered by statistics and math. My experiences there have been amazing, helping people get that "hook" in their learning.
There are many great opportunities to get involved as a math student as well. We have a Math and Stats Club, which actually just released some merch, so I'm going to buy that. They organize amazing events such as career nights, where students from different stages in their education, as well as professors, talk about career opportunities. They also have workshops in R and other mathematical programming languages, so it's a great community. They also have trivia and all kinds of other interesting events.

Purvi: Perfect, yeah, thanks so much for sharing that, and I'll circle back to you shortly at the very end with any questions that we have for Rashi. So whether it's for her Computing degree or her math minor, if anyone has any questions for her, please pop them in the Q&A. Thank you!
And with that, we've completed the academic part of the presentation, so we'll just spend the last couple of minutes here talking a little bit about next steps as an applicant and reviewing any questions if there are any for our current students.
Here are some dates that might be useful for you to know if you're applying this year. The application deadline for the Ontario University Application Center would have just passed, but if you are studying outside of Canada, that date did just get extended to April 1st, so you still have a few weeks to submit an application. And for everybody, remember that June 3rd is the last and final date to accept your offer and also to submit your residence application and deposit. So to get the full list of dates and deadlines to help you with your planning, just scan that QR code on the bottom left.
We would love to invite all of you that have joined us today to visit us on campus on Sunday, March 24th, where we have a university-wide open house happening. You can see everything we've talked about today really come to life. 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've also got another set of open houses happening in May, and those are exclusively for students that have an admission offer and are just kind of making those final decisions. But it will be the same format, and a lot of the information will be focused on what your first year will look like.
Lastly, if you enjoy connecting with current students in your program or from your hometown, we have ambassadors from the University of Guelph on our Unibuddy platform. You can make a free account on Unibuddy, search for the University of Guelph, and then find students to text your questions to about anything to do with living and learning at Guelph, and they will respond within 24 hours.
I'll just take a moment to open up the Q&A here and see if there are any questions that you submitted that I can direct to our student panelists. Just give me a moment.
Okay, so a couple of different questions, maybe around co-op, residence... I'm seeing some about vet school-those seem pretty popular. Let's try residence. How about Gage? Maybe I can send this one to you. We heard from Amelia at the beginning, and she lived in a single room and talked about her residence experience. But Gage, yours was a little bit different, so if you want to come on screen and share, what was your residence experience like, and how did you find it?
Gage: Yeah, so I lived in East, in the Glengary Towers, and I was in a suite with five other people. My suite was also mixed, so there were three guys and three girls, and each of us had singles within the suite. It was pretty interesting to still have a single room but then live with five other people in a suite-style setup.
In my room, we had a kitchen and a living room, so it was kind of like an apartment style in that sense. It was nice to be in first year but still have more responsibilities in terms of cooking and cleaning, and that kind of prepared me for future years when I'm living off-campus in second and third year. It was really interesting to live in that arrangement.

Purvi: Perfect, thank you so much for sharing that with us. Um, next question, Emelia, I'll direct this one to you. If you'd like to come on camera: It's about Co-op. We know you're doing one of your Co-op terms on campus right now. Can you tell us a bit about what that job search process has been like when you're trying to secure your Co-op job? 

Emelia: Yeah, of course. So, I am currently on my first Co-op term and actually working at the University of Guelph, which is great because I got to stay in my off-campus apartment, and I didn't have to worry about trying to find a new place to live. So basically, as soon as the previous semester starts, that's when you're going to start to look for jobs. I think it was something like a week or two into the fall semester when the first round of jobs were being posted.
This is on a website that is provided by the university, so right away there were something like 50 jobs posted. The jobs that you see are specific to your program and major, so you're going to see jobs that you would be able to apply to and succeed in. From there, you're making up your resume, writing cover letters, things like that. The university has a ton of support for this, with different on-campus resources to help you, such as getting people to look over your resume, things like that.
Then, about a week after that, you can start submitting applications, and you just kind of wait to hear about what kind of opportunities you might get.

Purvi: Perfect, thank you, and it looks like a lot of the questions have been answered in the Q&A. We'll leave it with one final one. Laura, I'll send this one to you. You were a full-time student, you had a pretty demanding course load, right, with a major and a minor, you were captain of the Varsity soccer team as well. So, what might you be able to share with our applicants who are just wondering, how do you balance it all? What are some tips for incoming students?
Laura: Sure, yeah, I think definitely the biggest thing that I learned in my first couple of years during my undergrad and being busy was like accepting that it was going to be an adjustment period. So, like understanding that you were going to feel busy and like you might feel stressed at times, and like you might not do great on every single assignment. But like let yourself settle into that new normal that you have. Like Gage spoke a little bit about this too-like you have other responsibilities, you're cooking your own food, you're maybe doing your own laundry, like other stuff like that, that it's not just school or for me, like it's not just soccer.
But honestly, like there's so many resources at Guelph that you can talk to, like there's student tutor groups, there's your TA's, there's resources for stuff outside of academics as well. And I think like getting comfortable with using those resources to like understand things are hard, and like everyone at Guelph and in university in general understands that things are really busy and stressful, and that's why there's so many resources. So kind of getting into that normal and understanding, like this is my new schedule, it's different than high school, but you know, I go to class at this time, I eat at this time, I do my homework at this time, and like I use this resource to make sure I'm not struggling here and this to make sure that I'm doing well in this aspect of my life. And like once you do the first year, you're like okay, now I know what I'm doing and you can start to really enjoy it because you're smoother along that ride.

Purvi: Perfect, thank you so much for that. Okay, so it seems we've answered everything so far. So now, we'll just let you know how to stay in touch with us after this webinar. We hope you all found this STEM session really helpful, and maybe it introduced you to something that you didn't know before. Please stay in touch with us after this presentation through any of the means on screen. For any program-related questions or about Student Life, you can reach me at sepsinfo@you.ca.
We hope you can join us for that open house coming this month on Sunday, March 24th. But if you can't, we do offer monthly virtual live-guided tours to view different areas on campus, and they are actually done by a current student. We're also on social media, so please give us a follow on all the accounts below to stay connected and aware of what's happening in our departments and at the University at UofG. Admission is probably the main one you want to follow, regardless of your program, primarily just so you can catch all the important news and get those reminders of those important dates and deadlines as an applicant.
Okay, and with that, our webinar is now done. We'll be turning our cameras off and just sticking around for a few extra minutes to answer any final questions that come up in the Q&A. But thank you all so much for joining us today, and we hope you are just as excited as us to have you attend the University of Guelph in September. So good luck to all of you who've applied, and we'll say bye for now.