First off, what’s a Working Group? Working Groups are teams of students and collaborators who focus on areas of research that affect the student experience. In the past, these areas have included academic requirements, co-op, sustainability, and mental health.We produce formal reports and presentations on selected areas of research, which we deliver to organizations such as the Council of Ontario Deans in Engineering and the provincial government, and provide resources to schools to help them improve their services and school community. Why start a Working Group? If you’re passionate about student issues such as engineering society governance, mental health, or education, and want to help make a difference on a provincial level, an ESSCO Working Group is agreat way to do that! Working with ESSCO also ensures you have the support and resources of ESSCO and OSPE so you don’t have to figure out how to do this alone! You get dedicated executive support through the ESSCO Executive Team: Working Groups are fully managed by one ESSCO team member, and reviewed regularly by the entire team. ESSCO’s partnership with OSPE also ensures that advocacy experts in the engineering field provide training, advice, research support and reviews of all documents. How do I pick a topic? Easy! Pick a problem, and decide how you want to approach it. To propose a Working Group topic, you don’t need to have a full, fleshed-out plan, and after review, your can update your proposal. What you do need is an understanding of the problem and what ESSCO can do to address it. Ask yourself a few simple questions:
What’s an issue affecting me or the students at my school or in the province?
Is there a clear cause?
Is this something within ESSCO’s mandate, and its 3 Key Pillars, as described on our homepage.
What’s next?
Get in touch with your school’s VP External. They will be your first point of contact and your key to presenting this Working Group.
Get in touch with me, the Student Affairs Commissioner, to let me know you’re interested and get answers to any questions.
Fill out the Working Group Form and submit by Wednesday January 22nd, 11.59pm at bit.ly/WorkingGroupTopics2020
Check out our infographic below for a quick checklist!
