Married alumni engineers #BeyondProud as they drop son off for first day of university.
It is coming up on 31 years since Jennifer (BASc '91) and I met at the University of À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ. I was in second year Systems Design Engineering and Jennifer was one of two women starting in her Mechanical Engineering class. I’m so happy that we met.
During that term I was actually wondering if I could handle all the demands of 2nd year engineering. Little did I know how important À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ would be to us. Or how we would feel with our son starting UÀ¶Ý®ÊÓƵ Mechanical Engineering; just like his mother.
Dropping Philip off to start his UÀ¶Ý®ÊÓƵ journey brought back a flood of memories.
Many physical things have changed, but much is still the same. We have been excited to see the building of Engineering 5 and how that space encourages the many projects that students can be involved in. We have been pleased to help support UÀ¶Ý®ÊÓƵ upon seeing that progress.
Back in the 1990s À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ already had a great reputation, but co-op education was a relatively new program. What I didn’t expect was that my co-op work terms would eventually lead into a .
Jennifer’s engineering problem solving helps with her . She also keeps up regularly with several of the girlfriends she made in Engineering and we were very happy to be at her 25th reunion last year with all those friends. Having the reunion dinner held at Fed Hall also reminded us of many fun times we had with friends on campus during school terms.
My connections with UÀ¶Ý®ÊÓƵ alumni extend beyond Reunion events. A fun memory from my university days, was a time when I almost ended up on a windsurfing poster promoting UÀ¶Ý®ÊÓƵ at high schools! The poster eventually ended up with a different student on it - wearing my lifejacket. Nevertheless windsurfing still connects me with UÀ¶Ý®ÊÓƵ alumni today. I compete as and seem to meet a lot of engineers who like the sport. Standing on a beach in Santa Cruz California 2 years ago I was talking about the waves with a fellow windsurfer and quickly found out that he was a fellow UÀ¶Ý®ÊÓƵ engineering alumnus.
Jennifer and I were deeply touched a few years ago when we received a valentine’s card from the À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ Engineering Alumni team. That was a wonderful addition to many images of the two us.
A very personal connection to À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ has been an ongoing warm and periodic connection with outstanding Adjunct Associate Professor Larry Smith. Larry taught both Jennifer and I, Economics 101 – along with thousands of other students. He was also the supervisor on one of my engineering projects and attended a debate our family had when the original NAFTA was being proposed. I was excited when he . His and book were much more recently discussed in our home. Our conversations about how great professors can change your life may have been influential in our son’s decision to attend UÀ¶Ý®ÊÓƵ.
As the flood of pictures hit Facebook in September of parents dropping off their kids at university or college, we shared a picture of our son unloading the car at À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ. We had so many positive comments (even from friends in the US) about this university and Phillip’s potential there. We think the future looks great, and hope that one day he’ll be attending UÀ¶Ý®ÊÓƵ alumni events.
