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BY ALAN MARTIN
University of Calgary
Student Contributor
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During lunch hour at the University of Calgary, students
normally count up their spare change to see if they have
enough for a meal. On Nov. 19, however, spare change was
tossed into beer jugs, which engineering students carried
around campus.
Why? To support charity.
It was the annual Engineering Students’ Society Loonie
Walk. Starting at noon and lasting for about an hour, about
40 people shook beer jugs as the walked through campus, asking
students to give up their hard-earned loonies and other spare
change for a good cause. This year, as it was last year,
the loonie walk supported Calgary Urban Project Society.
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Tally Up
U of C engineering
students check out the coin, after their annual Loonie
Walk on Nov. 19.
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CUPS supports the poverty stricken residents of Calgary,
providing services such as counselling programs for people
seeking employment or individuals in crisis situations. CUPS
also provides health, transportation and housing services
for people in need.
The grand total raised this year was $1,169.69.
Event organizer Derek Kormish said he was pleased with the
results. “I think the event went very smoothly. It’s
a very good charity event for students who are always very
busy with school work, but can spare an hour for a well respected
Calgary charity,” he said. The Engineering Students’ Society
and the engineering student population often raise money
for charities. The upcoming ENGG week will be the next big
event that raises money for charity – while also letting
the engineering students have a great time. Internship Program
Reaches New Heights
Tucked away inside the engineering building is the Engineering
Internship Office. The office may be easy to miss, but most,
if not all, engineering students at the U of C know about
it.
That’s because it provides a very useful service – it
helps students get work experience. Every year the internship
office helps engineering students between their third and
four years of study find internship work terms. These can
be anywhere from four to 16 months long – students
taking shorter terms will take more than one to come as close
to a 16-month total as possible.
Unlike most co-op programs, the U of C Internship Program
puts all the working months together, instead of breaking
them into smaller chunks. This means students spend less
time training for jobs, and more time actually working and
learning. And it also looks good to employers, since students
who spend a month or two learning the job will be around
longer than another two months – sometimes as much
as 14 months.
This year, the internship program placed its highest ever
number of students. By September, 253 students had found
internship jobs in 2003. The previous highest number of students
placed was 228 in 2001.
More than 88 per cent of the students who applied for internship
received placements, including all 67 mechanical engineering
students who applied, all 12 oil and gas students and all
32 civil engineering students.
Some students received placements overseas. Twenty-one students
were placed in Switzerland this year, and several others
worked in other countries.
Every year more students apply for internship, and every
year more students get jobs. These students are better engineers
when they graduate from university and enter the workforce,
thanks to their work experience.
The internship slogan describes this quite well: Superior
Graduates Through Engineering Internship.
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