JobMine links student with golden co-op job

from the faculty of engineering e-newsletter

Barrett Schitka (right) was on the internet employment site JobMine one day when he found a co-op placement that would give him the opportunity to develop his engineering skills and work on his Spanish as well.

The first year chemical engineering student is one of two Canadians working at the National University of Engineering (UNI) in Lima, Peru, this summer as part of Students Without Borders that connects post- secondary students to volunteer work opportunities in South America, Africa and Asia.

Schitka (right, in a UNI lab) is working on a wastewater project entitled “Extracción y Caracterización de los Lodosto." The work he's doing includes reducing the amount of waste produced at treatment plants.

He calls his co-op experience the chance of a lifetime. "I have always loved the Latin American culture and the Spanish language, so when the opportunity came to work in a Spanish-speaking country, I was extremely excited."

The Calgary native has found the Peruvian way of living is different from what he's familiar with in Canada. "Lima has the hustle and bustle like any city yet people still find time for friends and family and to enjoy what's important in life. It is this welcoming attitude and outlook on life that I know I will take with me."

Schitka says UNI itself is physically much different from the University of Waterloo. "All of the buildings are built within an interior courtyard/plaza. There are no hallways — most of the classrooms open directly to the outside. I've been told this is because of the climate in Lima. It almost never rains and is also very humid and temperate all year. For example, it is winter here right now and is about 15 degrees Celsius."

Schitka arrived in Lima in May and will return to Canada in time to start his second year of engineering. He is keeping track of his co-op experience on a Students Without Borders blog site.

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From time dimensions to Black Power

Here’s another list of UW faculty members who began sabbatical leaves on July 1, with summaries of their plans as submitted to the UW board of governors, which has to give approval for all sabbaticals.

Steven Weinstein, philosophy (six months): “I will be doing extensive work on the conceptual, physical, and mathematical aspects of multiple time dimensions, along with closely related work on causation in world such as ours with a single time dimension.”

Erik Woody, psychology (six months): “My sabbatical will provide greatly increased opportunities to pursue research with collaborators, both in North America and in Australia. In particular, it will free up substantial blocks of time for me to visit other labs and do collaborative research there, as well as set up joint projects for the future.”

Edward Chan, computer science (twelve months): “Extensive research has been done on the problem of finding optimal paths in a graph, and numerous main-memory path finding algorithms have been derived. However, given a massive network, finding optimal routes with existing main-memory algorithms are no longer practical, both in terms of system resource utilization and the time to compute the answer. I plan to investigate the problem of finding unified and efficient route query evaluation algorithms for a large network.”

Ronald Johnson, recreation and leisure studies (twelve months): “I intend to develop data from past projects into publications; increase my understanding of urban recreation by examining the literature in greater depth; continue to expand courses, some being quite unique in the area of recreation; travel during the sabbatical to meet with colleagues and to observe first hand many of the urban projects related to recreation and urban revitalization.”

Ric Holt, computer science (twelve months): “I plan to concentrate on my professional development in core areas in my area of research. In particular, I plan to study information theoretic approache to the analysis of mining of software repositories. I have NSERC funding, $56,000/year over 5 years, supporting this work.”

James Walker, history (twelve months): “Two projects: completion of book entitled Look Over Jordan: The Canadian Journey Toward Racial Equality Since World War II, an analysis of six case studies reflecting the progress made in race relations in Canada over the past half-century; begin book in collaboration with George Elliott Clarke and B. A. ‘Rocky’ Jones on the Black Power movement in 1960s Canada.”

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Thanks, comment, and correction

A note from Sharr Cairns: “From all of us at Canadian Blood Services, a sincere thank you to everyone who attended the blood donor clinics this week in the SLC. We collected 214 units of blood, exceeding our target! We also welcomed 60 first-time donors to the clinics...” She singles out Ann Simpson and Scott Pearson of the Student Life Centre, the Turnkey Desk team, Roland Mueller of Plant Operations, FEDS, and the Daily Bulletin as especially helpful, and adds: “Since each donation has the power to save up to three lives, your generosity will benefit well over 600 patients in need.” Summers especially are a critical time for blood donation, with fewer donors but rising demand.

And a reminder: there will be a one-day blood donor clinic in the SLC Multi-Purpose Room next Monday, July 30, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Book appointments at the Turnkey Desk, or drop in and they will try to acccommodate you. For information call 1-888-236-6283.

November may seem a long way away right now, but Sue Fraser of the UW Staff Association says it’s not too soon to be thinking about the UWSA shopping weekend to Erie, Pennsylvania, November 9 to 11. There are a few vacancies left. Note that final payment is required by September 28. To register or for more information, see the UWSA website, or contact Sue Fraser (ext. 32968 or fraser@uwaterloo.ca) or Peggy Day (ext. 35875 or pday@uwaterloo.ca).

A comment from Leah Harder: “Who wrote the Student Life 101 plug on the right hand side of Friday's paper? I was shocked and appalled to read ‘up to 6,000 kids and parents...’ Kids! Who are they kidding? Many first year students are actually older than a lot of the volunteers that will be helping out with SL101. As an Ambassador at Conrad Grebel, a 2007 FOC member, SL101 volunteer, and student at the University of Waterloo, I know a lot about incoming students. I always correct people when they refer to first-year students as 'kids.' ... To see it published on the University website...I have to say I'm disappointed.”

A correction: in Friday's Daily Bulletin we said that Victor Ciesielski, who is off to the Canadian Open next week, is a student in recreation and leisure studies. In fact, he is a former student.

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