School of Architecture
Esther Cheung, a Masters student in the School of Architecture, is being recognized as an exemplary Teaching Assistant – the sole Arch 292 Teaching Assistant for sixty-seven students. In the Architecture program, Design Studio TAs assist in the ‘backbone course’ of the program and provide assistance on a student-to-student perspective. One student commented that “The Design Studio, the most fundamental and time-consuming component of the study of Architecture at the University of Waterloo, represents somehow finding common ground between such erratic variables as ideas, inspiration and creativity and struggling to manipulate these within the confines of time, reality and logic.” Esther encouraged students to think in many different ways and helped them solve their own problems, rather than her coming up with a quick solution.
Esther’s office door was always open while she was in the School. She would frequently come by the studio on the weekends and offer her help, as well as staying for many hours after class had ended in order to offer assistance to anyone who needed it. A student noted that “if one of us ran into a design problem at three in the morning that person could find Esther nine times out of ten. It should go without saying that if she was there at three in the morning she had her own obligations to meet but she was singularly charitable with her time.”