Week 5: A New Look

Monday, April 20, 2020
by Sam Vandekerckhove

Happy 5th week! It's hard to imagine that we've been living these new lives for over a month already. Is anyone else starting to get a little foggy on what life was like before all of this?

Today, I'm going to switch gears from my usual crazed ramblings to provide some updates about our ENGWellness Program! For those of you out of the loop, we've made some significant updates to the ENGWellness website (and the program in general) in an effort to better support our students and community as a whole. Some bits and bobs are still coming together, but for the most part we're LIVE! As always, the feedback and ideas that we receive from our community (that's YOU) is invaluable. Please continue to send any suggestions or thoughts for what you would like to see to us directly at: ENGWellness@uwaterloo.ca. 

"Every new beginning comes from other beginnings end."

- Lucious Annaeus Seneca

Check out the drop-downs below for some helpful breakdowns of what you can find along with the expected wellness resources and this week's E-ntertainment!

Undergraduate Students

The best way I could describe my undergraduate experience summed up in one word would be, varied. There were SO many ups and downs, lefts and rights, and a few wrongs in there, too. From the many UG students I've met with, experiences vary based on a multitude of different factors, and it's important to not let the experiences of others (comparisons) dictate what your experience should be. Each and every one of us (despite being in a similar program) have unqiue strengths and individual areas of improvement. Let's not compare apples to apricots!

As the UG experience varies, so too do the insane number of supports and resources accessible to our UG community! We've updated our Undergraduate Students section to capture a significant amount of these resources. Here are a few sneak peaks:

Academic & Program Resources

On-Campus Wellness Resources

  • Peer Health Education Team: A program that promotes positive health behaviours and lifestyle choices to support physical and mental wellness and academic success. 
  • How to Help a Friend: Helpful tips for how to support your friends in need.
  • Campus Wellness Blog: Relevant and useful posts to support your wellbeing throughout your studies. 

Peer Support Resources

The Waterloo Engineering Society (EngSoc)
Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association (WUSA)
  • MATES: (Mentor Assistance Through Education and Support) is a one-to-one student peer support program offered by WUSA in consultation with Campus Wellness. MATES provides support to students who are hoping to build social skills, or are experiencing personal or academic concerns or low-level mental health and wellness difficulties.
  • RAISE: (Racial Advocacy for Inclusion, Solidarity and Equity) serves to address racism and xenophobia on the UWaterloo campus with initiatives reflective of RAISE's three pillars of Education and Advocacy, Peer-to-Peer Support, and Community Building.
  • CAPS: (Centre for Academic Policy Support) is a confidential student support service run by students, for students. The CAPS Coordinator is trained to assist fellow Waterloo undergraduates throughout their experience in navigating academic policy in the instances of filing petitions, grievances and appeals.

Again, plenty more resources to be found on our newly renovated Undergraduate Students section!

Graduate Students

The graduate student experience at UW (any institution, really) is another rife with inconsistency from person to person and further complicated by the nature of the work and research they are doing. From my discussions, MEng, MASc, PhD, etc. all have unique needs, goals, and desires and have to balance these along with that of their supervisors/advisors (depending on the program), and peers and colleagues as well. We also have an impressive international population amongst our grads, and cultural considerations are equally important to their experience! 

Fortunately, we've completed our voyage of the sea of information to find some useful resources for our grads in our updated Graduate Student section. Here's a snippet of what you can find:

Academic & Program Resources

Training & Professional Development Resources

On-Campus Wellness Resources

Peer Support Resources

Departmental Graduate Student Associations
Graduate Student Association (GSA-UW) - All Graduate Students

Here is a listing of some useful services offered by the GSA-UW:

Even more resources can be found on our new Graduate Student section!

Nine Dimensions of Wellness

As wellness and wellbeing mean different things to different people, in the ENGWellness program we've defined wellness based on nine interconnecting aspects we refer to as the Nine Dimensions of Wellness (based on similar dimensional models created by Harvard, McMaster, and Simon Fraser University). In the ENGWellness program, the Nine Dimensions of Wellness are: physical (body), intellectual (brain), emotional (mood), relational (social connections), vocational (career/goals), cultural (values and morals), spiritual (meaning and purpose), financial (stability), and environmental (needs and safety). 

We've consolidated a ton of information on our Nine Dimensions of Wellness page and provide some helpful resources for each dimension within (check them out and feel free to refer anything you might find useful!). Keep in mind that wellness is often a balancing act between the challenges we are facing and the resources we have to address them. We've yet to encounter a single person who would readily say they are 100% in each and every dimension, but I suppose unicorns may actually exist... somewhere!

Wellness Breaks and Tips

We've developed a new page to consolidate all of the wonderful wellness breaks and tips that have been sent via email and blog these past few weeks. Updates to the 10 Minute Wellness Break page will be ongoing with exciting and relevant content, so be sure to check it out regularly! Here's a few videos we still intend to upload:

If you have a particular topic you would like us to explore for these breaks, please let us know: ENGWellness@uwaterloo.ca!

E-ntertainment

Another important aspect of maintaining mental health is taking breaks - and that includes breaks from the bright red banner that we now see over every news broadcast and webpage we visit. Maybe even consider taking a break from reading those emails you're getting from every company you've ever provided your email address to (it's so nice to see them all doing their part!).

Here's a list of some fun e-things to e-do while we're all e-working from our e-homes: 

If you have any cool digital things you would like to share, email us at: engwellness@uwaterloo.ca and we'll include it in a future post!

Thanks again for stopping by and don't hesitate to connect with us if you have anything you would like to see or feedback to provide: ENGWellness@uwaterloo.ca. 

Stay Safe and Healthy!

-- Sam and Renate