Gurkiran, first-year Knowledge Integration student completed an internship at Georgetown University in Washington, USA.
Reflecting on her experience, Gurkiran shares, “My internship at Georgetown University deepened my understanding of public health and medicine, showing me the real-world impact of innovative health solutions.”
Sophia, third-year Knowledge Integration student, spent her summer travelling to Cape Town, South Africa, for a new pilot field course, ENV 474: Biodiversity, Climate Change, and Social Justice.
Sophia shares, "This field course ignited a passion for marine ecosystems and helped me experience what it would be like to work abroad. I come out of this adventure with new knowledge, new connections, close and far, and a new outlook on the world."
Izzie, Corinne and Sakura, third-year Knowledge Integration students, presented findings from their third-year design capstone project Imagine That! at The Association for the Study of Play (TASP) in New York, one of two international conferences focused on the interdisciplinary field of play study.
The three KI students were the only undergraduate students to attend and present their research at the conference! They share, "We hope our experience is a sign to other students that there is a place for us in academia before Masters or PhDs. Go and share the cool capstone and thesis projects you’ve worked so hard on!"
In her last year of Knowledge Integration, Léa participated in ocean field work in Eastern Canada as part of the Waterloo course ERS 374: Oceans, Human Impacts & Sustainability.
Léa reminisces, "My perspective on the world has been impacted by this course and I’ll never forget the connections I made with the professors, other students on the course and with the professionals we met along the way."
Sam, third-year Knowledge Integration student, completed an internship with AugmentedHearing.io in Denmark which inspired their fourth-year Senior Honours Project.
Sam explains, "My role with them was to validate their noise removal software by determining objective measurements that could show stakeholders how speech intelligibility was improved with our product. Now, for my senior honours project, I am researching how to improve AH’s speech enhancement algorithm by looking into what phonemes are often confused with one another and seeing how we can create sound filters to improve the distinction between them."
Katie, second-year Knowledge Integration student, attended the Redfish School of Change intensive field school in coastal communities in British Columbia and Washington State to gain skills in raising environmental awareness.
Katie shares, "I had the unique opportunity to step out of my comfort zone, learn within the environment I was studying, collaborate with a diverse range of people and learn something about myself. Hearing the need for people to bridge between groups really solidified the importance of the collaboration and communication skills I am learning in Knowledge Integration."
Lindsay, second-year Knowledge Integration student, participated in an archeology field school in Jordan through ANTH 371: Anthropological Field Experience.
Lindsay shares, "I gained a much deeper appreciation for the work that archaeologists and anthropologists do. I am completing a minor in Anthropology, so this field course counted towards my minor. One of my favorite parts was working at the cemetery site and being able to identify the bones I was excavating, since I had learned all of them in ANTH 355 (Human Osteology)."