For many, starting your first year of university can be an intimidating, overwhelming, but very exciting time in your life. To ease the transition period between high school and university, many Living Learning Communities (LLC) have been created in the residence buildings at UWaterloo.
Various LLCs are housed across the residences on campus to allow students studying in the same Faculty or academic cluster to live near one another. St. Paul’s is home to the Faculty of Engineering LLC, Financial Analysis and Risk Management LLC and Women in Engineering LLC.
We caught up with some former students from the Women in Engineering LLC to learn what their experience living at the College with their classmates looked like.
“Being a part of the Women in Engineering LLC was great because it’s like having a built-in network of your peers as a first-year student,” said Naomi Paul, 3B Systems Design Engineering student.
The students shared that having access to this network also allowed for them to gain a natural bond with each other, as they shared similar schedules and classes, fostering a supportive learning environment for all. As a part of the initiative, students also have access to mentorship and support from upper-year students known as peer leaders that come to the College a couple of times a week. The role of a peer leader can range from organizing social activities to bring students together, to providing one-on-one guidance to help a student find the resources they need on campus.
In the residence, approximately eight to 10 students in the LLC will live on the same floor, grouped by program type or schedule.
At St. Paul’s, these students have access to weekly tutoring sessions with Teaching Assistants and upper-year students. Many students take advantage of this resource because it is less intimidating than seeking out resources on the main UWaterloo campus and it is conveniently located just down the hall from where they are living in residence.
“It was so great to have access to all the resources I needed as an Engineering student all in one place,” says Sarah Dykstra, 2B Biomedical Engineering student. “I always had someone around who could answer my questions and even better, it helped me find a balance between my studies and social life.”