WA

TER

LOO

Winter 2014, ed.1

The PathLess Traveled

WELCOME BACK!

Needless to say, it’s always hard to hit the ground running, espe-cially fresh from the holidays. But for some, it can be intimidating to start a new term. It’s true that co-op opens us to a world of risk; the chance of unemployment, bad work environments, constant criticisms, etc...And with so many priorities, who wouldn’t want to crawl back to

bed and lie in a sheltered coccoon of comfort?

However, stepping out of your comfort zone is what co-op’s all about! In this issue, Mackenzie Kinney shows us how it’s done by highlighting the realities of international work terms, and how to conquer them as well as enjoy them. Next, Christina Marchand defies the conventional co-op experience with her unbelievable work term in Africa by volunteering in - incred-ibly - the delivery room! Then on homeground, Rohit Talwar steps up to make a difference in a corporate environment...And finally, co-ops at Microsoft show us how positive changes can be implemented to leave lasting changes in the workplace, by creating a centralized Sharepoint site.

Although scary, taking chances is how we learn to become bet-ter students, and most importantly, bigger, braver people. To explain, I’ll just leave you with this quote from Robert Frost:

“Somewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.”

Good luck. And best wishes,

Lenore RamirezMarketing and Communications Associate, CECA

Inside sC

o-o

p

Letter from the EditorEditor & Creative DirectorLenore Ramirez,Communications & Marketing Associate

Staff EditorOlaf Naese,Communications Specialist

PhotographyLenore Ramirez

Photo SubmissionsMackenzie KinneyChristina MarchandSachi PatelShiori Mine

In this IssueThe Inside sCo-op is a bi-term student e-publication issued by Co-operative Education & Career Action at the University of Waterloo.

xiFollow us and stay updated on all things CO-OP

@uWaterlooCECA; /user/hireuwaterloo

Inevitable emotions, culture shock, and life-changing experiences are discussed in this article, with an interview with Mackenzie Kinney.

An Unforgettable Escapade

In her last co-op term, Christina Marchand steps way outside her comfort zone to make a difference in Uganda, Africa.

Helping Fight the Women’s Battle

Rohit Talwar steps up to the plate, and helps TD implement their new ‘Aeroplan’ program for their credit card line.

A World Class Experience

Co-op students from Microsoft show us how to leverage every opportunity to succeed with a clever solution

Strategies for a Successful Work Term

147

9

@uWaterlooCareer

Insi

de

sCo

-op

x

Don’t miss the bus! GO Transit is changing its rules around the ID required when you buy a new PRESTO fare card. As of January 15, 2014, you won’t be able to use your WatCard to prove you’re a student and eligi-ble for discounted fares. Instead, you’ll need a GO-Transit approved ID. This new card is free and is available through the Registrar’s Office.

To get your ID:•Visit your Quest home page start-ing January 15th. •Click on the GO Student Card link. •Complete and submit the online form.•Pick up your GO Transit ID card form the Registrar’s Office after 10 a.m. on the next business day.•If necessary, you can load funds on your PRESTO card at the Turn-key Desk in the Student Life Cen-tre. Just remember to bring your new ID with you.

If you already have a valid PRESTO card, you can continue to use it until it expires. At that point, you’ll need to request a new ID card.

A Love for TravelDue to the nature of co-op, work terms and school terms are always alternating, eliminating the relaxing, workless summer months that non-co-op students get. Instead of seeing this as a negative, Mackenzie sees it as an opportuni-ty. Because her summer months – the months when students most often travel – have been taken away, she sees no reason not to do so for her work terms. She not only travelled for her work terms, but she took advantage of the inexpensive airline tickets (often around £60 [pounds]) from England by traveling during her work term as well. While in Europe, she visited sev-en different countries on her own time. Can you imagine, being able to fly to Paris for the weekend? Making the most of her experience allowed her to do just that, as well as visit Spain and Italy, among others.

Unexpected EmotionsOf course, leaving your friends and fam-ily for four months isn’t all smiles and rainbows. Although Mackenzie expect-ed a somewhat easy transition because she didn’t expect a language barrier and she had visited England before, she says, “It was a lot harder of a transition than I thought, and I definitely got homesick!” This is a very common problem of interna-tional work term students, but it’s also one of the most highly anticipated. Because of this, it’s easy to set up a Skype account

before you leave to communicate with loved ones, keep in contact through Face-book, or use applications such as Facetime to avoid the issue of insanely high phone bills. Thankfully, Mackenzie had a great group of people to spend time with at Oxford.

Battling Loneliness Mackenzie worked alongside PhD and Post Doc students from all around the world. She says, “The entire group was really close… everyone did everything togeth-er. It was a really family-like experience the whole time”. After the initial bout of homesickness, she really made the most of her time in England by joining the cricket team, experiencing the pub culture with her new friends, and truly learning a lot from them. Her workplace was very flexi-ble, and even allowed pets in the offices! “It was just a really good atmosphere,” says Mackenzie.

“ It was a really family-like experience the whole time.

Insi

de

sCo

-op

Inside sC

o-o

p

1 2

An Unforgettable Escapade

When considering an international work term, many concerns may come to mind. Am I going to get homesick? Will cul-ture shock get the better of me? Will I be lonely? And most of all – will it be worth it? Mackenzie Kinney, a 3B Biology stu-dent, discusses these question and more as she shares her experiences about her work term at Oxford University.

It wasn’t a difficult decision for Mackenzie when she was presented with the oppor-tunity to work at Oxford University in the UK as a research assistant for her most re-

cent work term. While on her work term, Mackenzie took part in a 60-year-long research study of a bird species called the Great Tit, collecting fecal samples from nest boxes and using DNA analysis to detect the presence of different species of prey, track changes based on hatching time and location, and more. The nature of the research itself was enough to en-tice her – the location was just a perk. She says, “I’ve always just really wanted to travel,” a trait that many of us share, but often have to wait years to accomplish. [Continued on next page]

by Caitlin Feehan

Mackenzie, visiting Tower Bridge in London.

WINNERS OF THIS YEAR’S CECA“WHERE IN THE WORLD” CONTEST ANNOUNCEDClick here to find out the winners!

Mackenzie and her co- researchers in the Old Chestnut tree in Wytham Woods

Adjusting to a different culture“No matter how prepared you think you’re gonna be, you’re always going to have cul-ture shock.” Mackenzie said that English in the UK was “a different kind of English” be-cause of the use of slang words, odd pro-nunciations, and heavy accents. The gro-cery stores even worked on a class system, meaning that where you shopped said ev-erything about your social rank, which was a very unusual idea to Mackenzie. De-spite these complications, she “can’t say enough good things about [my work term]”. Unique ExperiencesWhile working at Oxford, Mackenzie en-countered many situations that went far beyond her job description, but in the best possible way. She got to meet David Atten-borough, English broadcaster and natural-ist. “This man is my absolute hero. He was in the department one day filming for a TV show, and I heard about it and went looking for him. I was lucky enough to find him in the lobby, speak with him briefly, listen to

him joke around and take a photo with him,” says Mackenzie. She remarked that it was the best day of her life, and for good reason!

There was also a day when Mackenzie and her team got to take care of swans. “During their molt, we went to a swannery where over 700 of them had gathered and spent the day tagging them, vaccinating them and making sure they were in gen-eral good health before releasing them to the wild again.” It was the unique ex-periences like these that made Macken-zie’s work term so unique and memorable.

Current Work Term and AdviceAfter her amazing time in England, Mack-enzie says, “I plan to make all of my [co-op work terms] international”. She has just started her fourth work term in Australia at the Queensland University of Technology, working with stem cells to regenerate joint cartilage so that it can be used for people with injured knees. Her employer even of-fered to help her find housing to make the transition easier for her. The way she thinks about it is, “People want to make money so they can do things like travel, why not make money and travel?” But it isn’t all about trav-el for her: “ Beyond the fact that you’re go-ing to get to travel…just the life experience and how you grow as a person is so much more than if you were to stay in your com-fort zone. As much as it’s going to be a lot of work…it’s worth it in the end, 100 fold.”

For more information, go to the Co-op page’s Work Abroad website.

Inside sC

o-o

p

4

Helping Fight the Women’s Battle

In Uganda, pregnancy is also known as “Olutalo lwa bakyala.” Lugandan for “the woman’s battle,” it means that-

when a woman goes to battle, you don’t know if she or her child is going to survive. During her international work term, Chris-tina Marchand (4A Health Studies) volun-teered as a medical intern with the ‘Save the Mothers’ organization, which trains professionals from developing countries to improve mothers’ health through their

specific vocation and sphere of influence. Christina was offered an unpaid volun-teer position with housing, but luckily, received about $1,000 per month from government grants, as well as an Interna-tional Experience Award from UWaterloo. The operating room, one of the areas she volunteered, has introduced Christina to incredible perspectives, and her interna-tional work term is a life-changing experi-ence we can all learn from. [Cont. on next]

by Lenore RamirezInsi

de

sCo

-op

3

Christina, standing by an operating table that has remainedunchanged since its installation in the 1960s.

Mackenzie meeting her hero, David Attenborough.

The Great Tit, the species of bird Mackenzie was studying.

Insi

de

sCo

-op

Inside sC

o-o

p

5 6

Initially, Christina took on an administrative role: conducting an audit of the hospital to see what could be achieved with little to no money, and helping the staff understand the medical instruments that oftentimes came with no instructions. Having never lived in a developed country before, and wanting to be as involved as possible, six weeks later saw her volunteering in the hospital’s deliv-ery room. This learning experience was ex-tremely beneficial, as it wasn’t long before she was thrown right into one of the most inconceivable events of anyone’s life.

The Woman’s Battle

The hospital that Christina worked at was so severely understaffed that during the night shift, only one person would be on call. One night, four women were set to simultaneous-ly deliver; but when a patient required an emergency C-section, the remaining person on duty had to leave to assist the surgery. Christina then found herself in the terrifying position of having to deliver three children at once with no prior medical experience. Extremely scared, the last words she was left with were, “Don’t worry - if you weren’t here, no one else would be, so you can’t do any-thing wrong.” Luckily, after an intense period during which Christina describes herself as “frazzled” and “super stressed,” three more babies were born. Of the feat that would intimidate many doctors, she says, “When you’re in that situation, you’re just surprised at what you can do.”

Saving Lives

In addition to working in the maternity ward, Christina also wound up battling the ethics that surround medicine. In Uganda, many people can’t afford even the simplest med-ication, and when there was 99 cents sep-arating a person’s life from death, Christina found it incredibly difficult to refrain from helping. “Even if you have the money, you can’t save everyone, and you can’t try to be-cause that won’t be good for you either,” she says. “Being able to be okay with yourself

as a human being after those experiences is sometimes hard.” In fact, her submission to CECA’s “Where in the World” photo contest held last November is a testament to this. When it was too late to save a mother need-ing an emergency C-section, Christina saw the patient’s husband and daughter sitting by the road in silence. “[Suddenly] it made me see the whole picture,” she explains. “Be-cause I was always focusing on the mother - but I didn’t know why we had to save the mother. And then I saw that it wasn’t just for the mother’s life…It was for the whole fami-ly’s life.”

New Perspectives

Facing the same situation, many of us would’ve been daunted by the gravity of Christina’s experiences - but she says she wouldn’t have changed it for the world. After her international experience, Christina has a new perspective on life, and what it means to be “rich”; as a Canadian, she was startled by the economic differences between her-self and the locals. “When you look at peo-ple over there who are so happy with what they have, and you are grumbling about how you can’t buy your Tim Horton’s coffee…That really puts things into perspective. We take our blessings in Canada for granted.”

Finally, following her co-op experiences, Christina’s faith in following her passions has grown even more pronounced: “Ultimately, your education from co-op is governed by you - and it’s about you. You need to get as much out of it as you can so you can figure out what you want to do when you don’t have JobMine to help you.” As she considers her future in graduate and medical school, Christina knows that no matter what, there will be a resource to help her reach her goals. “Finances are going to be something we have to grapple with our entire lives, no matter how great of a job we end up getting,” she says. “But don’t let it stop you from going after your passion. If it’s a great opportunity, do what you need to do to make it happen.”

“ Whenever you put yourself out there, whenever you do something that isn’t exactly the most comfortable[...] that’s going to make you grow the most.

Christina’s entry for CECA’s “Where in the World” photo contest.

Holding a young child from a village in the Soroti District.

Insi

de

sCo

-op

Inside sC

o-o

p

7 8

A World ClassExperience

by Lenore Ramirez

Rohit Talwar is flying high. During his first term at TD Bank Financial Group, he played an important role in TD’s

bid to be a new credit card issuer of Aero-plan, allowing clients to earn travel miles ev-ery time they make purchases. Rohit’s pas-sion for the job shines through - especially with being awarded an ‘Outstanding’ per-formance and a personal invitation to return from the vice-president of process improve-ment and service quality herself! Rohit is a great example of what going the extra mile can do for you and your time in co-op.

A Small Fish in a Big Pond

Initially, transitioning from two technical work terms with BlackBerry to one in finance made Rohit nervous. However his steadfast drive to deliver was almost palpable, and soon enough, this paid off as his name began to spread throughout the company. Soon, Rohit was informed about TD’s Aeroplan proposal, and grew heavily involved in the process, brainstorming, mapping out strate-gies for the credit card application process, in addition to documenting meetings. He also took the initiative to hand-make ten to fifteen maps for his supervisors, and refine them in his spare time: “You feel nervous as a co-op student because you’re the young-est one there,” Rohit says. “But if your direc-tor or manager says, “Listen, I want you on this,” you’ve got to be ready to show up, it’s pretty simple.”

Networking to Remember

The work term did have its hiccups though! Eager to network, Rohit directly approached his department’s vice-president and re-quested a meeting with her to discuss proj-ects. After being kindly informed that that wasn’t quite how things worked, the lesson was learned. However, there was a silver lin-ing. After the incident, the VP knew Rohit’s name, making him a standout and setting

the stage for many future interactions. Ro-hit still proudly recalls the moment she ap-proached him to give a personal commen-dation, telling him how impressed she was with his work and to invite him back to work part-time. Rohit explains the “jaw dropping moment” with a broad grin, noting the truth that “When you receive appreciation for the work that you’re doing, it’s such a great feeling.”

Much Needed Advice

Rohit left his work term with several things. With the help of TD’s educational program, Rohit not only developed increasingly desir-able technical skills, but a new sense of con-fidence and independence to accompany his stellar work ethic. To students wishing to follow his path, he says, “Be confident in every single assignment you’re asked to do and don’t be afraid to ask questions. It’s one thing to be nervous and not be able to do the job right; but if you can ask the right questions of the right people and produce quality, I think that’s what every organiza-tion looks for. If you can do that, you are definitely on the right track.”

And what about Rohit’s future plans? As al-ways, his enthusiasm shines through as he is determined to gain experience in four fields: technology, finance, healthcare, and energy. Seems ambitious – but having tackled two of these fields already, Rohit is prepared to take flight: “Co-op allows you to grab every-thing you can in five years while you’re here – so gain everything you possibly can, and apply it to the real world when you get out.” Rohit is set to return to TD in Winter 2014.

@uWaterlooCECA; /user/hireuwaterloo @uWaterlooCareer

Follow us and stay updated on all things CO-OP

Strategies for a Successful Work Term

(with Microsoft)How to create an open workspace with Microsoft interns,

Shiori Mine and Sachi Patel

1. Find a Space to Communicate with Your Community

Professors encourage students to ask questions in class as opposed to outside of class, as many students have the sim-ilar inquiries. As new incoming interns at Microsoft, we en-

gaged in one-to-one conversations rather than collaborating in groups. To resolve the disjointed communication and to

maximize information sharing in order to adapt better work-place practices, we created an internal SharePoint site and

used OneNote (Microsoft products of course) for the Co-op Community. This Co-op Community Hub called “Get Started” helped us be informed on updates and each other’s ideas as we progressed through our work term. Creating a space for your community can be as simple as a team bulletin board or hosting weekly sync sessions to discuss new discoveries. Sharing information is valuable no matter how big or small

the community is.

2. Ask for Feedback

One thing we have learned from working on a project

that involves multiple stake-holders and contributors was valuing feedback. You can’t

expect people to adopt your idea without putting yourself in their shoes and understanding what is valuable (or not valu-able) to them. We stumbled

out the gate with bringing our community together, but after collecting feedback and revis-ing the vision, people felt more

involved and invested in the project.

3. Bonding Creates Strong Results

Making the community fun, engaging, and open is just as important as developing ben-eficial resources within the workplace. When your team does not feel connected, they are

not going to be motivated to invest in the values and goals of the group. Organizing social gatherings such as a lunch or dinner plans will not disappoint, but strengthen your bond with your teammates. Further-

more, putting together a karaoke night can also help you bond over common interests and develop strong relationships with re-

spect to work.

As many say, it’s the people that make the place so

welcoming, and this was cer-tainly valid during our work term at Microsoft Canada. Finding a company where you have full support of managers, mentors, and a robust co-op program with an abundance of resources was a rare opportu-nity we were fortunate enough to experience. Throughout our work term, we were encouraged to reach out to others within the company, build a collective network, and leverage every

opportunity to succeed.

Through various conversations we (interns) realized that we naturally shared similar ideas; questions and solutions, yet had nowhere to document them for future use. Many organizations (big or small) face the similar challenge of storing, document-ing, and organizing valuable information that can be easily passed on to the next genera-tion. Based on our experience, here are three strategies that you could employ in your workplace...

Carolyn Buccongello; Director, Human Resources, Microsoft Canada

“ I am delighted to see this innovative solution from the Waterloo co-op’s! It’s a great example of using our technology to collab-

orate and build community. I have no doubt it will be invaluable for onboarding and knowledge transfer. Microsoft Canada is commit-ted to co-op education, campus recruiting, and creating a workplace where you can “come as you are and do what you love”!

Start

Mail

Shop

Insi

de

sCo

-op

9

Inside sC

o-o

p

10

Above: Sachi (in the purple sweater), with the other Microsoft interns

Above: Shiori (middle, grey sweater) with team members