ELS 2024, by Emily Hoffe

During the weekend of February 16th to 18th I had the privilege of attending the ACES annual

Engineering Leadership Summit (ELS). While at the conference I attended several sessions

that gave me a lot of valuable insight and advice on my engineering journey.

We arrived at UNB's Saint John Campus on the night of Friday the 16th. When we first arrived, we had a mixer with our fellow delegates where we played games, sang karaoke, and got to know each other a little better.

On Saturday we started the sessions. There were three tracks for the attendees, VP External,

Leadership, and a special track for first years. The First-Year track was a new addition this year as well as the one I primarily attended. I really enjoyed being in this track and I was happy to

have sessions that provided tailored advice for myself and my fellow first years. The first session I attended was on how to get involved as a first-year student. The speaker for

this session talked about the benefits of participating early on compared to later years. She

emphasized that being involved from your first year allows you more time to develop soft skills,

like communication, networking and time management that can be of immense help in school,

on co-op, and in the workforce.

Another one of the sessions I particularly enjoyed was on how to be a good leader in your

community. They emphasized that no one is a naturally perfect leader and developing your

leadership ability is a process that takes time and dedication. They also addressed how to

manage and prevent burnout while trying to balance both school and leadership roles, by

allowing yourself time to rest and recover outside of your commitments. Another aspect of this session that I really liked was a round table discussion between myself and the other first year delegates. We discussed a few different topics including potential barriers to

pursuing leadership roles and some of the resources we wished our schools provided for us. It was impactful to hear from other students in similar situations.     

Overall, I really enjoyed attending this conference! I feel like I gained a lot of experience and the

knowledge and encouragement I was given by attending will definitely influence my future, both as a student and as a member of the engineering community here at Dal.