On January 19th, 2024, engineering students from across the Atlantic region began their journey to Fredericton, New Brunswick, for a weekend to remember. Students prepared themselves for the highly anticipated Atlantic Engineering Competition (AEC) hosted this year by the University of New Brunswick. For Dalhousie competitors, the weather was sunny and just right for the four-hour drive across the border. Students arrived in the city on Friday afternoon to check in to their accommodations and scope out the competition. There wasn't much time to settle in before the opening ceremonies began. The student organizers…

Over this past reading week, Dalhousie sent a delegation of seven engineering students to the 2024 Conference on Sustainability in Engineering at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU). As a second-year mechanical engineering student passionate about the environment and the renewable energy transition, I was excited at the prospect of meeting other like-minded individuals from across Canada and hearing from leading industry experts.

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.

At the Engineering Leadership Summit (ELS) 2024 hosted by UNB Saint John, there were a plethora of opportunities for delegates to engage with their peers, form meaningful connections, and procure essential knowledge related to leadership and teamwork. This conference was oriented around giving motivated students the skills and knowledge required to build a community or event at their school.

The act of taking risks to change who you are currently into what you want to be. Throughout this presentation Susan Murray talked about how what we do today will create who we are tomorrow, and how this is incredibly important. The boldsteps mindset is based on the foundations of KNOWING who you are compared to what you want to be, DOING what needs to be done in order to take that step, and BEING that person you’ve always aspired to be.

On the weekend of January 26th, 2024, the strongest four (4) chess players from Dalhousie embarked on their journey to represent Atlantic Canada in the 2024 Canadian University Chess Championship (CUCC). Hosted at Queen’s University, this annual competition features Canada’s top chess talent from across the country in a weekend-long struggle to crown the top performing University.

This January, I had the great honor of representing Dalhousie at the Canadian Engineering Leadership Conference (CELC). Early morning on New Year's Day, I hugged my sleepy parents goodbye in front of the Ottawa airport and pushed my cart of luggage towards St. John’s, Newfoundland. All I could think about was petting puffins, seeing icebergs, kissing cods, and my extreme unlikelihood to do anything but the latter. Once I had sipped some bitter plane coffee and finished two Biscoff cookies, my thoughts focused on the real purpose of this journey: to learn, to meet, and to bring it all home. 

At the end of October, six executive members of the Dalhousie Women in Engineering Society attended the world’s largest conference for women in engineering, hosted in Los Angeles, California. The Society of Women Engineers Conference (SWE23) is an annual conference for students and professional engineers to gain professional development skills and network with other women within their fields. Hosted from October 26th-28th, the conference was filled with opportunities to learn from speeches by industry professionals and to network at the career fair.

Ever stop by the Heavy Prototyping Lab on Sexton Campus? Well, you are sure to spot NOVA, Dalhousie’s very own fully functional solar car!

In 2021, when electrical engineering student Gina Park looked to join an engineering design team, something was missing. She wanted a hands-on, sustainability-centric, and technically challenging project that would better prepare students for future careers in the clean energy sector. It was from this astute observation and passion for innovation that Dalhousie Solar Car team (DalSol) was born!

The 3-day Conference on Diversity in Engineering (CDE) 2023 was hosted by the renowned University of Waterloo Engineering campus in beautiful Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario. More than 130 participants partook from over 25 Engineering universities throughout Canada. The theme of the conference, "Be Brave, Feel Safe, Take Up Space", resonated deeply with me and many of my peers as we were ready to embark on an enriching and transformative journey.

The night started off with some opening remarks from exec members Gabby and Ashley. They welcomed their excited guests and gave a brief presentation about Global Brigades; the society’s mission, how people can get involved, and how you can continue to support the society if you are unable to volunteer.

Despite Mother Nature's persistence, the 14th Annual Dalhousie and TUNS Alumni Golf Tournament emerged as a resounding success, uniting alumni and dedicated student volunteers for a day filled with camaraderie and fundraising in support of various engineering societies at Dalhousie University's Sexton Campus. The event, hosted at the beautiful Glen Arbour golf course located in Hammonds Plains, NS, provided a platform for alumni to discover the opportunities these societies offer to Dal Eng students.

On September 5th, the new first-year engineering students gathered in Ondaatje Hall on Studley campus for orientation. They listened to a speech from the Acting Dean, Yi Liu, and got to meet some of the faculty, the President of DUES, and the President of DES (yours truly), then they headed out to Wickwire field. At Wickwire, they were greeted by volunteers handing out Dal Eng t-shirts and patches. They were divided into groups based on their blocks so they could meet the people that they would share labs and tutorials with. Before leaving Wickwire, they spent some time getting to know each other and learning engineering chants from the Head Gearhead, Moragh Shaw.

Are you nervous about your first weeks at Dalhousie? So were we a few years ago, but we made it through! Below, the executive team from the Dalhousie Sextant gives some advice for you to hit the ground running.

From February 23-26, four delegates from Dalhousie University had the opportunity to attend the Conference on Sustainability in Engineering (CSE) at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver. CSE is a yearly conference put on by the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students (CFES), that is meant to teach engineering students about sustainability and ways they can incorporate sustainable practices into their schools and future careers. Students come together from universities all over the country to meet and learn together. 

Have you ever wanted a professor to just cancel a test, or wish the school could give you an extra GPA point? The student affairs committee can help! … Just joking, unfortunately we are not magicians, but we do our best.

On January 20th, 2023, 170 engineering students from across the Atlantic provinces travelled to Dalhousie Sexton campus to participate in the annual Atlantic Engineering Competition. Dalhousie hosted the competition this year, with 26 hard-working students responsible for organizing and planning every last detail. Dal students from all three campuses competed, along with students from UPEI, UNB, StFX, Memorial, Acadia, SMU, and UdeM. The competition consisted of eight categories: Junior Design, Senior Design, Consulting, Debate, Communications, Programming, Innovative design, and Re-engineering. Dalhousie covered almost every category with 40 competitors and created an ultra-competitive team. Students contested for the opportunity to win a coveted Atlantic scarf and a spot at the 2023 Canadian Engineering Competition hosted by the University of Waterloo in February.

Whether it’s a cozy family gathering, a lively social event, or a blackout night during a snowstorm, board games never fail to be a reliable and entertaining option. Recognizing that board games are a staple, DalBox Build a Board Game Challenge took place on Sexton Campus on the 10th and 11th of February and gave the participants a platform to showcase their creativity and ingenuity by constructing their own board games.

Over the weekend on February 17th-19th, the Université de Moncton hosted this year’s Engineering Leadership Summit (ELS). ELS is a conference put on every year by the Atlantic Council of Engineering Students (ACES). Half of ELS is devoted to the lecture series on leadership and the other half for the governing body of ACES to hold elections for their executive board and make policy changes in their General Assembly. The theme of ELS this year was the Four Pillars of Leadership: Talent Development, Communications, Responsibility and Vision. The lecture series was held in one of UdeM’s auditoriums and this lecture space taught us something important: not all auditorium seats have to be as uncomfortable as G109.

We open on G109, the Irving Auditorium, people sparsely distributed around the room enjoying the luxurious seating. As per usual there are a few people up front navigating the treacherous waters of connecting a laptop and opening a presentation while broadcasting on Zoom. While this may seem like just another Tuesday in the auditorium there is one vital difference: the audience is genuinely interested in the presentation (well I suppose most of the audience, excluding the students only there to receive the extra credit given in the hydrogeology course). On Tuesday February 7, esteemed hydrogeologist, John Cherry, held a presentation on the importance of groundwater