This semester, the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE) has been busy planning great events, but we thought we’d take this time to show you the inner workings of your CSCE. For people who don’t know what the CSCE does, we are a collection of civil engineering students working together to better the civil engineering undergraduate experience for all. Our professional side has the potential to give anyone in civil engineering good connections to the industry.

Now how exactly do we do this? The list is too numerous to outline here, however our latest idea is to work closer with Carleton, giving us a chance to compete with them and show them how we do things here at uOttawa. Also, by working together, it allows us to plan bigger events for you, gives us access to more resources, and generally makes planning events easier for everyone.

This semester, they invited us to an annual event of theirs, Castiglone’s birthday. If you don’t know who this fine chap is, he is the inventor of a theorem allowing you to determine the forces in an indeterminate structure. He will either be your best friend or your worst enemy when getting into theory of structures. For the event, Carleton goes out to a bar, usually on campus, drinks, eats cake, and recites poems about their favorite structural engineer. That’s just fun for the entire department, I think.

Also held this semester was the small bridge competition with Carleton. We have been in it for a number of years now and it is a bridge building competition where the “secret ingredient” is popsicle sticks. The turnout this year was the best for us in two years, even though there wasn’t a single civil engineer on the team. The team from uOttawa did admirably, placing near the bottom at 8th place out of 9 teams. Next year, the competition comes back to uOttawa and we are looking for a win, so start dreaming up a design and testing it. If you are interested in the competition, you should come and see us in our office CBY A08: we have a comfy couch.

But don’t think that we redemption is impossible this year. The national popsicle stick bridge building, or big bridge competition, is coming up fast; its only four months away. We are looking to send a few teams who will represent us and place decently among the country’s undergrads. Come see us to sign up.

The National Capital Section (NCS) of CSCE is hosting the annual conference at the end of this year. This means that the possibilities for networking are huge and it’s super easy to get to, so there’s no excuse not to come! There will be a people from all different types of civil engineering, from water resource to structural. Come out and talk with professionals, and start that love affair with the type of civil engineering that’s just right for you. It’ll cost you a bit of cash, but this is one thing that is well worth the expense.