Systems of a Down

So our class reps gave a little shpeel about their Sage meeting with the profs/chair. They informed our class that this year the applicants to Systems Design fell to around 130ish students of whom only 57 or so had SYDE as the 1st choice! And this is for only 90 seats. Mechatronics have 300 and Nanotech, UW's new poster program, had 400. Now its understandable that the new programs are getting an increasing amount of attention, however this would only result in the cream of the crop students going away from systems, and resulting in an overall downfall of our program, degree and the perception of Systems (which has been pretty good of lately).

This trend of decreasing applicants to syde not only represents new extremely specified programs being created but also the fact that high school students are not aware of Systems Design and what it represents. Nano-tech doesn't need an introductory paragraph, and Mechatronics has a catchy name...and a slogan to fool people: they add up all the engineering programs to equal mechatronics. Which is ridiculous, because you cannot put Systems Design as a subset of another program by its very definition. This doesn't mean its 'better' -> but its exactly what the mecha's are asserting about themselves! When we say different engineering disciplines are a subset of Systems is because that IS the defintion of the program: designing inter-disciplinary engineering systems that take into consideration long-term social, environmental and economic effects. Basically, they aren't designed in isolation.

Social Engineering.

Systems is a pervasive design methodology that exists no matter what new technology becomes the paradigm: wireless, nanotech, artificial intelligence, biomed or space
This doesn't imply we are better than Chems, Comps, Elecs or the new nano-tech. SyDe students thrive off of better students in other disciplines because our work is managing, planning or designing the interactions, processes and products of different engineering teams. SyDe is necessary to occur anywhere you have a hodgepodge of different engineers working on a large-scaled project, mixed with accountants, managers, government officials and concerns such as environment, ergonomics, social development etc. That is why we need to promote systems so we keep getting quality undergrads, because society needs to progress from specialized optimization to inter-specialization optimization. SyDe is good for society.

The main hurdle is our image or lack of among high school students. As UW's former poster child, we won't be getting much attention from the UW admin i suppose as resources are put towards Nanotech. Obviously, it is the next paradigm shifting concept and deserves any universities resources if they plan on being a leader in innovation and engineering. Our focus should not be on why we are 'better' than any other program but why we are different. Especially why we are different from Computers or a (Computer) Systems Analyst. Its up to the current batch of students to promote syde in their communities and high school. We have to show students that there is a creative, open-ended and diverse engineering option that doesn't limit you to one way of thinking, one way of engineering....without being generalistic. Systems is not a general education on all engineering but a structured method of designing interacting sub-systems. Its another matter that the faculty could be doing a better job and i don't like their present direction with the new 1b's (unofficially G-sys).

Every engineering discipline has a 'type' of student that usually applies to it. We (class of 08sys) have to make sure that the syde-type students are making an educated decision when applying to Waterloo engineering and aren't just trying to ride any "nanotech" wave or get disuaded by the mystery around syde.