Happy Friday

--TLDR

Inspired by my friend’s consistent “Happy Friday” wishes, I also decided to start wishing her “Happy Monday” (and I wrote about this here about being excited about the beginning of the week). However, I thought about a different take on “Happy Friday”: reflecting on and being excited about what has transpired during the week (as opposed to being excited that the week is over the weekend is coming).

--Verbose

I had planned to write about “Happy Friday” at the end of the first week of last semester (in January). However, things didn’t go as planned, the semester got busy and here we are at the end of the second week of the following semester! Life … 😂 Juliana just wished me yet another “Happy Friday” so I figured the time is ripe to finally get this post out of my head and into concrete form (digital paper?). (And no, I am still not as consistent with wishing Juliana Happy Monday as I would like to be—again life …).

The purpose “Happy Monday”, was for people to be excited about the work week (at least the beginning of the week). But then I got to think about whether there was a way to have a different perspective on Happy Friday itself. Building on this idea of being excited about the work week, I thought that Friday is a good day to reflect on what has transpired during the week and be excited about the accomplishments and any impact we have made.

Today is the end of the second week of the fall semester (we call it “term”) at UofT, and I have a number of things to be excited about:

• I have enjoyed working with students in the Engineering Strategies & Practice (ESP) course (introduction to engineering design) and helping them pick up the core concepts and new ways of thinking about the world and problem-solving. This is my second year in this course, and I’m excited about working with material I now have some experience with. Today was particularly rewarding, as a few students held me hostage stayed to get clarification on concepts for almost 30 minutes after class.

• I am teaching my elective course, “To Engineer is Human”, also for the second time. I first developed it at Bucknell University and taught it four times there. The course is full (and apparently had a waiting list at some point). I even have a student from another university! I’m getting a lot of engagement from different students, which is always nice. I’m learning new things and students’ points are making me think about topics new ways, which is one of the reasons I love running this course.

• I have been working with our National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) undergrad and graduate chapters on initiatives with external partners. At the end of last week, we finally navigated the room booking system and found room for an event two weeks from now, in time for our update meeting with our partner for that event (Engineering & Construction Services at the City of Toronto). Yes, I know, I’m excited about a room booking of all things, but the system was not as simple as you might think, and without a suitable room, there’d be no event, so we’ll take the win.

• This one was a very Happy Friday moment. After putting in an application, writing the National Professional Practice Exam (NPPE) in February (at one of the busiest times of the year for me), turning in my Competency Based Assessment (CBA) in May, I heard on August 29th from Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO) that my application was approved and I would become a licensed professional engineer (P.Eng).

Happy Friday!

What are some things that have transpired this week (and previous weeks) that you are excited about?