Hello everyone,

My name is Oliver Xie. I am a 4th year Computing Science student; a former First Year Representative for the CSSS (2019-2020); a CS Peer Tutor (2020-now); a FAS HIVE Leader (2021-2022); and the Secretary/VP of Education for Burnaby Mountain Toastmasters.

I am running for Director of Events as I have a 3-year, proven track record of organizing events, a great variety of ideas to enrich our university experience, and the skills to coordinate the volunteers for successful events. For the CSSS, I ran first year socials, helped run Mountain Madness, and orchestrated the recent Project Showcase.

Our past leadership has curated a great schedule of events which I strive to continue running: - Our hackathons (Mountain Madness - spring semesters; Fall Hacks - fall semesters) - Lead our Events Committee and the ice skating, esports tournaments, technical workshops, and project showcases it has executed.

Here's what I will implement:

• Run a semester-long mentorship program for all students. This will start around mid-June and involve 1 h sessions every 1-4 weeks (depending on mentor/mentee needs). Topics are open-ended and I will investigate getting CCR (co-curricular record) designation for mentors.
• Streamline our event planning processes by building a template and workflow: room bookings, funding sources, food, promotion, scheduling, volunteers etc.
• Support the Frosh Chair with facility/field trip booking, volunteer marshalling, event registrations
• Support the Silicon Valley/tech trip by running fundraisers and info sessions as necessary.

I'm also running for the Director of Educational Events and will implement all events promised there as well.

I can't wait to make the upcoming year action-packed and am looking forward to your feedback and suggestions!

Oliver Xie

Hi everyone, My name is Clare Provenzano, and I'm a second-year CS major here at SFU. While I would certainly be a new member of the CSSS exec team, I'm certainly not new to planning events or being on committees! Before the pandemic, I planned over 12 dances, barbeques and more events for my high school, the City of Coquitlam, and Eagle Ridge Hospital. I plan to bring fresh ideas to the CSSS and plan a variety of events to appeal to our diverse student body, including more in-person events. I live close to SFU and I'll be on co-op for the next 8 months, so coming to campus is never a problem, and I'll have the time and energy to plan kick-butt events to connect people and make memories. Thank you for considering me! Feel free to send me a message with any questions or suggestions, I'd be happy to hear from you! Clare ☻

Hey All.

My name is Val. I am a third year CS major and Stats minor student.

Let's just jump into it.. There is an over-abundance of educational resources out there, and it can get overwhelming to know where to start. I believe that one of the jobs of a student society is to help out its students, and make that learning process a little bit easier, by hosting relevant educational and professional events.

Passionate about education and helping people find their way, I'd love to join the CSSS as Director of Educational Events and help make that journey a little more fun and rewarding for everyone. My current commitments include my position as Student Lead of the IT committee and VP of the Data Science Student Society, where I have helped host numerous professional and educational events such as our Tableau, R for Psychology, and Career Consulting workshops.

Some events and ideas I have for the term:

• Technical Workshops: listen to student interests and provide requested technical workshops
• Interview Prep Packages: study packages for students to brush up on common technical and behavioral questions
• Mentorship Opportunities: provide group/1-1 Q&A nights for first-year students to speak with their upper-level peers
• Guest Speakers: invite alumni and guests to come speak about their educational/career journeys

I'd love to hear more ideas from you, as well.

There's so much to learn, lets learn it together...

Val :-)

Hello everyone,

My name is Oliver Xie. I am a 4th year Computing Science student; a former First Year Representative for the CSSS (2019-2020); a CS Peer Tutor (2020-now); a FAS HIVE Leader (2021-2022); and the Secretary/VP of Education for Burnaby Mountain Toastmasters.

I am running for Director of Educational Events as I have a 3-year, proven track record of getting things done, a great variety of ideas to enrich our university experience, and the know-how to support our events. For the CSSS, I ran first year socials, helped run Mountain Madness, and orchestrated the recent Project Showcase. As an incoming Amazon intern with 2 other co-op terms under my belt, I have the technical know-how to guide you on your path to entering the software industry.

This is a new position and I'm really excited to deliver practical and fun events for everyone, such as:

• A mentorship program for all CS students. See my Director of Events speech for more information.
• Programming language trivia nights! For some reason, co-op interviewers really like to ask interview questions about language inner-workings. I will start with Python trivia and get to Java, JavaScript, and HTML/CSS.
• Mockup contests! We know many SFU and external applications have hideous UI and we the users know better! This will run midway through the semester and there will be prizes!
• Monthly panel discussions! The first one will feature current co-op students who will share advice on seeking, resume/interview prep, and what working is like! This will happen around early June with subsequent iterations each month.
• Explore funding shared memberships! Think LeetCode Premium, HackTheBox, or other services (suggestions welcome!). We'd host them in the common room computer and try to make them accessible remotely.
• Candid Q&A sessions! I know multiple developers, project managers, testers, and other technical staff in the industry who would be happy to share their situations and honestly answer your burning questions about what real work is like.
• Local company visits! This will not likely happen until at least Fall 2022 due to COVID policies, but we can visit the offices of local companies in different sectors like gaming, healthcare, startups, or Big N.
• Support other clubs! If the SFSS continues to drag its feet on room bookings, I will help clubs book rooms in FAS space (TASC, Big Data Hub, or CSIL).

We have a lot of knowledge circulating in our membership - as your Director of Educational Events, I will unlock this knowledge for the benefit of us all!

Oliver Xie

Hi everyone! My name is Jennifer and I'm a 4th year student majoring in Computing Science and minoring in Education. I would like to be your next Director of Education Events because I think I can bring a lot of useful skills and experience to this role.

My skills and experience

I have a lot of experience with event planning, organizing, and executing events at SFU through my former presidency and other exec roles in SFU WiCS. I have planned and taught several programming workshops for Try/CATCH and Quantum Leaps conferences in both in-person and online environments. I even gave a talk on running online workshops at PyCascades in 2021.

My ideas for this role

Given the opportunity, I would like to host a variety of education and professional events. Some ideas for education events are: online mock interviewing, resume design workshop, and drop-in group study sessions (with snacks?).

For professional events, I would organize meet & greets with contacts from my previous internships at Google and Morgan Stanley, as well as connections from other companies. Of course, I will also be seeking your suggestions for what types of events you'd want to see!

Disclaimer

It is my last semester of school, so I would only be able to serve this role for 1 semester, but I would love the opportunity to be a part of the CSSS and help establish a strong beginning for this new exec role before I go!

Hi everyone, My name is Clare Provenzano, and I'm a second-year CS major here at SFU. While I would certainly be a new member of the CSSS exec team, I'm certainly not new to planning events or being on committees! Before the pandemic, I planned over 12 dances, barbeques and more events for my high school, the City of Coquitlam, and Eagle Ridge Hospital. I plan to bring fresh ideas to the CSSS and plan a variety of events to appeal to our diverse student body, including more in-person events. I live close to SFU and I'll be on co-op for the next 8 months, so coming to campus is never a problem, and I'll have the time and energy to plan kick-butt events to connect people and make memories. Thank you for considering me! Feel free to send me a message with any questions or suggestions, I'd be happy to hear from you! Clare ☻

Hey friends. It is me: Johnson, also know as Osha Occupational Safety and Health Administrationon Discord. I am one of your previous First Year Representatives and your current Director of Communications looking to continue my reign within the CSSS. I’ve been with the CSSS since I’ve started here at SFU in Fall 2020 during the covid times (still covid times 😔) and I am looking forward to continuing my time working with the student society for the 2020 (too) to 2020 (tree 🌳) term 🤐.

Some things I’ve done in the past with the student society include:

As one of the first-year representatives in the 2020-2021 term I was responsible for running two events for fellow first year students, which happened to be both online games nights.

Some things I’ve done during my current term as Director of Communications (with the help of other executives and members of our moderation team) include:

• Advertising events on our social media network(s): Discord, Facebook, Instagram
• Monitoring and managing our social media accounts and communicating with other parties on behalf of the CSSS.
• Creating new channels on our discord such as #tech-news, #food, #cars, #events-info, and splitting #coop into #coop-lounge and #coop-help
• Updating course channels for the Spring 2022 term, syncing channels with the hidden role, and dealing with server suggestions when appropriate
• Sitting on the moderation team to help arbitrate issues.
• Reviving our bi-weekly newsletter from the dead after several years where I’ve written/distributed 12 editions to date.
  
  

If I were to continue my reign I am planning to:

• Work with the director of multi-media to consistently post advertisements to all our events on our social media networks
• Act as a middleman between the CSSS and other organizations/clubs; promoting their events when appropriate.
• Have a more rigid schedule for newsletter distribution (e.g., every Wednesday Biweekly).
• Take a more active role in discord moderation and run formal moderator recruiting campaigns for junior moderators.
  
  

Thank you for reading my speech,

Johnson Luong

Hey everyone! My name is Hooyar Hamraz, and I’m running to be your Director of Communications for this upcoming term.

If you wish to get to know me better, you can always stalk my name on any social media platform of your choice, as well as Google. Just please don’t dox me. My family will not be happy.

All jokes aside, as important as it is to get to know my personal history as a candidate, I’m going to cut to the chase and answer a more valuable question, one which probably occupies your minds: what can I, as Director of Communication, do for you?

Aside from key components for this role, such as leadership, collaboration, and communication, I will be mainly focused on connecting different fields of computer science together.

I have a similar role in the Data Science Student Society where I’m the VP of External Relations. To be completely honest, being new to that position, I’m still figuring it out. However, at this point, I’ve really brainstormed a lot and have come to terms with what I wish to do regarding a “Communications” / “External Relations” type of role. And it all goes back to this key idea of connecting different closely related fields, student unions, and IT paths at SFU.

On a fundamental level, the key recipe for brilliance and innovation in our world (imo) is passion. My main goal is to give everyone a better idea of their options, so that we can all collectively work towards finding said passion. I want to ease the process by using my connections to reach out to different student unions and organizations, to ultimately bring everyone together.

I will try to work closely with our Director of Events and Educational Events to see how I can smooth out their plans. This year for example, we almost hosted Games Night with the DSSS. Such collaborations are a great example of the type of thing I would greatly push for.

In regards to social media, I am quite nit-picky on things like graphic design and aesthetic. I’m known for having an eye for detail, so things like our CSSS website, I’d push to get revamped.

Similarly, with respect to our discord server, I believe we have to review our quality management system. There is a lot of toxicity and inappropriate behaviour. And I’ll admit, I’ve taken part in it too. I’m no white knight. In fact I’ve gotten like 2-3 warnings in the past week. Though despite my inadvertent hypocrisy, in my opinion, when rules are not rigid and well-kept, even mods and figures of authority become lenient. And so not as Hooyar or Mike_Ham, but rather as the Director of Communications, I’d like to implement a better system to deal with people. I’ll definitely be pushing for that if elected.

Overall, I’d like to think I’m quite candid with my capabilities. I truly think I can help our student union grow, and if not, then I will be first to step down and give it to someone I deem more worthy of representing you guys.

Thank you,



Hooyar

Hello Everyone!

I'm Gilbert! I graduated in 2020 with a degree in Criminology and am currently pursuing a second degree in Computing science. Over half of my first degree was spent engaged in the CSSS mostly through the common room. In doing so, I found a place of belonging even though I was from a different major. Now that i will be pursuing a degree in computer science, I'd like to be more connected with the CSSS and give back as a result.

One of the things I loved about the common room was that it was a place where everyone would come together and freely discuss whatever it was that was on our minds. I'd like to embody that ideal not just through communication between members, but in expanding and promoting membership of the CSSS to broaden the perspectives and engagement of everyone involved. Highlighting these aspects during Frosh Week, and on the CSSS' social media accounts to name a couple.

I pride myself in quick and effective communication. I believe that this is a strong trait that is integral to the role as an executive, especially when acting as a direct line of communication between the CSSS, graduate students and alumni. In extension, having strong communication skills would allow me to excel in public relations tasks and create positive change for the CSSS and everyone involved.

As the DOC it would be my responsibility to make sure students are aware of events within the CSSS and outside events through email newsletters and social medial announcements. Working alongside the Director of events and/or Director of Multi Media, I plan on boosting the awareness and engagement of events run and supported by the CSSS through quick and effective communication by efficiently managing emails.

Thanks for taking the time to read my speech amongst final exams, and good luck!

Best,

Gilbert

Hi everyone,

My name is Julkar and I was an exec at large for fall 2021 and spring 2022. The CSSS and it's events have helped me meet a lot of people and make more friends. This in turn made me more out going than I was before. In my first year, I have made friends and acquaintances from various different departments here at SFU. I understand that running for director of communications means I will have to communicate with individuals from other departments and even members of external organizations. I think I am more than capable of representing SFU CSSS in these interactions and I would love the opportunity to be able to do so.

Thank you,

Julkar

Hello!

My name is Yolanda Lam, a 2nd-year Linguistics Major, and I am running to be the Director of Multi-Media of the CSSS for this upcoming by-election.

Here is a brief introduction to my executive experience here at SFU:

• I've been a Linguistics Student Union (LSU) executive since Fall 2020 as a Communications Director and Merchandise Officer from Spring 2021 to Fall 2021
• I became the Vice President of the LSU starting from Spring 2022 semester
• I became one of the two Executives at Large for the CSSS during the Spring 2022 semester

I believe that my experience from a different student union will allow me to further enhance the representation of the CSSS in terms of visual design for promoting events that the CSSS will hold in the future. Moreover, I have prior experience in making posters for the CSSS, such as creating the advertisement for the infamous Coke machine in the CS common room in Fall 2021 and Spring 2022. I have also created very simple posters for some of the CSSS events that occurred in Spring 2022, including the Halo event and a League event that has yet to be published. When it comes to using programs, I have experience using Photoshop and the popular website, Canva.

I am receptive to new ideas and designs and will try my best to fulfill my duties in making any CSSS-related visuals as appealing as possible.

Hello Everyone!

I'm Gilbert! I graduated in 2020 with a degree in Criminology and am currently pursuing a second degree in Computing science. Over half of my first degree was spent engaged in the CSSS mostly through the common room. In doing so, I found a place of belonging even though I was from a different major. Now that i will be pursuing a degree in computer science, I'd like to be more connected with the CSSS and give back as a result.

One of the things I loved about the common room was that it was a place where everyone would come together and freely discuss whatever it was that was on our minds. I'd like to embody that ideal not just through communication between members, but in expanding and promoting membership of the CSSS to broaden the perspectives and engagement of everyone involved. Highlighting these aspects during Frosh Week, and on the CSSS' social media accounts to name a couple.

I pride myself in quick and effective communication. I believe that this is a strong trait that is integral to the role as an executive, especially when acting as a direct line of communication between the CSSS, graduate students and alumni. In extension, having strong communication skills would allow me to excel in public relations tasks and create positive change on behalf of the CSSS.

As the DOM it would be my responsibility to make sure students are aware of events within the CSSS and outside events by collaborating with the DOC through email newsletters and social medial announcements. Working alongside the Director of events and/or Director of Communications. I plan on boosting the awareness and engagement of events run and supported by the CSSS by creating posters, advertisements and increasing online social media presence. Documenting and showcasing highlights as a result, to further increase engagement and popularity.

Thanks for taking the time to read my speech amongst final exams, and good luck!

Best,

Gilbert

Hey guys, my name is Mantaj Dhillon and I'm a first-year Computer Science student. this would be my first time holding a position with the CSSS and I would love the opportunity to do so and get more involved at SFU and to make new friends. I was a mentee in the WICS mentorship program and had lots of fun there. It made me see how cool the CS student body is at SFU and motivated me to engage with my peers and the society.

I am great with Canva so I can make cool social media posts to advertise the CSSS's events and after make cool posts that showcase those events. I'd love to add to the society's social media pictures and turnouts to events that happened so people can see them and feel inclined to come to future events, since that's what made me as a first-year want to come to events. I also love colors and would use my love for colors to make pretty posts!

Thank you for reading my speech ! :)
Mantaj