Souls of Recruitment
Dragos Baciu-David and Alexi Buenaventura
For students looking to enroll in a McMaster Engineering Program, there is a passionate team of ambassadors looking to help out, provide information and share experiences to help make the decision easier for future students. The following article shares the stories of two ambassadors who were involved in the McMaster Engineering Ambassador program in different ways, but both made a big impact on the post-secondary decisions of incoming students!
Learn all about the MacEng Student Ambassador program here.
Dragos’s Ambassador Experience
One of the most common questions I get asked during recruitment events as a Student Ambassador is why I chose to come to McMaster. The answer I give tends to vary based on the context of the question, but the core answer remains the same; I chose McMaster because when I came to campus for the first time during an open house it felt like I was home, and in the place that I was meant to be. Many factors contributed to this feeling, but at the top of the list was the people, the students and ambassadors, and the recruitment staff who took the time out of their day to share why they love McMaster Engineering. The energy and passion that each student I talked to brought is what made me choose McMaster and was also the reason I chose to become a Student Ambassador myself. I wanted to be that person or one of those people for future students. I wanted to share my love of McMaster and McMaster Engineering, so that other prospective students could feel like I did when I walked onto campus for the very first time.
This has been my first year as an official Student Ambassador, but I have been volunteering in various capacities for the recruitment cycle since my first term at McMaster. For me it started as a Residence Ambassador where I got to talk to a wide variety of students about the residence experience at McMaster and give them tours of my residence room. In this role I got to meet prospective students from across all of McMaster’s programs. We would discuss why I chose to live in residence, what the benefits are, and why I would recommend living in residence to all first-year students who are able to. This role also gave me the opportunity to participate in all of McMaster’s open houses throughout the year, by giving tours of my residence building.
Following my first year, I decided to volunteer during as many different recruitment events as I could to give tours and talk to prospective students about my experiences and do what those students did for me by sharing my passion with as many people as possible.
Finally, this brings me to my latest chapter on this journey, I saw the opportunity to become an Engineering Student Ambassador and jumped at the chance. This year has been an interesting year to join the program, as the entire recruitment team was grappling with how to shift these massive recruitment endeavours to a virtual setting. In my opinion, in this regard they have excelled, we got to interact with prospective students in new and interesting ways. One of my favourite ways we got to interact with these students this year was via the UniBuddy platform, which allows us as ambassadors to talk directly to prospective students in a very casual setting, all while answering their questions and sharing what we love about McMaster and our respective programs. Another was that I have enjoyed connecting with prospective students has been during the wide variety of virtual recruitment events. These events allowed the best parts of the on-campus events to still take place, namely the connections between ambassadors, current students, and prospective students. Throughout all this, my favourite part of being involved with the recruitment team remains the same as it was at the beginning; its meeting all these students and hearing why they want to come to McMaster, hearing how excited they were when they received an offer, and why they can’t wait to be on campus in the Fall!
Being a Student Ambassador has allowed me to do everything I wanted to when I applied to be one and has also helped me build skills and learn new things about McMaster and my own program that I might not have known before. It has allowed me to develop my interpersonal skills, it has taught me just how many different reasons and views there are on the same topic. At every event, I learned something not just from my fellow ambassadors, but also from the students who are coming to see if McMaster Engineering as a whole is the place for them. This experience has been a highlight of my time at McMaster, it is not only something that I would recommend to anyone in a heartbeat, but also that I look forward to being involved in for as long as I possibly can!
Alexi’s Experience
When I first arrived at McMaster, I envisioned that I had to be perfect in every aspect of my life — a 12.0 CGPA, a co-op placement right after my first year, and a good group of friends. But as they say, nothing in life ever goes according to plan which is precisely what makes being a McMaster Engineering Ambassador so unique.
Everyone has a different perception and definition of what an ambassador means. If I could choose one word to describe our engineering ambassadors, it’d be generous. They give their time and effort — going out of their way to make sure people get what they need, even when it’s not asked for. They share personal experiences — some of their greatest fears and failures, to show a complete stranger that life can get scary but there’s always a way forward. This is why I decided to join the ambassador program back in 2019.
Like every start to an ambassador’s journey, I started helping out through small roles like answering questions, doing tours around the facilities, or guiding those who got lost on campus back to their respective places. My highlights and accomplishments surprisingly came in 2020/2021, in my third year of university while completing a full year of my engineering degree online because of the pandemic. I’d say one of the greatest aspects of being an ambassador is you always have the chance to build something from the ground up. I’ve been able to work on my public speaking abilities through social media platforms and recruitment events, but the one thing that I am extremely proud to see progress in is being one of the four starting members of Mac Eng’s first-ever TikTok team.
This was extremely challenging given that all of us didn’t particularly know how to create content that would blow up overnight. As a group, we placed a lot of time into keeping a sharp eye out for trends, brainstorming, and editing styles that would eventually lead to our growing success. In May 2021, I transitioned from one of the content creators to leading the TikTok team. I wanted to carry over our original vision of using popular trends and translate that into McMaster Engineering-specific content. A goal of mine while making all my appearances on social media was not to be well-known in the community but to make things known — lessons learned, advice for incoming students, relatable content, how to get help, school culture, etc. Something I’ve wanted to do since being on the original team was a clubs and teams features from all the stream societies, and technical clubs/teams under MacEng. I believe they are the foundation and soul of what makes McMaster Engineering unique and felt that it was essential to making them known. With the help of the TikTok summer team, I am very happy to say that we are on our way to making that happen and showing the entire engineering community what we encourage our students to do and to achieve during their time here. Seeing the continual growth of the TikTok team has not only allowed me to foster skills (such as communication, organization, and leadership) but connections that lead to my personal growth as well.
I encourage anyone who is looking to have a voice and wanting to build something new for themselves to join the Engineering Ambassadors, as we welcome you with open arms and challenges for you to tackle. And who knows — you will be the next generation of ambassadors that will make the biggest impact in ways you might not imagine!
Click here to chat with our student ambassadors through the Unibuddy platform!
