Engineering Science Education Conference (ESEC)

ESEC 2024 Speaker Raffaello D’Andrea and his audience [Source]

What is ESEC?

The Engineering Science Education Conference (ESEC) is an EngSci student-run, EngSci-exclusive annual conference held every January, mandatory for Year 1 and 2 EngSci students and optional for Years 3 and 4. The goal of ESEC is for you to expand your horizons to the many opportunities open to you with an EngSci degree. You’ll hear firsthand from professionals from a very wide range of career paths broadly related to the EngSci majors who will share insights about their professional and personal lives post-graduation. 

Details for ESEC 2025 will be posted in the Fall. You can view all the details of ESEC 2024 here. Since this year is ESEC’s 20th anniversary, keep an eye out for special surprises! 

Past Speakers

ESEC 2023 speaker Leila Kheradpir [Source]
ESEC 2020 speaker Ajay Kochar [Source]

In the past, we have had highly accomplished speakers like Donna Strickland (recipient of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics), Anna Goldenberg (AI Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Chair and Senior Scientist in the Genetics and Genome Biology program at SickKids Research Institute), Geoffrey Hinton (Vector Institute, U of T), and Raffaello D’Andrea (EngSci ECE 9T1, co-founder of Amazon Robotics and founder of Verity, as well as a professor at ETH Zurich). 

Fireside Chats and Lunch & Learn

ESEC 2020 Fireside Chats [Source]
ESEC 2020 Fireside Chats [Source]

On top of attending remarkable talks, EngSci students are given the unique opportunity to chat one-on-one with the speakers and ask them personalized questions in informal settings. The first of these opportunities is fireside chats, which happen the night before the conference. The second opportunity, Lunch & Learn, occurs in the middle of conference day.

ILead ESEC Prep Workshop

If you have never attended a professional conference before or need some guidance on interacting with senior professionals, you can register for the ESEC Prep Workshop organized by ILead, specifically for Year 1 and 2 EngSci students. By attending the workshop, you can learn: 

  • Strategies for networking in a professional setting (with speakers, faculty, and fellow classmates) 
  • Networking skills, approaches, & mindsets 
  • How to prepare for a networking situation 
  • The art of asking good professional questions 

Keep an eye out for registration information on ESEC’s website and Instagram page (@esecuoft) once details for ESEC 2025 are posted this fall.

ESEC Student Executive Team

ESEC is run in part by upper-year EngScis, for younger EngScis! This student executive team works hard to find speakers for the conference and bring students’ perspectives to ESEC’s planning. Your ESEC 2025 student executive team is: 

Kevin Wang, Co-Chair | EngSci 2T6 ECE 

Yijie Wang, Co-Chair | EngSci 2T6 Robotics 

Amyna Ismail, Operations Director | EngSci 2T7 

Riann Po, Communications Director | EngSci 2T6 Aerospace