For the sixth time in eight years, Sheridan College is home to the top college co-op student in the country. Honours Bachelor of Interaction Design student Christina Weng has been named 2019 Student of the Year for Co-operative Education at a College by Co-operative Education and Work-Integrated Learning Canada (CEWIL Canada), the country’s lead organization for Work-Integrated Learning (WIL). Weng also received provincial recognition as the Education at Work Ontario college co-op student of the year, beating out five other finalists.
“Coming to Sheridan was like a breath of fresh air,” says Weng, who had previously studied business administration in university but wanted to pursue a career that aligned with her passion for systems design and improving processes. “I am so fortunate to be part of an environment where I’m set up for success.”
In Weng’s third-year co-op placement, she spent three months at Microsoft Vancouver Garage, where she helped design and launch an open-source visual studio code extension to help web app developers save time. To date, the Web Template Studio has been downloaded more than 120,000 times.
Weng is also the co-founder and inaugural president of Sheridan’s student-run Hackademics club, which provides the college’s Bachelor of Interaction Design and Bachelor of Mobile Computing students with opportunities to apply their knowledge and innovative skillset within the collaborative setting of a hackathon. The club hosted the first-ever student-run hackathon at Sheridan’s Trafalgar Campus in February 2019, attracting more than 100 participants from schools across Ontario.
One month later, Weng won two awards at Stanford University’s 36-hour hackathon competition, Treehacks.
Weng will graduate from Sheridan this spring, then begin work at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, where she has already secured a position as a designer on the company’s ads and business team.
“Christina is an incredibly inspirational mentor to other students through resume workshops, portfolio reviews, mock interviews, job search articles and a Co-op podcast,” stated a release from CEWIL Canada. “She is a tremendous example for students of what can be achieved through a strategic job search.”
Sheridan’s Career-Integrated Learning team, in partnership with all academic faculties, is committed to many forms of WIL, including apprenticeship, field placement/experience, mandatory professional practice, internship and co-operative education. The college has provided co-op experiences to its students for more than 30 years, and more than 7,500 students annually participate in WIL.