On April 24, 2009 the Toronto Chapter of the Canadian Welding Association hosted its annual Student Night in Mississauga that included presentations by students from the University of Waterloo, Northern College and Conestoga College. Shannon Cronkhite, a third year student in the Manufacturing Engineering Technology – Welding & Robotics program gave a presentation on her Technical Project titled "Stainless Steel Filler Metal Evaluation for Gas Tungsten Arc Welding". Shannon's presentation was very well received by a crowded room of welding industry leaders.
Another function at this meeting was the presentation of the R.M. Gooderham Bursaries. Ten $2,000 bursaries are awarded annually by the Canadian Welding Bureau with the award named in honor of the founder of that organization. These awards are based on academic excellence in a welding engineering technology program, a faculty recommendation, and a submission summarizing the student's interest in a welding career.
Darryl Hoftyzer, also a student in the third year of our MET – Welding & Robotics program, was one of the bursary winners this year and was given his award by Craig Martin, the Operations Manager of the CWB. Many of Darryl and Shannon's classmates were in the audience to support them at this prestigious event.
Graduates of this unique program are very successful in the system wide annual grad placement survey with employment in a wide range of organizations in the manufacturing, construction and service sectors. After learning welding skills and basic process knowledge in the first year of the program, students continue their studies in the second year by learning about welding procedure development, metallurgical analysis, inspection techniques, robotic programming and fabrication methods. During the third year, tomorrow's welding industry leaders are developed with courses including operations management, quality assurance systems, advanced welding process technology, automation design and robotic welding programming. Graduates are responsible for tasks including development and inspection of welding for nuclear power plant construction, design and operation of complex welding automation systems including hundreds or robots, and design and setup of aerospace welding systems that have gone as far as NASA missions to Mars.