The GSE Step by Step
The following are the key steps needed to complete the GSE:
- Contact the GSE Coordinator, Professor Sheri Gibbings (sgibbings@wlu.ca) to make an appointment to discuss your chosen volunteer placement, funding opportunities, and to clarify the expectations of the program. You will find a valuable rubric for helping you to identify and evaulate potential placement options here. You should bring this rubric to your initial meeting with the GSE Coordinator and be prepared to speak to it in relation to your proposed placement.
- Once you have met with the GSE Coordinator and indentified an appropriate field placement, complete and submit the on-line Application for Preliminary Approval form. For the 2012-2013 academic year, the deadline for GSE applications is November 16, 2012.
- Over the course of the winter semester, students will be required to submit the following documents to the GSE coordinator in order to finalize placement approval:
- A signed letter (on organizational letterhead) from the organization with which the placement will be conducted, confirming the duration of the placement and the nature of the work in which the student will be engaged;
- the Acknowledgement of Risk and Responsibility form;
- the Agreement to Participate form.
- Students undertake their placements, which must be a minimum of four weeks in duration, during the spring/summer semester.
- During the summer semester, GSE students who have met the necessary requirements and completed their placement will be authorized to register in GS399; this course must be taken during the fall semester immediately following the completion of field placements.
Please note: It is the student's responsibility to ensure that all steps, arrangements, and consent forms/waivers are completed and approved by the GSE Commmittee prior to departure for fieldwork. Fieldwork undertaken without the express written consent of the GSE Committee will not be recognized, and permission to register in GS399 will be denied.
