WORK INTEGRATED LEARNING
Communiqué
The Communication Co-op
Newsletter | Fall 2007
International Experience
My experience doing an academic exchange
By Monica Hartanto
T h e S y d n ey O p e ra H o u s e i n A u st ra l i a
photographed by Monica Hartanto
A
s with most students, I had the desire
to travel to far away places. However,
realizing that I was close to being done
my Communication degree, I was anxious to
finish and didn’t want to take the time off.
After weighing my options I found the perfect
solution - going on an academic exchange.
Not only would this opportunity allow me to
travel to a new country, it would also allow
me to take classes that would count towards
my degree. Furthermore, the university I
chose to attend has a great Communication
program that offers a variety of courses that
SFU does not.
After an easy application process and a couple
of months anxiously waiting for a response, I
was thrilled to find out that I got accepted to
Monash University in Melbourne, Australia.
When classes started, I felt like I was starting
university all over again. It was exciting to go
to a new school in a new country. I took four
upper division courses - three Communication
and one Education class. The Communication
classes that I took there - Advertising Design,
Managerial Communication, and Popular
Culture and Contemporary Communication
– were some of the best classes that I have
ever taken.
Each of the Communication courses that I took
at Monash were valuable to me and different
than those I have taken at SFU. The Popular
Culture and the Managerial Communication
classes were almost identical in the structure
and teaching style of classes taught at SFU.
However, it was interesting to see the different
views people had because of the different
backgrounds that they came from.
The Advertising Design class, on the other
hand, was unlike any Communication class
that I have taken. The class was structured
as a four hour studio class with about ten
students in total. The instructor didn’t
teach us any theory but instead gave us real
advertising briefs to work on. In most cases
we had the opportunity to actually submit our
work to the companies who created the briefs.
The other students who took the class with me
were absolutely amazing designers and it was
extremely valuable to learn from them.
Although school was the major purpose of
my travel to Australia, there were many other
perks of being there. I got the opportunity of
having the university experience that I never
had at SFU because I got to live on campus.
This was probably one of the best parts of the
exchange, because I made so many friends
in such a short period of time and had the
opportunity to get involved in social activities
that were hosted by the halls of residence.
continued on page 3
Inside
Facebook and Your
Co-op Term
Technical Writing
Demystified
2/3
4
Talking with the New
Co-op Student Advisor 5
Bridging Relationships
Effectively
6/7 Statistics Corner 8
Communiqué is a
newsletter published
every semester by SFU
Communication Co-op.
Check us out online at
www.sfu.ca/communique
Facebook and Your
Co-op Term Keeping the egg off your Facebook
By Christy Kazulin
T
he cold, hard fact is that Facebook
may be putting your job at risk, and
not just because you’re writing on your
friends’ Super Walls when you should be
working. Facebook has become an avenue
of generally unwise workplace and public
Profile edit
Friends
Networks
Inbox (1)
home account
privacy logout
Privacy Overview
Search
Applications
edit
Facebook wants you to share your information with exactly the people you want to see it. On this page,
you’ll find all the controls you need to set who can see your profile and the stuff in it, who can find and
contact you on Facebook, and more.
Trips
Photos
iLike
Video
Groups
more
Profile
You are in two networks and you can control who can see your
profile, contact information, groups, wall, photos, posted items,
online status, and status updates.
Edit Settings
Search
You can control who can find you in searches and what appears in
your search listing.
Edit Settings
News Feed and Mini-Feed
You can control what actions show up in your Mini-Feed and your
friends’ News Feeds.
Edit Settings
Poke, Messages, and Friend Request
You can select which parts of your profile are visible to people you
contact through a poke, message, or friend request.
Edit Settings
Applications
You can edit your privacy for applications you have added to your
account, applications that you have used on another website, and
other applications built on Facebook Platform.
This said, co-op students: please take heed
of the following guidelines to help avoid
Facebook misconduct and maintain your allimportant professional poise.
Edit Settings
Block People
Limited Profile
If you block someone, they will not be able to
search for you, see your profile, or contact you on
Facebook. Any ties you currently have with a
person you block will be broken (friendship
connections, relationships, etc).
If you want to hide some of the information in
your profile from specific people, add them to
your limited profile list below.
Edit Settings
Person:
Person:
Block List
Limited Profile List
You have not blocked anyone.
You have not limited profile access to anyone.
Facebook © 2007
about
developers jobs
advertisers
polls
terms privacy
Public is the
opposite of private.
help
Fall 2007
Communiqué
A screenshot of the privacy page for a Facebook profile with the various
settings for privacy
Since Facebook became open to people
outside of university in September 2006,
mostly anyone can sign up. At that same time
the News Feed and Mini Feed were introduced,
bringing us random updates of what our
“friends” were up to in this land of networking.
Take note of these two events, for they are of
vital importance. Because of event one, your
mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, co-workers,
and your boss—you know, authority figures to
whom a good relationship and reputation is
vital—can have a Facebook profile. As a result
of event two, if you add them as your friends
they will regularly see your status updates,
wall posts, and the various unbecoming
shenanigans you brag about online. As a
potential employer told me in confidence,
“If I had looked at her Facebook profile
beforehand, I wouldn`t have hired her.”
misconduct, causing some employers to
furrow their brows and some students to
lose a valuable reference or worse—potential
jobs. Despite numerous media reports of
lost jobs due to careless blogging and social
networking transgressions, some people just
don’t seem to get it: despite being readily
available in private areas such as bedrooms
and workspaces, the Internet is a public place.
To a perhaps worrisome degree for some of
you, Facebook is also public.
While I understand that one’s Facebook profile
is his or her personal space, where one
should be able to post, drink and be merry
at will, Facebook’s default privacy settings
make your profile very public. So public, in
fact, that anyone—please realize I just said
anyone—can view every nook and cranny of
your online persona. But fear not. There is a
way around this. Facebook affords a wonderful
feature called “Privacy Settings” that do
the superb task of keeping your profile only
between you and your friends.
Now perhaps you are faced with a conundrum.
What to do if you and your boss or co-workers
are friends? Indeed, this causes quite a
predicament, as it is somewhat awkward
to reject a friend request of somebody you
work with daily (and maybe you are friends).
continued on next page
continued from previous page
International Experience... continued from front cover
In addition, during the weekends, breaks and
after my exchange, I got to travel to other
parts of Australia and to South East Asia with
the new friends that I made.
Overall, my exchange experience was probably
one of the best things that I have done during
my academic career. Not only did I get to
take classes at a different university, I got to
live in a beautiful city for five months and do
some travelling at the same time. I strongly
recommend doing an academic exchange
because it will probably be one of the best
experiences that you will have.
Communiqué
Imagine how difficult it would be for an
employer to choose between you and another
These things may seem like common sense, but
when you are as hopelessly addicted to Facebook
as some of us are, you will find that you often
forget how public everything can be.
Fall 2007
Some people out there have the wildly profane
vocabulary of a salty, European sailor. Now
that’s nothing to be particularly ashamed
of—that is, unless you spout out obscenities
to people who don’t want to hear your Samuel
L. Jackson impression. This ties in with
my first point—whatever you write on your
wall or someone else’s wall is PUBLIC. So:
exchanging a vile conversation with your
best friend is up to you, but don’t do it on
your wall.
be avoided if you used a private message for your
sick and twisted tête-à-têtes. This also works too
if you are going to complain about your current
(or past) job: don’t do it on a public wall. You
might not be aware of how unprofessional that
is, and professional employers are not fans of
unprofessional conduct. And speaking of which,
sharing company secrets on others’ walls is a
bad idea.
Would you kiss your
mother with that mouth?
Type as much as you want on Facebook,
just make sure not to embaress yourself
This is a big issue—one that coordinators
hear about. Here’s how it happens: co-op
students foolishly set their Facebook status
to something declaring a dislike (ranging from
mild to intense) for his or her job. Newsflash:
if your boss or co-worker is your friend, they
can see your status updates. If my boss is my
friend, I won’t get away with stealing office
supplies if my status is “Christy is… stealing
office supplies” will I? Facebook is public. If
you write unprofessional things about your
job on your wall (and your privacy settings
are lax), your boss and co-workers don’t even
have to be your friend to know that you are
feeling angry, pissed off, wanting to PWN your
co-worker, or falling asleep at work. This isn’t
good. This can be avoided. Just to be careful,
it is a good idea to avoid stating your feelings
about your current job in your status updates
and much wiser to stick to the obvious fact
that you can’t wait for the weekend.

“Co-op student X is…
bored at/hates work”
is a bad status to have.
candidate after viewing the exchange on
your wall that would make a sailor blush. Or,
perhaps you got the co-op job and you really
like the company. Maybe you cross your fingers
for an eventual full-time position and your boss
stumbles upon a thread of R-rated conversation
of which you are the worst offender. This could

It is important to note that a friendship with
your boss does not eliminate your initial,
professional relationship. If your profile
contains unprofessional content, do yourself a
favour and employ the “Limited Profile” option
where you can reveal to select individuals a
limited version of your profile! This helps to
keep your supervisor from seeing some or all of
your pictures or even your wall posts. In short,
it can hide your unprofessional content.
Technical Writing
DemystifiedHow tecnhincal is it?
By Tina Peng and Diana Seto
R
emember that user manual that came
with your new iPod? Or that little help
window that pops up whenever you
press the question mark icon on your MSN
Messenger window? Those were all made by
technical writers. Technical writers produce
documentation for user products – they write
anything ranging from how to put together a
chair to how to configure a network node.
For most students, “Technical Writer co-op
position” seems like an intimidating position
to take on. What exactly does this job involve?
How “technical” do you need to be to get the job?
As two co-op students who ventured to Kodak
and Redback Networks to explore the field of
technical writing, we are here to answer some
common questions about this mysterious title.
Technical writer sounds like a pretty
boring title. Do you just write manuals
all day?
Tina: Actually, writing procedures was only a
minor part of my job. All the writing that I did
was in XML, which I got to learn on the job.
Besides writing, I also got to interview product
engineers, develop audience personas, update
a project wiki, and work on video and graphics
editing.
Fall 2007
Communiqué
Diana: I would say 30% of the time was spent on
writing. The other 70% was the publishing side
of technical writing, like editing and producing
the documentation in HTML and PDF. There
were days when I proofread manuals that were
the size of telephone books. But that is not all I
did. I also got to test out the online help system
that comes with the software.
Can you describe a typical day
for me?
Diana: My days started early at 8:30am,
but time passed by really fast. Most of
my time was occupied with meetings,
either with the technical publication
team or with engineers. The remaining
part of the day was spent on writing and
editing in Adobe FrameMaker, or researching
and compiling information in Microsoft Excel. On
Fridays, the company had social events like Beer
& Chips or Engineering Socials in the afternoon.
It was a great way to meet new people.
Tina: Because Kodak has a flex-time policy
where employees set up their own work
schedules, my days usually began at 10am.
Each day was different because my work was
very task-based. Some days I would attend
technical review meetings with engineers and
work on researching and writing. Other days
I would shoot and edit video clips. We also
had a company wide social gathering every
Wednesday afternoon called Goody Time.
I do not know that much about
computers, should I still apply?
Tina: You are not going to be expected to know
how to program computers. Depending on the
project you work on, knowledge about databases
and programming may come in handy, but it’s
certainly not required. If you know a little bit
of HTML, learn new software programs pretty
quickly, and have an interest in the product you
are writing about, that should be enough to get
you started.
Diana: Similarly, having organization, timemanagement, and multi-tasking skills will
keep your job interesting. The good thing about
this job is that you are not doing one repetitive
continued on page 8
Talking With the
New
Co-op Student Advisor
Heather Keeping, CMNS Co-op Alumnus and FAS Co-op Student Advisor
Did you know what you wanted to do after your degree was finished?
Did you always want to work for SFU Co-op?
How did you handle this “overwhelming
process”?
What brought you back to SFU Co-op?
Communiqué
You can visit Heather in her office, room K
9657, call her at 778.782.4089, or send her an
email at heather_keeping@sfu.ca.
Fall 2007
When I transferred to SFU to complete my degree,
and became a co-op student, I got a chance to
delve further into this field with an 8-month work
term with SFU’s Career Services department.
Many of the skills I was gaining as a Communication student – research skills, event planning,
written communication, presentation skills,
marketing, critical thinking – were valuable in this
Since graduating, and working both in and out
of the career development field for a few years,
I’ve confirmed many things about myself and
my goals. Most importantly, it isn’t that you always need to have an exact career goal, but that
you need to set goals that keep you learning and
experiencing new things. I knew that I wanted
to work in the co-operative education field at
some point in my career, and waited until I was
ready to make the move. It was a combination
of being confident that I had what it took and a
readiness to take myself on a learning curve!
This is what led me back to SFU Co-op, and it’s
great to be back on campus, working with such
motivated and inspiring staff and students.
My strategy (if you could call it that) was to
jump right in and find something (anything!) I
could do to get some hands-on experience. I
first landed a federal government internship,
where I learned about the career development field, and how government and private sector services assist people with their
career options and development. This work
rang true for me, and I learned so much from
that experience and wanted to learn more.
While I didn’t pursue my Communication
degree with the goal of working in co-op, by
the time I graduated, I knew that its purpose
really fit with my own interests. I knew that I
wanted to communicate with people, to feel I
was serving a community or group’s need, and
to play a part in how people learned about the
world they lived in. As the new Co-op Student
Advisor, I feel I’ll get a chance to pursue my
goals and career interests, while helping others. And it’s great to be back at SFU!

When I began my post-secondary studies, I had
only a glimmer of what job might be right for
me – and with my limited knowledge and infinite
wisdom, decided I might like journalism. It didn’t
take me long to discover that there was a world
of other options and information out there, and
I hadn’t even scratched the surface! At first
glance, many options seem like a blessing, but
I found that having many choices made for an
overwhelming decision-making process.
Heather Keeping,
FAS Co-op Student Advisor
T
field. And I got to apply them while working with
people who were in just the same boat as I was
– trying to learn about themselves, the work world,
and where they saw themselves in the future.
here is a position at SFU that is a vast
resource for many co-op students - the
Co-op Student Advisor for the Faculty of
Applied Sciences. Heather Keeping is our newest
Co-op Student Advisor and a graduate of SFU’s
Communication Co-op Program. She is here to
help co-op students with their job search through
conducting mock interviews, lending a hand with
resume and cover letter writing, and providing
many other helpful resources. I decided to talk
with Heather to learn a little bit about her journey
from student to co-op student to co-op staff.
Bridging Relationships
EffectivlyBridging Co-op, school and volunteering
By Melissa Chungfat
I
t’s easy for students to get trapped in the
routine of focusing only on school throughout
a degree. After a while, I learned that making
the effort to get experience beyond the books
creates new ways of learning and can open up
many opportunities. As a volunteer, student and
employee, I have seen how people can build
effective relationships through bridging the
different parts of their lives.
He essentially said, talk to everybody and
establish a few quality relationships.
Relationship-building is not about getting
t h e m o st b u s i n e ss ca rd s , i t ’s a b o u t
being genuine. Having a sincere interest
in people and their work is the key to
building effective relationships.
Aaron Cruikshank is a Communication Co-op
Christina Wu (middle) making a stop in California with Agents of Change on the way to Mexico to
raise money for Microcredit
Fall 2007
Communiqué
Relationship-building
What do you think of when you hear
“networking”? Does schmoozing, business
cards, or suits come to mind? I heard the word
so much during my undergrad that it lost its
meaning and it seemed like an abstract, and
often, self-serving concept.
Then Sam Thiara, Student Affairs Officer
for the Faculty of Business, talked about
“relationship-building” instead of networking.
alumnus who now runs his own consulting
company, Friuch. He said, “If you’re not currently
volunteering, you’re not doing a very good job of
managing your brand.” He states that you need to
be ready to give your elevator pitch and hand out a
business card at any time. The idea is when it comes
to the “hidden job market” every minute of every
day is a job interview. “People you volunteer with
will recognize your talents and ask you for coffee to
‘chat’ and these chats could lead to work.”
continued on next page
continued from previous page
Christina’s efforts led to media coverage in a
variety of papers including Burnaby Now and
Metro. She said people can learn a lot by being
open to feedback and not being afraid to ask a
lot of questions. She said “I never had any formal
media training. I learned on my own, made
mistakes and looked back to reflect on how I
could improve next time.”
From student to career
My co-op term as Project Assistant for the
Faculty of Applied Sciences Co-op Program
made me realize that I already have a network
of contacts, even among my own friends. My
experiences in co-op, volunteering, university
competitions, and socializing often overlapped
to create unexpected opportunities and have
taught me the following:
How to bypass interviews
Joining professional associations as a student is
one of the best things you can do to gain access
to professionals in your area of interest. I joined
the BC Chapter of the International Association
How to gain exposure
Winning competitions can get you exposure
and help to create opportunities. I submitted
a communication plan and won IABC/BC’s
Student Communicator of the Year Award
for my involvement in a university marketing
competition. The award was presented in front of
over 200 communication professionals and one
of the sponsor representatives later told me that
they would consider me if I wanted a position in
the future with their organization.
How to state a specific interest
After my co-op position was complete, I was
asked what my career interests were. I used
to think that saying you can do anything would
be useful. But when it comes to a job interest,
it is better to be specific so people can direct
you to the right contacts. After I said that I
was interested in getting more experience
in strategic communication, two of my co-op
colleagues said they could personally solicit
my application for my next co-op position to the
right people in HR.
There is no reason why students can’t have their
own success stories. There are resources at SFU
to direct students in the right direction, including
Career Services, Co-operative Education, and
Volunteer and Service Learning, which are the
programs that form Work Integrated Learning.
So get out there and expose yourself!
Communiqué
In the spring, she was working on a co-op term
for BC Transmission Corporation and talked
about Agents of Change to her co-workers.
After engaging them in the topic, they gave her
valuable advice on writing an effective press
release and media relations. “Without the co-op
program, I would not have the knowledge and
access to experienced people to help me learn
about media relations.”
From left: Erika Wah, Marie Bartlett, Melissa Chungfat & Marcia Shimizu
at the IABC/BC Bronze Quill Gala Awards (credit: Tom Burley)
Fall 2007
In the summer of 2007, she and over 20 bike
riders rode for seven weeks from Vancouver to
Tijuana, Mexico to raise money for microcredit,
which gives loans to entrepreneurs in poorer
countries. She was in charge of media relations
and promotion for the ride even though she had
never written a press release before.
Many co-op students learn by asking questions,
observing and trying new tasks that can
contribute to relationship-building. Christina
Wu is one of these students as a Business and
Communication major and a volunteer director
of the communication committee for the nonprofit organization Agents of Change.
of Business Communicators (IABC/BC) and at
a new members’ session, the owner of a design
company stated that she was looking for a writer.
I spoke to her at the event, sent her my portfolio
pieces and ended up doing some contract work
with her.

Bridging co-op and
non-profit
Technical Writing... continued from page 4
Editors:
Erika Wah
Marcia Shimizu
Christy Kazulin
Design & Layout:
Christy Kazulin
Jane Nunnikhoven
Contacts:
Christy Kazulin
Project Assistant
MBC 1311
778.782.3505
fasproj@sfu.ca
Sangita Mudaliar
Program Assistant
K 9665
778.782.5367
sangitam@sfu.ca
Marcia Shimizu
Co-op Coordinator
K 9669
778.782.3862
mshimizu@sfu.ca
Erika Wah
Co-op Coordinator
K 9661
778.782.5542
ewah@sfu.ca
Communiqué
Published by the
Communication Co-op
Department of Simon
Fraser University,
Burnaby, BC V5A 1SA
If you would like to
submit an article for
Communiqué contact
fasproj@sfu.ca.
On the web:
sfu.ca/communique
task over and over again; you are given several
tasks to complete within a certain timeframe. If
you can manage your time well and multi-task
between projects, you will never be bored or
stressed out. What did you like most about the job?
Diana: I got to work at my own pace. I was given
ample time to work on my projects. I liked that
I never felt stressed or rushed to complete
a project. Sometimes I even handed in the
projects early!
Tina: I liked always learning about new
technologies while being able to apply the
things I learned in school as a Communication
student. This job was all about taking complex
information and expressing it in a way that was
appropriate for a given audience level.
What did you like least about the job?
Diana: Knowing that your work is not always
read. Some users skip to sections that they
want to read. Some read the user guide front to
back or not at all. It’s unpredictable. Additionally,
there’s no ownership over the work. The style is
consistent between the writers, so you cannot
tell that over ten people worked on that book.
Tina: Because the project I worked on is so
large and new, features are always being
changed and improved. I know it will be quite
some time before the documentation I worked
on will be read by a real user instead of our
software tester.
Statistics
Corner
Who we are:
New admits
Total Participating
Total placements
Summer 07 Summer 06
50
110
102
Fall 2007
Communiqué
52
132
96
Who’s doing what
Eight-month term
First co-op
Second co-op
Third co-op
Fourth co-op
Fifth co-op
Self-directed co-op
33
38
30
26
6
2
13
Where we’re working
Greater Vancouver
Out-of-town
Overseas
86
10
6
Who we’re working for
Federal government
Provincial government Municipal government Government agencies
Not-for-profit
Private
6
7
1
22
21
45
Where else we’re placed
Arts
Business
Computing Science
Science Kinesiology
Now that you know all you need to know about
technical writing, do not tremble in fear next
time you see a posting on PlacePro. If you
want to work in a flexible and relaxed work
environment, dress casually for work, learn
about technology, and meet all kinds of smart
and interesting people, technical writing may
be for you!


WORK INTEGRATED LEARNING
WHO IS THIS GUY?
That’s Wil Fraser and he represents Work Integrated Learning (WIL),
a new area of SFU that encompasses Career Services, Co-operative
Education, Volunteer and Service Learning. For more information
about how WIL can help you, visit: www.sfu.ca/wil
16
12
2
1
1
29
38
30
16
9
3
20
79
11
6
19
4
3
15
20
35
7
14
1
1 1