Everyday on campus I get to meet different students who have all have very different backgrounds. I am in complete AWE everyday at what I hear! I feel so fortunate to hear these incredible experiences/stories. Some of these students have moved to a new country in search of getting a good education and while moving here they have to learn a whole new set of cultural norms, language and navigating everyday life. I recently met with a student that was talking about his change while coming here from India. I cannot imagine the courage it took for him to move to Canada to seek an education. He said upon arrival it was a shock! He had never experienced snow.
He had never done his own cleaning, laundry, etc. (his family had a maid back home). He had never interacted with a Canadian before his move. Volunteer work and employment were all new things to him. I cannot imagine such a drastic change in lifestyle all for the opportunity of a different education. While he has been here he has taken every opportunity to volunteer and immerse himself in getting a Canadian experience. My one concern for this student is that he is stretching himself so thin and is overwhelmed by the pressure to do so much instead of enjoying the freedom of time to himself once in a while. There are so many international students on our campus that probably have very similar stories to this and one’s that have very different one’s and I commend them all for making a change and taking the opportunity to seek something new and unknown.
Then there is another type of student I meet all the time and those are the domestic students that have done more in their short life span so far than I have done in my longer life span. These students are amazing! They have taken every opportunity while being a student from co-op positions, studying abroad, work study positions, volunteer experiences, to undergrad research opportunities. These students resumes are probably pages and pages long because they seek opportunities to better themselves all the time.
As I meet these students everyday I think about all the missed opportunities during my schooling. As much as I hate to admit it I was one of those students that went to class and went home or to the TRU gym to hang out in the lounge and eat Deanna’s famous (to us athletes) chocolate chip cookies.
I don’t remember hearing about these opportunities and if I did I probably didn’t think much about them at the time. I was in my little bubble of sports, sports, sports. Again as much as I hate to admit this, I just went to school to stay academically eligible. It wasn’t until after my fourth year of eligibility ended that I woke up to realize I had to think about my future. Thank god my chosen profession was linked to sport and I had a lot of coaching experience I could translate into teaching. But boy did I have a long way to go to gain experience! and thank god for those people out there that took a chance on me during the way.
