Not having enough free time is a problem for most McGill students, but Mary-Liz Power, a U3 Psychology student with minors in Marketing and Behavioural Science, finds herself loving her constantly busy schedule.
Power volunteers her time with the McGill Psychology Students Association (MPSA) as their organization’s U3 representative, organizing events and liaising with other departments. Additionally, she is VP Internal for McGill Red Thunder, a staff member at Bar des Arts (BDA), and a mentor with the Indigenous Student Mentorship Program.
“I realized that there was a lot of other stuff out there that I hadn’t been doing yet,” Power explained. “So I decided to start getting involved with other stuff because I had a lot of free time and I didn’t know what to do with myself.”
For the first three years of her McGill degree, Power was a varsity athlete on the Martlet rugby team, playing hooker and occasionally flank. After leaving the team, she began to divide her time among new groups. Power has been a member of Red Thunder since 2013, and has joined other initiatives this past year, such as a mentorship program that runs out of the Kahnawake Survival School.
“I am really interested in the plight of indigenous peoples in Canada, and am trying to find my place in the process of recognition of indigenous rights,” Power said. “I’d really like to do more with indigenous activism in the future, but this is one thing I’ve started doing.”
Power’s passion for teamwork and community outreach is highlighted in her endeavours such as the Indigenous Student Mentorship Program and Red Thunder, the latter which advocates for creating a community around athletics at McGill. By joining different campus initiatives Power has had the opportunity to meet new groups of people within the larger McGill community, which she explained is an important part of her overall experience.
“There is a lot out there at McGill that a lot of people don’t realize,” Power said. “It’s looking for where you fit and where your community is, and when you find it it’s fate!”
As a former varsity athlete, Power still enjoys playing sports by participating in hockey, ultimate frisbee, and soccer intramurals. For her, it’s not playing to win but rather for reconnecting with old friends and finding new ones.
“I think it’s really shown me more of [McGill] than I would have seen otherwise,” Power said. “I feel like I’ve gotten a lot more out of the experience than I would have if I had just floated through it.”
Q&A
McGill Tribune (MT): What type of small dog breed would you be if you were a dog?
Mary-Liz Power (MLP): I think I’d be a Pug or a Jack Russell terrier or a Papillion. I think I have the hustle and the heart like they do.
MT: Would you rather have feet for hands or hands for feet?
MLP: Hands for feet. I could be really dexeterious with my finger-toes.
MT: Would you rather fight thousands of small mutant babies or one giant mutant baby?
MLP: This is for real my nightmare. I think one big baby because the small babies would scare me a lot more than the big baby would.
MT: If you were a social media platform, which one would you be?
MLP: I would be Twitter. I just got Twitter […] and I’ve become obsessed with it really quickly because nobody follows me so I can just say random stuff (@yungscone_).
