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News, SSMU

SSMU Council discusses governance, financing student activities

by Cherry Wu on

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On Nov. 30, the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) held its last Legislative Council session of the Fall semester. At the meeting, SSMU Funding Commissioner Lauréanne Pelletier gave a presentation on financing student activities. Council also passed the Motion Regarding the Provision of Bridge Funding for Savoy Society and discussed the Governance Changes Working Group.

 

Funding Commissioner Presentation

At the beginning of the meeting, SSMU Funding Commissioner Lauréanne Pelletier provided an overview of the different SSMU funds available to students and clubs. In the past year, the Funding Committee approved financing for a variety of projects, including $6,000 for the McGill Iron Rink, an outdoor ice rink on lower field.

So far, the committee has reviewed 72 funding applications, and approved 55 of them, amounting to $60,000 in funding. Pelletier aims to raise awareness of existing SSMU funds so that more members can take advantage of the resources.

“We are not getting enough applications,” Pelletier said. “There is so much money left. The first thing I am doing is talking to different commissioners to try to partner up with them to promote the funds.”

Next semester, Pelletier will launch social media campaigns in partnership with Campus Life & Engagement (CLE) to inform students of the application procedures for funding.

 

Motion Regarding the Provision of Bridge Funding for Savoy Society

Council next considered a motion to loan $20,000 to the The McGill Savoy Society, a non-profit student theatre group, to cover costs for its annual production. Previously a SSMU Service, the Savoy Society relied on funds from the SSMU budget. However, in Fall 2016, the Service Review Committee decided that the Society’s activities did not qualify as services and thus it lost its status as well as the funding that SSMU provides to all of its services. Savoy Society President Hannah Moloshok and Treasurer Adrian Nagy attended Council as gallery members.

Given that the Savoy Society ran a deficit last year, Councillors were concerned with its ability to repay the loan. Moloshok claimed that the deficit is overstated because of accounting mistakes made while the Society was transferring money from the Service bank account to its own club bank account.

“Actually, the only loan that we still need to repay is $1,600,” Moloshok said. “Currently, we have already received $6,000 from our solicitations of the alumni association. Along with revenue from bake sales, donations, sponsors, crowd-funding campaigns, and ticket sales, we expect to pay back the debt in no time.”

Nagy seconded Moloshok’s statement, highlighting that, historically, the Savoy Society has exhibited budgetary success.

“In the past 10 school years, we have only had three deficits, and the rest were all surpluses,” Nagy said. “Based on last year’s numbers, we are expecting to make at least $16,000 in ticket sales this year.”

With a majority vote, this motion carried, effectively issuing a $20,000 loan to Savoy Society, with an expected repayment by May 31, 2018.

 

Governance Changes Working Group

The Governance Changes Working Group, spearheaded by SSMU Vice-President (VP) External Affairs Connor Spencer, aims to provide general education on SSMU governance to bridge the gap between students and their representatives.

“It is really irresponsible of us to start a conversation on governance changes without acknowledging that these procedures are so inaccessible to our membership,” Spencer said.

To address inaccessibility of governance documents, one of the working group’s suggestions is to create a Joint Board of Directors and Legislative Council Committee, which will house two working groups: One to review the legal wording of SSMU documents and another to increase the visibility of governance procedures.

“We also need to consider the things that have alienated our membership,” Spencer said. “Largely, those have been scandals, and the two biggest scandals have been sexual violence and [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions] BDS. We have accountability to the people who elected us. So let’s stop discussing [these issues] behind closed doors.’’

The working group will send the proposed governance changes before the end of the nomination period on Feb. 22, 2018, to be ratified by SSMU members during the Winter 2018 Referendum.

Commentary, Opinion

Are millennials growing tired of clickbait?

by Jordan Gowling on

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Quality journalism needs financial resources to sustain itself. This simple fact is both inescapable and incredibly important, given the role that journalism plays in keeping governments accountable and civil discourse informed. Publications promote paid subscriptions as a source of funding, but, according to the American Press Institute, only 29 per cent of American adults pay for newspaper, magazine, or news site subscriptions. The 2017 Reuters Institute Digital News Report indicated an increase in paid subscriptions among millennials in the United States from 2016 and 2017, digital subscriptions to online news sources increased 14 per cent among individuals aged 18 to 24, and by 12 per cent among those from 25 to 34. This development seems to indicate a positive realization that if they want to see good journalism survive, young people today must open their wallets for quality-driven news organizations and up-and-coming digital platforms.

When a publication lacks financial resources, it can be forced to downsize or even fold. A 2016 Pew Research Report has indicated the U.S. newsroom workforce has shrunk by almost 40 per cent in the last 20 years. Without a profitable subscription base, it may also be incentivized to produce material that will maximize revenue generated from digital advertising. Since a publication receives a fraction of a cent for every reader that clicks on the ad associated with the article’s content, in order to generate traffic to their website, content producers must focus on what is marketable and viral, often at the expense of what is informative. Examples of this include clickbait, and the rise of “fake news” during the 2016 American presidential election. This is concerning for any citizen who wishes to be informed, not merely entertained, by the news.

Additionally, the online advertising market is extremely competitive with tech companies Facebook and Google dominating the field. Estimates indicate that Facebook and Google accounted for 89 per cent of the growth in the digital advertising market in 2016. In effect, these Silicon Valley giants have a duopoly over online advertising sales, decreasing the slice of the pie left for news outlets. As a result, it is essential that news organizations find ways to increase subscriptions profits, and decrease their reliance on online advertising revenue.

Subscribing to receive a news organization’s content is like entering a contract: The consumer makes a commitment to an organization that they value for its ability to keep them informed through well-written, trustworthy, and thoughtful content.

A 2017 study by the Media Insight Project determined that those who do pay for news value quality over cheapness. As such, a growth in millennial news subscriptions may indicate that young people are increasingly willing to pay for quality journalism, and, correspondingly, that there is greater profit to be found in the future in the form of subscriptions. Subscribing to receive a news organization’s content is like entering a contract: The consumer makes a commitment to an organization that they value for its ability to keep them informed through well-written, trustworthy, and thoughtful content. This is in stark contrast to some of the large digital platforms that have gained popularity, such as VICE, with a business model that has shifted toward fast-produced video content where ad revenue is more profitable, and away from written content that provides deeper analysis on a given issue.

Perhaps this is why young people in the United States are seeing the value in paid news subscriptions. Nic Newman, a contributor to the Reuters report, cites the outcome of the election and the misinformation that accompanied it as an important catalyst for this shift among young people back to traditional media, including the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and the Washington Post. The timing in this upsurge of young paid subscribers indicates that these individuals realize the particular importance of paying for journalism in a time of political turmoil and polarization. Young people are realizing the benefits of consuming content from journalists beholden to a subscriber base that demands the facts, not rhetoric.

Moving forward, it is important to get into the mindset of paying for reliable media sources, new and old, in order to ensure that the quality of journalism remains strong. This in turn will require news publications to continue making efforts to expand their digital subscription base.

 

Jordan Gowling is a History major from Gatineau, Quebec. She enjoys reading, soccer, and drinking overpriced lattes.

 

@mcgilltribop | [email protected]

 
McGill, News

McGill Association of University Teachers votes to divest from fossil fuels

by Fionn Adamian on

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On Nov. 8, the McGill Association of University Teachers’ (MAUT) Council voted unanimously to divest from fossil fuels, moving approximately $500,000 out of its investment portfolios which include holdings in fossil fuel companies. The MAUT also passed a motion by a vote of 13-3 calling on McGill’s Board of Governors (BoG) to follow suit with the university’s endowment and pension fund.

The MAUT Council, which represents the university’s academic staff members in the McGill Senate and other national academic committees, asserted that the continued extraction of oil reserves by major fossil fuel companies hampers global efforts to mitigate climate change. Additionally, the council invoked McGill’s divestment from the South African apartheid regime in 1985 and from tobacco companies in 2007, and argued that McGill organizations have a duty to apply pressure on industries responsible for social injury.

“We each have a role to play to do what we can to support the environment,” MAUT President Alenoush Saroyan said. “We need to be on the right side of history on this one within our boundary of possibility.”

Supporters of the MAUT’s motions—which follow the Faculty of Arts’ endorsement of divestment in December 2015—hope that it will push the BoG to divest McGill’s pension plan and endowment of $1.5 billion; in 2012, Divest McGill, a student group on campus that lobbies for fossil fuel divestment, estimated that 5.7 per cent of this endowment was in fossil fuel, with The Montreal Gazette putting that number at about 5 per cent in 2015. Although he expects McGill’s divestment would have a minimal financial impact on the fossil fuel industry, Environmental Philosophy Professor and member of McGill Faculty for Divestment Gregory Mikkelson emphasized the political and moral dimensions of such an action and its potential to encourage discussion about environmental legislation.

“MAUT’s divestment of its own funds is a good demonstration that we are walking the walk as well as talking the talk,” Mikkelson said. “And if the alma mater of the Canadian prime minister took this step, it would have a huge symbolic political impact.”

Despite the recent victory, proponents of fossil fuel divestment face an uphill battle against the administration. In March 2016, the BoG accepted the Committee to Advise on Matters of Social Responsibility’s (CAMSR) recommendation not to divest McGill’s endowment. Members of the Committee argued that McGill could combat climate change more effectively through sustainability projects on campus such as the Vision 2020 program, a plan to reduce the university’s greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 13,500 tons over the next two years, and the Climate and Sustainability Action Plan to become carbon neutral by 2040.

“The Board, acting on the advice of […] CAMSR, has determined that the best way for McGill to address the very real problem of climate change is to take action that will make a difference,” BoG President Ram Panda wrote in a statement to the Tribune. “MAUT and other groups have different views on this subject [and] it is clear the conversation will continue and we look forward to it.”

Students activists will also remain engaged in this conversation, according to Jed Lenetsky, a Divest McGill organizer. According to Lenetsky, the group plans to continue soliciting community support for divestment in order to pressure the BoG into changing its stance. Lenetsky and other members of Divest McGill see the MAUT’s decision as a sign that the academic community disagrees with the BoG’s conclusion to not divest.

“It’s further evidence of how out there their decision making was when the association of McGill’s professors is openly disagreeing with the decisions made by the administration,” Lenetsky said.

Supporters of divestment remain optimistic at the movement’s prospects over the coming years.

“I think the BoG will divest eventually,” Mikkelson said. “It’s just a question of how much kicking and screaming is necessary.”

Montreal, News

Bridging the gap: fostering a partnership between Walksafe and Service d’accueil

by Caitlin Kindig on

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Following the cancellation of transportation services due to cuts in school board funding in September 2016, McGill Walksafe partnered with Service d’accueil du Centre Multi-Ethnique St-Louis, a daycare linked with FACE elementary school. Although the children were previously able to take busses from the Service d’accueil daycare to the Recreation Association of Milton Park for afterschool activities, Walksafe volunteers will now be accompanying them on their commute.

Walksafe is a volunteer student service under the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) that provides accompaniment from 9 p.m. to 12 a.m. Sunday through Friday and 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturdays nights for people walking home around the Downtown campus who feel uncomfortable or unable to do so alone. In addition to their normal duties, volunteers from Walksafe will walk children to the community centre in the early afternoon, after school ends for the day.

The partnership came about at the beginning of October, when Jason Prince, the president of the Service d’accueil daycare program and a McGill alumnus, reached out to Walksafe Operations Coordinator Dani Arellano for help following FACE’s budget cuts. The pair have since been working to officially launch the pilot program next semester.

“The pilot project is very promising, and we hope to extend the project forever,” Prince said. “It’s a wonderful community service that shows the kind of role a university can play in its surrounding neighborhoods.”

Arellano is looking forward to continuing the partnership as well, though she acknowledges the increased burden that it may pose on Walksafe’s volunteer base.

“We are really excited about the partnership,” Arellano said. “So far, it has been working really well, although, we could always use more volunteers. The response we have gotten from Jason [Prince] and the team has been very positive […and] the kids are really awesome and it has been a lot of fun getting to know them. We hope we can continue the program and create a stronger bond to the community through it.”

According to Walksafe Vice-President Communications Ali Akbar, the new partnership provides a unique opportunity for students to help out the greater Montreal community.

“[Walksafe’s] motto is ‘Anyone, anywhere on the island of Montreal,’” Akbar wrote to The McGill Tribune. “However, we focus our outreach program within McGill so although it is true that we do provide our services to the greater Montreal community, no one outside of McGill actually calls us.”

Other McGill offices applauded Walksafe’s project, including Lisa Gallagher, Executive Director of the McGill Childcare Centre, a daycare for the children of members of the McGill community. To Gallagher children’s safety should be the public’s first concern.

“I think that any community initiative that supports the safety of children is a worthy and valuable initiative,” Gallagher said. “A safe and secure environment for children is the first priority for communities in general and particularly within daycare and school settings. I believe in the adage that it takes a village to raise a child.”

Another SSMU service, DriveSafe, is also supportive of Walksafe’s new initiative. DriveSafe operates a similar service to Walksafe, offering volunteer car rides to McGill students from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. However, DriveSafe President Sophie Forest acknowledged that it is unlikely that DriveSafe will be able to get involved in this partnership with Service d’accueil due to financial constraints. Whereas it costs nothing to walk, DriveSafe must cover car rentals costs with student fees.

“[Although] we are happy to see that Walksafe is able to help the great Montreal community, unfortunately for DriveSafe, it would be much harder to do something similar,” Forest said. “On our end, DriveSafe volunteers have been given the option to help out Walksafe with the Service d'accueil program by joining the Walksafe team as a walker. Other than that it is unlikely we can do much else to help as we have much higher operating expenses than Walksafe.”

Student Life

How a visit to the Redpath Museum can help you to survive in the wilderness

by Shanell Fan on

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As the climate worsens and resources become more expensive, younger generations are under more pressure than ever to live sustainably. Fortunately, the Redpath Museum hosts monthly survival workshops informing students on how to live off the land—teaching skills like turning plant fibers into rope, proper beekeeping, or how to make a fire using friction. The McGill Tribune spoke with Marion Dulude, one of the survival workshop coordinators, about the importance of incorporating natural living techniques into everyday life.

MT: Why should students take the time to learn natural survival techniques?

MD: I think it’s really empowering for people to get a chance to harvest, and to get a chance to process, and get a chance to consume something that they’ve made. [It] is very important to get to understand and know our environment, to get to know the wild beings that are there. It is empowering to also know that plants are not just beautiful, but they could be useful for us, and if we’re able to harvest them respectfully and take not more than what we need, then there could be a mutually beneficial relationship.

MT: When would these techniques be relevant for students to use?

MD: These are small, simple skills, but when you combine them all together, it’s actually quite a big bundle of knowledge. [For example], I drink nettle tea every morning, and I don’t have to buy as many vitamins or as many supplements at the pharmacy because I have quite a few that are from pretty common basic medicinal plants around us. People are always amazed [that]  these plants are all around. So I do see it that some of these skills can be integrated right now in your daily life [and] they bring a lot of health, well-being, and awareness.

MT: What are your top three tips for getting into survivalism?

MD: I would start with proximity […] and developing that connection with what’s close to you. [For example], if you want to get into plants, what are the five plants that you can get to know around your home? And then I would say repetition, like [for example], nettle tea, instead of drinking it once and moving on to the next thing, drink it once a week or try integrating it into your life in a small way. And then building communities [and] finding like-minded people and building a community of learners.

MT: What do you hope students who attend the workshops take away?

MD: It’s all about connections to the life that sustains us [and] finding a way to be in this interdependent relationship [with the environment….] There’s so much importance given to humans, that we sometimes get overwhelmed and forget that we are part of this larger whole.

Montreal, News, SSMU

Bill 151 exposes gaps in McGill Policy Against Sexual Violence

by Audrey Carleton on

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At the Nov. 1 sitting of the National Assembly of Québec, Minister for Higher Education Hélène David introduced Bill 151, which aims to prevent and fight sexual violence in higher education institutions. The bill would require all universities in the province to develop a policy against sexual violence that is separate from its other policies and includes guidelines for student orientations, training, and the handling of intimate relationships between students and faculty members.

“The purpose of this Act is to strengthen actions to prevent and fight sexual violence in higher education institutions and to help foster a healthy and safe living environment for students and personnel members,” Bill 151 reads. “To that end, the Act in particular provides for the implementation of prevention, awareness-raising, accountability, support and individual assistance measures.”  

The proposed bill is the product of months of consultations between David and representatives of various stakeholder groups, including the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), Our Turn National Action Plan, and the Association of the Voice of Education in Quebec (AVEQ). McGill Associate Provost (Policies, Procedures, and Equity) Angela Campbell was also present at a number of these consultations, though she is confident that the university’s current Policy against Sexual Violence sufficiently complies with the bill’s proposed guidelines.

“The proposed legislation has symbolic value and stands to make a significant practical impact, foregrounding the shared responsibility that institutions, including post-secondary institutions, have to prevent and respond to sexual violence,” Campbell wrote in an email to The McGill Tribune. “McGill already meets most of the requirements of the proposed legislation, notably a commitment to mandatory education for all members of the campus community, a stand-alone Policy against Sexual Violence, and an Office that dedicates resources specifically to the support of survivors and to education and awareness-raising about consent and sexual violence.”

McGill’s Policy against Sexual Violence explicitly states that consent cannot be given in circumstances where an abuse of a relationship of trust, power, or authority occurs, such as in the relationship between a professor and their student. However, student offenders are under a different policy than faculty, who are held accountable to the Regulations Relating to the Employment of Tenure Track and Tenured Academic Staff.

After working extensively on improving McGill’s Policy, SSMU Vice-President (VP) External Connor Spencer feels that its structure improperly defines sexual violence and is not “stand-alone,” which she says would require outlining procedures for discipline independent from academic regulations.

“[McGill’s Policy is on] a separate piece of paper, but the procedures are still the procedures under the Code of Student Conduct, and that means that you automatically get transferred to procedures meant for academic infractions,” Spencer said. “It’s not trauma-informed, or survivor-centred, and it just doesn’t have those realities reflected in how those procedures are set out. For the policy to truly be stand-alone, it needs its own procedures as well.”

Further, Quebec’s Act respecting labour standards mandates that the university must keep many of its disciplinary processes confidential, keeping survivors in the dark about how the university handles their cases.

“If we really want to have procedures with professors, there needs to be a change in […] Quebec labour law,” Spencer said. “That’s something that really can only happen at the provincial level anyway.”

Caitlin Salvino, Co-Chair of Our Turn National Action Plan—a guideline encouraging student unions to adopt a pro-survivor stance at Canadian Universities—shares Spencer’s concerns about the importance of having a stand-alone policy. To ensure that action is taken, she believes that the provincial government should also provide formal channels for overseeing proper implementation of the bill at universities like McGill.

“The bill is not going far enough right now,” Salvino said. “It needs to create minimum standards for the policies that they’re mandating […] and there needs to be an oversight body that survivors can make a claim to or make a complaint to.”

 

The McGill Tribune is gathering student input to inform an investigation into the topic of professor abuses at McGill. If you’d like to participate in our survey or provide a tip or testimonial on the topic, please click here.

Instagram, Student Life

‘Anti-Colonial Evening’ revisits traditional Thanksgiving narratives

by Samantha Ling on

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On Nov. 23, Montreal’s Native Friendship Centre was filled with warmth, food, and historical lessons as McGill students and Montreal residents attended an ‘Anti-Colonial Evening,’ organized by Le Frigo Vert and the Quebec Public Interest Research Group (QPIRG) at Concordia. Instead of partaking in a traditional American Thanksgiving celebration, over 100 people of all ages gathered to learn about colonialism and the importance of resisting land fraud when celebrating the holiday.

Filing in from the windy Montreal weather, the evening’s attendees enjoyed a variety of foods from local cooperatives, including Food Against Fascism and McGill’s Midnight Kitchen. Following the dinner, Submedia TV, a grassroots social justice film collective, presented clips from films on social justice and Indigenous issues. The videos provided a look into the harms of invasive infrastructure plans for Indigenous land, such as the Dakota Access Pipeline and the Alton Gas brine dumping site. These clips gave attendees a glimpse into the struggles many Indigenous populations face, and the continued pervasiveness of colonialism in North America.

For Harley Roquentin, an organizer of the night and member of the Board of Directors of QPIRG Concordia, the mainstream acceptance of Thanksgiving as a peaceful celebration hides the history of colonialism that led to the holiday’s creation.

“The myth that people were kind to Native Americans [is]  so ingrained within Thanksgiving, when really [colonial settlers] committed genocide,” Roquentin said. “That’s not something we should be celebrating. It’s an aspect of humanity and recognition of Indigenous peoples that we’re aiming to do here today.”

According to event attendee Sabrina Xuan, U3 Anthropology, early childhood education played a central role in her understanding of Thanksgiving as a holiday. Throughout her schooling, she repeatedly heard tales of settler-Indigenous cooperation and gratitude, and came to accept this as the truth. The ‘Anti-Colonial Evening’ countered this narrative, sparking discussion about mainstream misrepresentations of North American history.

“I grew up going to an American school, and we were all given a narrative about Thanksgiving and Columbus Day being positive events intrinsic to national development,” Xuan said. “When you know there’s more to the story, I think you should do all that you can to support what it’s really like.”

By the end of the night, everyone left with full stomachs, open minds, and new motivation to get involved in decolonization efforts. Coco Graziani, a recent McGill graduate (in Psychology and English Literature) who attended the event, reflected on the importance of understanding one’s place in the anti-colonial movement.

“It seems to me it’s a special time in the evolution of the way people think,” Graziani said. “I wasn’t aware of the movement or history a few years ago, but I have a feeling that right now it’s reaching everyone. When supporting efforts for decolonization, showing up as settlers is important. It shows one’s effort in knowing more, and recognizing the resiliency of Indigenous people.”

Student Life, The Viewpoint

Viewpoint: Me and my cultural fatigue

by Avleen Mokha on

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Every year, thousands of students move to Montreal to begin their journey at McGill. Although the university’s multinational student body is a blessing for international students, moving to a new place often comes with a cost that goes unnoticed by locals.

When I moved to Montreal from Mumbai, I was stunned by the novelty of living abroad. For the first time, I could spend my evening walking down promenades, switching sides of fries for poutine, or riding a Bixi to class. I was mesmerized by the architecture of the city, the bustling energy on campus, and the variety of accents and languages I’d hear in a day.

However, as I detached from my life in Mumbai, I had to ground myself in Montreal. Once the honeymoon period ended, I realized that finding a sense of belonging here was much harder than I had imagined. I soon became irrationally angry at myself for not adapting to my new environment as fast as I thought I would. In my residence, I was surrounded by predominantly North Americans, and it was difficult for me to keep up with their cultural expectations.

Cultural fatigue, also referred to as ‘expat fatigue,’ feels more appropriate in describing my experience than culture ‘shock,' because the latter implies that the experience of revising cultural norms is instantaneous. The process is actually much slower; I felt isolated every time I’d learn something new about North American culture. I understood that cultures were different in their beliefs, but that left it up to me to decide what I believed in. I was afraid of embarrassing myself, especially in professional or networking contexts.

One of my biggest hurdles to overcome was realizing that my idea of punctuality was quite different from its Western counterpart. In India’s polychronic culture—where many things take place at once—it is normal for plans to change, and certain reasonable delays are tolerable. However, in North America, this isn’t always the case.

I noticed that every time my friends and I would go out for dinner, someone would always make a reservation. Reserving a table was efficient, I’ll admit, but largely felt unnecessary; I had many happy memories of my family passing the time for 20 to 30 minutes before getting a seat at a restaurant. Once, when my mum visited and invited my friends to go out to eat, both her and I showed up without having made a reservation, much to my friends’ dismay. We had reached an impasse: While I expected her to have booked a table, she didn’t see the problem with my North American friends waiting for a few minutes.

I internally responded to the conflict by shaping my behaviour to be more like my colleagues: I began to walk faster, set appointments, and pay closer attention to my time. But I soon realized that while each culture has its own set of implicit norms and expectations, these norms are innumerable. I could spend years here and still be different from someone who was born and raised in Canada—and that’s OK.

Now that months have gone by, I’ve gained more knowledge about Canadian culture: I know that the bus requires exact change, that you stand on the right side of the escalator to stand still, that “Timmie’s” is short for Tim Horton’s, and that “Hey, how’s it going?” is nothing more than a greeting.

I still make little cultural blunders. Once in awhile, I’ll say “see you!” to people I will never see again—like my Uber driver—but instead of cursing myself, I laugh. Every time I encounter something new in Canadian culture, I text my Turkish friend to share my confusion. Spending time with other international students and talking about differences with friends from both cultures has helped me live with the self-doubt I’ve experienced from moving 12,000 kilometres away from my comfort zone.

I wish I could say there’s a clear path for all international students to find their place in a new country, but there isn’t. Having support on campus to cope in a new environment helps, but I’ve come to realize that there’s no point in resisting change—or forcing it. A drastic difference in culture can be difficult to adjust to, but remember that we all embark on journeys, and all our experiences will inevitably change us, no matter how big or small.

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