By: Elizabeth DiEmanuele
“We often don’t realize how resilient we can be,” says Kerri Latham, career counsellor at the Student Success Centre. “The truth is, the more times you fail, the easier it is to try.”
For the Student Success Centre, providing students with the resources and supports needed to develop their resiliency in university is important. One piece of this work is normalizing failure, uncertainty and other factors that contribute to wanting to give up on a goal, project, idea, or dream.
As Jenna Storey, academic skills program coordinator at the Student Success Centre, says, “Students often encounter challenges in achieving their academic goals. Resiliency in academics is about bouncing back after these challenges, and also recognizing and working through them by incorporating better academic and personal management skills.”
Most recently, the Centre led a digital campaign called #StickWithIt, a resiliency campaign that responded to student experiences the Centre addresses in its regular roster of programs, services and workshops. Staff have also participated in the CFMU’s MorningFile show, covering topics from Thriving in Academic Uncertainty to Developing Career Resilience.
In Kerri’s role, resiliency is an ongoing conversation and practice. Whether it’s through her one-on-one appointments, a career and employment session, or a Career Planning Group, one thing is clear: there is a shared uncertainty for many students around what they are going to do and where they are going to go next.
Kerri shares, “Though there are expectations, reflecting on your own priorities can help you stay grounded to pursue a direction that is best for you. Try not to get swayed too much by what others are doing. Know yourself and honour your own path.”
Knowing yourself does not necessarily mean “know your passion.” As Kerri suggests, “This puts a lot of false expectations on students, but the main thing is to pay attention to those seeds of interests and allow them to grow. Though it might feel like everyone has it figured out, there is always change, uncertainty and new directions. It’s okay to not know right now – uncertainty is to be expected.”
For students focused on what’s next, Kerri recommends breaking big decisions into smaller chunks; and when job searching, focusing more on the opportunities and skills students want to develop. She also encourages students to use their strengths and supports, like family, friends or mentors.
The good news is: students don’t have to go through it alone. The Student Success Centre is a place for students to explore, from the moment they accept their offer of admission and up to ten years after graduation. Upcoming sessions include:
Register for workshops or a career counselling appointment on OSCARplus.
Visit studentsuccess.mcmaster.ca to learn more.
[thesil_related_posts_sc]Related Posts[/thesil_related_posts_sc]
Last Friday I failed my Level Two Road Test.
I’ve told only a handful of people about my failure, though now of course I’m telling the Silhouette’s entire readership.
My friends and family have told me it isn’t a big deal. Most people fail the final road test the first time, and Hamilton is apparently notorious for failing potential drivers the first time. I should try Burlington instead; apparently they have a better reputation.
People tell me that it just wasn’t my time to be fully licensed, there was some other divine reason as to why I was meant to fail my test the first time. I wasn’t ready, I just needed a few more months practice.
But I was ready. Or at least I felt ready.
I drove regularly, around the city and on the highway and took a practice test with my instructor during reading week. He told me to review the three-point-turn and I was good to go.
Apparently not though, because when I took my test after waiting half an hour for my invigilator, I lasted five minutes on the road before she instructed me to turn back into the driving test centre.
I parked crookedly in the parking lot, panicked and aware of my failure.
“Just let me straighten out the car,” I told her ready to put the car in reverse.
“Just park the car.” She then instructed me on where I could rebook my test, left my car, and walked back into the building.
I knew what I did wrong: I treated a four-way intersection as a four-way stop by mistake, slowed down, and then took off someone’s right of way. I would have liked to hear her tell me my mistake, or at least ask me if I knew what I did wrong and tell me how to fix it for next time. I was being cautious because I know most drivers forget about the special little blinker that notifies other drivers you will be turning. I was cautious because it was my final test and I thought being cautious was better than rushing into something and risking an accident.
But that didn’t stop my invigilator from marking off that I completed a dangerous action, and had inadequate skills to complete the test.
Test Terminated, my test document read.
I made a mistake. A stupid stupid mistake fueled on a half hour’s worth of anxiety and my own self-doubt.
I cried, of course I cried. I ran back to the building of the driving test centre and told my parents I had failed. They soothed me and comforted me, but it didn’t stop me from feeling like a failure.
I’m a bit of a perfectionist in that way I guess. I had passed my previous two tests on the first try after much hard work and assumed that by working even harder for this test I would also pass on the first try. When I work hard for something I expect success and I’m only beginning to learn that even when you try your hardest you don’t always succeed. That stuff is only good in fairy-tales.
My dad told me that it’s the tragedies and disappointments in life that we learn most from and which shape us, not the good and blessed moments. And in that I believe him because even though I feel like a failure I know that I will get back in the car and drive again, I will take the test again, and I this time I will pass.
Until then, I’ll just have to get used to the fact that everyone fails, even when you try your hardest failure is sometimes inevitable.
Hartley Jafine, who facilitates a theatre class at McMaster, talks candidly about his own academic experiences.
A video series collaboration between four undergraduate students: After Office Hours.
Videography & editing by Karen Wang.
The years spent in university are often said to be those where we first come face-to-face with the “real world”, characterized by a transitioning period from teenage angst, to even more angst, to grappling with who we are and, finally, shaking hands with the real world as the person we want to be. A myriad of experiences will come together to shape us into this person. It does not happen overnight, nor will it happen easily, but each of these experiences is vital in challenging us to discover who we really are.
The key word here is challenge. Highlight this word. Cut out this word. Be friends with this word. Because to overcome something that you are afraid of is to be able to look back and say, “I persevered, and now my mark is here.”
And these people who have left their mark, despite challenges, are all around us. Some write about it, some talk about it, some wait for the right moment before discussing it at all. McMaster University is the home to a plethora of individuals with such stories. But the story of Lisa Pope is one we are privileged enough to share with you, and, in fact, it’s not so much a story as it is an invitation to challenge yourself.
Lisa Pope, a graduating Honours Life Sciences student, dedicated her summer to the Kalu Yala Independent Study Abroad and Entrepreneurial Internships in Panama this past summer. Drawing people from across the world, Lisa was one of the only individuals from Canada. This diversity, however, encouraged the integration of distinct ideas that could build towards the common goal that was uniting them all: the creation of Kalu Yala, and thus developing the world’s most sustainable town.
The program is incredibly unique among international outreach initiatives in that it gives each team member an opportunity to be highly independent in how they choose to take part in the creation of Kalu Yala. Lisa was a member of the Agriculture team, made up of thirty students who came to get their hands just about as dirty as an outreach program can get them. Living in a jungle for three months, all while putting in both labour of the body and mind into a personally developed initiative, can take physical and psychological tolls on any team member. Lisa, however, took on a challenge perhaps more brutal than the typical member due to a recent diagnosis with symptoms of Crohn’s disease,
Crohn’s disease is an inflammatory bowel disease, where those affected are subject to severe abdominal pain, bowel disruptions, and even malnutrition. Given the strenuous nature of this program, another set of challenges could appear more repellent than enticing; instead of allowing her symptoms to hold her back, Lisa used her pain as a catalyst for unparalleled personal growth.
“I’m 23 years old living with a chronic disease and it’s something that’s never going to go away,” said Pope. “At this point, you decide to live your life or not, and this was my summer to do that. I decided to go and be in control of my disease.” In a location far removed from any Western world comforts or distractions, Lisa delved into a project that would eventually lead to a 75-page document, building a vast medicinal garden with her own hands, and leaving behind her own mark in a community that will forever leave an indelible imprint on her.
By planting over 300 different edible species of plants and trees, the impact her project will have upon the community in ten, or even five years, is momentous. Approximately 150 people will be fed daily as a result of her own hardships and hard work. And yet, perhaps the most striking message Lisa has taken home with her is not only the acceptance of failure at Kalu Yala, but also the desire for it.
“We love to fail at Kula Yala,” Pope said. Coming from a Science degree, where marks are snatched up without a second thought for any mistakes, and there is no gray area between the black and white of correct or wrong, this was a breath of fresh air. To fail was to succeed, and this paradoxical message can resonate with most students as wholly liberating. With failure, the members of Kalu Yala would not look at such a position as the defeated finish line, but rather an opportunity to start again, and allotting their knowledge of what won’t work as a propelling force towards success.
“If that means shooting for the stars and failing, that’s fine,” said Pope. “We shot for the stars and we realized that didn’t work so well, so we just have to figure out what we can do next time to make it better.”
In an eight-hour day, with four spent in the morning working alongside a director of the team, and the afternoon dedicated to the dirty work, there were three unmistakable qualities of the interns at Kalu Yala Independent Study Abroad and Entrepreneurial Internships: passionate, positive, and pursuing. Lisa Pope is an embodiment of such qualities, and although her self-proclaimed “invisible disease” has inevitably placed a series of unforgiving obstacles in her path, these qualities are in the foundation of the new path she’s building herself.
Every path a student will take in university is distinct from the next, and the obstacles just as varied, but the lesson to be taken from Lisa Pope and Kalu Yala is that no challenge can act as a barrier to leaving your mark in the world, but that challenges are forces that will leave your mark even more palpable.
