#uofalberta

“I play hockey for the Pandas. This is my third year playing for the Pandas and I’ve been playing hockey for thirteen years. Every time I step on the ice, I feel something in my heart. There’s something so special about the game and your teammates and the way that hockey is. It’s hard to describe but every time I step on the ice, something inside of me moves and I just love it. It makes me feel that I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing ... We’re on a three-game winning streak and we want to go for an eight-game streak. We’re doing really well. We’re in second place right now."

“I got started with volunteer work during my first year of business. I participated on the Alberta JDC West team and did some volunteer activities throughout the year ... The year after (this previous year) I wanted to get more involved with the club and I wanted to contribute to give people the kind of experience I had in my first year on the team. JDC West is the biggest business competition in Western Canada. It’s where twelve of the most competitive schools come together and do case competitions, sports, and debate competitions. At the end, the winner is the school of the year. It’s a big competition: there are fifty delegates from each school, so there’s about six hundred students all in one hotel and they do the competitions over the weekend. It’s pretty hectic but it’s a really good time and there’s so much spirit.”

“The Alberta JDC West team does an event every year called ‘Chillin’ for Charity.’ In my role on the exec team, I wanted to make sure we did everything we could to make sure that the event was done well to make a difference in the community.”

“I like to cook. It’s something my family has always done, like, group cooking. Because, my dad, he was the one who taught us how to cook. The funny thing is, is when my brother asked ‘why do I have to learn how to cook?’ my dad answered with ‘If I hadn’t learned how to cook where would we be right now?’ He taught us how to cook from a really young age. And it’s just always been a really big part of our life…especially considering I grew up in a grocery store! It definitely makes experimenting with foods a lot easier! My dad would let us taste the food he was cooking and ask us ‘what does it need?’ and we would start telling him what ingredients we needed to add to it…and spices.  Before I moved out on my own it was a big thing that Sunday nights, cuz we closed early, that was family cooking night. Where we would all make a big family meal and we would live off of that for the rest of the week.”

Kat. 3rd year BSc., Mechanical Engineering. 

Home country: Canada

“I was here on exchange almost 3 years ago. And I can honestly say that I felt like I left a piece of my heart here. Like, when I got back to Finland…in the beginning it was really hard and I was missing Canada a lot. And then at some point I realized how much I actually wanted to go back and see more of Canada. Like, explore this side more. But when the moment of leaving came, and I had to leave Finland it was really hard as well.  But pretty much the moment when we landed on Canadian ground I felt like, ‘this is home…this feels familiar for me.’”

Janita. 1st year MA., Physical Education & Recreation.

Home country: Finland

“I was very fortunate to have pretty much everything in my life that I’ve wanted. And maybe in the way I’ve been raised, I might have ignored the importance of small, small things. Or ignored how people are deprived of things. But then I started working for an NGO as a translator. For this, a lot of international students used to come to work for this NGO. I was helping them as an interpreter or translator, and then we used to go to really remote areas like towns and villages. So we used to work on different projects, such as like public health, women and child development and education. And that was my first interaction with the people in such places. And that was the time when I realized that I’ve been very fortunate, fortunate that I’ve had so many things in my life when there are millions that are deprived of basic facilities. And that was the time I decided, that yes, I had to do something to bring a change to this world. That was a turning point in my life. “ 

Shreyak.  2nd year MSc., Food Science and Technology. 

Home country: India

“The guitar is my first love. The first time I ever played one my dad got me one of those really crappy ones from Toys R Us. And the first time I broke a string I thought I broke my entire guitar. So, I was like, not musically inclined…at all. But then I ended up getting more and more into it. So now I have been playing the guitar for about 8 years. Guitar was something that sort of got me into everything else and that helped me realize that, ok, music actually IS a part of me. Cuz I just didn’t want to stop at the guitar, I just didn’t want to stop at the basics…I wanted to do more. For me, it was realizing that I can do a lot more and this is actually something that I’m maybe good at. That helped me realize my own capacity.”

Anchal. 3rd year BSc., Environmental Economics & Policy. 

Home countries: India, Canada