Your friendly neighbourhood student council

So you may be asking yourself, what do I do with my free time at Western? How am I going to meet people outside of my residence, or classes?

Probably your most effective way is to get involved with your faculty student council (whether it be running for a council position, attending as a 'student at-large' or helping out in anything from charity fundraisers to faculty wide socials).

You could be thinking two things: first! Is that you already love student council (from high school) and your looking for a way to keep that going. OR secondly, you could be like myself, who was loosely interested in student politics in high school, but didn't really get too motivated to join.

Here's some advice, student council or not, it is DEFINITELY worth it to get up, out of residence and into the grand world of Western. This year I decided to do just that. I'm personally from the Centre for American Studies and this year we are finally represented on council. 

As luck would have it, I happen to be one of the two representatives from American Studies now on Social Science Student Council (the largest faculty student council on campus).

So what do I do? Admittedly, I'm completely out of my element and learning as if I'm attempting to ride a bike for the first time, but from what I know so far, there is tons and tons of activities which are primarily aimed at student-student-faculty interaction.

For example, Social Science is hosting their annual Social Science Formal on November 12th which is open to all students in the department and is an excellent way for students to interact. I also hope to be on the charity and levy committee, meaning I'll be helping to organize and facilitate different charity events and fighting for requests from my department.

However, I still think that the most important part of any activity at Western is NETWORKING. Not purely in the business sense, but in the social networking sense. You are only going to be at university once (for most) so please please please please take advantage of this opportunity. At no other time will you have as much access to community events with people your own age, dances, clubs, trips, academic seminars, whatever!

The University of Western Ontario seeks to provide "The Best Student Experience among Canada's Leading Research-Intensive Universities". The key to all of this though, is that YOU take that initiative to get involved. You may hear the typical high school scare tactic "no one is going to hold your hand in university". This is somewhat of a myth.

It is not necessarily that there isn't anyone to help you, because there is an abundance of people and resources looking to help YOU in any way they can. But again, it is all dependent on YOU taking that initiative, raising your hand in class, going to professor office hours, seek and you will find!

Long story short, I would feel selfish if I wasn't able to share the unlimited amount of possibilties Western seems to be throwing at me. 

Care to join?

Brendan

 

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