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Category: Campus Life

  • Allow Yourself to Dream

    Allow Yourself to Dream

    Life can be hard. Sometimes things can go so wrong that it seems like they’ll never be right again. It is in those moments that we may lose hope, that we may cease looking at the glass as half full and silently wonder to ourselves how long it will take before it is completely empty. It is in those moments that many of us stop dreaming, we lose momentum and stop looking forward to the things that make life worth living. Losing sight of our hopes and dreams is akin to losing parts of ourselves.

    When we were kids we all wanted to grow up to be something that we thought was great. We dreamed big, did what we wanted and spoke loudly and no one could tell us that our crazy dreams and plans to execute them didn’t make any sense. You know why; because those dreams belonged to us, they defined us, molded us into the kids that we were, the teenagers we became and oftentimes into the young adults that we are now. Whatever dreams we chose to believe in, became our reality. It was the driving force of our existence and nothing could have made us happier, well, except for a lot of chocolate and candy. For most of us, as we became teenagers we lost that carefree dreaming; responsibilities become a thing of reality that imposed itself upon our world – school, siblings, parents, part-time jobs, relationships; for many of us things became overwhelming.

    When our lives starts to spin out of our control that is when our dreams take on a crucial role. The act of dreaming or, as I like to call it, “envisioning a positive change”, becomes a tool for metamorphosis. All great feats in live began with a dream. Professional coaches know a thing or two about the power of dreaming, in fact, many coaches tell their players to envision their win. A player who continuously dreams about success is more likely obtain it. This method of dreaming success into reality can apply to all aspects of our lives. Getting that grade, job, apartment, acceptance into that school are all possible when we allow ourselves to dream and put in the necessary work towards making that dream a reality.

    Aside from being able to accomplish our goals, the act of dreaming can have a positive and immediate effect on a person both physically and mentally. Good dreams can cause the body to relax, oftentimes increasing our ability to think more clearly. Our levels of stress can be reduced resulting in peace of mind. Short term patterns of dreams and success can lead to increased confidence and risk taking which propels long term patterns of dreams and success leading us to happier and oftentimes healthier lives.

    So the next life throws you a curve ball and you feel like your dreams are a waste of time, remember that all great feats began with one.

  • Time to Communicate

    Time to Communicate

    What would the world be like if we couldn’t communicate with each other? That means no talking, no emailing, and dare I say it, no texting! What a different world we would live in. As social beings, communication is one of our most important tools. Whether it is verbal communication, hand gestures or written communication, all of these types of communication are used as forms of expression. These forms of expression can help us share our ideas and feelings and also help us to understand the ideas and feelings of others.

    Throughout school and even beyond, communication skills are very important. When trying to express yourself to your teachers and your peers it is your ability to communicate that will make or break you. There is a lot to be said for people who are able to use their written communication skills to write clear, concise essays and your grades will reflect this. Being able to communicate on a small scale, like discussing ideas with a peer or even publicly by doing a presentation in front of the class, are times when having good communication skills will make you stand out.

    Even in the work force, communication skills are one of the first skills employers look for in candidates. Your interview with them indicates how well you can communicate and what kind of skills you can bring to the table. Employers want to know that you can communicate effectively with co-workers and clients. Whether it’s a presentation in school or a business presentation for your career, developing these skills is very beneficial.

    Here are some tips to help you improve your communication skills:

    1)      Be a good listener – in order to successfully communicate with others you need to really listen to what they are saying so that you can respond effectively.

    2)      Be aware of your body language – sometimes your body is telling people one thing while your mouth is telling them another. Being aware of your body language will send people the right message.

    3)      Be engaging – raise your pitch so that you don’t sound monotone.  In addition to this, enhance your communication by maintaining eye contact. Also, use an appropriate volume so that your audience can hear you.

    4)      Slow down – talking too fast is a tell-tale sign that you’re nervous. Slow down your speech in order to sound more confident in what you are saying.

  • Put on Your Volunteering Hat

    Put on Your Volunteering Hat

    Volunteering is an essential tool for personal and professional development. Volunteering opens up a new world for you in which you can try on new “hats”. Hats are meant to be understood as “roles”. In business, people are required to wear many different hats all at once. Often it is by wearing different hats that we are able to learn the most about ourselves and our personal interests and capabilities. You may also find that the skills you develop while volunteering help you to engage in better coping and adaptive behaviors in your day-to-day life.

    Whether you are in high school or in post-secondary education, volunteering can provide you with a means for learning more about a particular topic. This can range from learning about the day-to-day work in a hospital, learning about how a fitness centre runs from the inside or learning about a particular job in more depth. These practical details can often help you to sketch out a more realistic picture of your dream job or to give you the insider information that will help you to land a job in the future.

    Volunteering is a great way to develop yourself personally and professionally and I recommend doing more than just the bare minimum required in high school. If you have time, try experimenting with different volunteer placements or stay somewhere for a few years. There is a lot to be learned by volunteering your time and there are always benefits to volunteering that you can take advantage of. Without volunteering there would be no access to many areas of our social world that are of interest. Take advantage of your free access to the places that interest you and best of luck on your journey to self development and professional success!

  • Get Your 40 Hours with Volunteer Centres

    Get Your 40 Hours with Volunteer Centres

    As you know, all high school students need to have 40 hours of community service in order to graduate. Use this information to discover where your 40 hours can best be used.

    Volunteer Centres work in local communities to strengthen volunteering and citizen engagement. With more than 200 in Canada, each volunteer centre’s name, size, structure and services reflect the unique characteristics of their community.

    To find a volunteer centre in your area, click here.

    Many volunteer centres are independent non-profit organizations, while others are part of a United Way, Social Planning Council, Community Information and Referral Centre or municipal services. Though diverse in many ways, they share the following common functions:

    – Promote volunteering

    – Build the capacity of organizations to engage volunteers

    – Facilitate connections between people with volunteer opportunities

    – Provide leadership on issues related to volunteering and citizen engagement

    If you want to volunteer, your local volunteer centre is there to connect you to opportunities in your community. It may have a database of volunteer opportunities or can connect you directly to opportunities within its member organizations.

  • Deciding Where to Volunteer

    Deciding Where to Volunteer

    Like many students, you will need to acquire 40 hours of volunteer work before you are able to graduate. So where do you begin?

    When choosing the best place for you, there are a few considerations that you should keep in mind. The first thing to consider is location. Whether you are getting a ride from your parents, driving yourself or taking the bus, you are going to want to select a location that is convenient and accessible for you. You will want to choose something that will not be a headache to get to every time you have a shift because this could affect your attendance at your volunteer placement and potentially lead to an unfavorable outcome. By selecting a location that is convenient, you are that much closer to a successful volunteer placement.

    The next aspect to consider about your vounteer placement is the type of work that you will be doing and how the volunteering will benefit you. To find out more about the nature of the position you will apply for, you can check the company website or call the contact number and speak with someone directly. It is helpful if there is a position description that you can refer to, however keep in mind that this is not always the case. A description of the position will help you to identify if it is a good fit for your interests and skills. Choosing something that fits with your personality can help you to stay motivated and feel that you are doing a good job at your volunteer placement. This is a very fulfilling and rewarding feeling.

    In choosing a position, you may want to be adventurous and try something that you are not good at in the hopes that you might learn something new about yourself or develop a new skill. If you are choosing to be adventurous, be sure that you are being realistic about how much of a challenge the activity will be for you. Remember that you are looking for personal growth as well as looking to make a meaningful contribution to the organization that you are going to be volunteering with. Choosing something that is difficult but realistic in terms of the skills required is the best way to have a rewarding experience.

    By choosing a volunteer placement that is in a convenient location for you and that either fits your skills nicely or will present you with a reasonable challenge, you are setting yourself up for personal and professional growth. You can also look forward to a positive reference from your volunteer placement, providing you with an overall rewarding experience.

  • The Importance of Exercise

    The Importance of Exercise

    We’ve all been there – you wake up to start your day and immediately start thinking of how you can’t wait to get home to go back to bed later. You feel run down and yawn throughout your classes. Your head feels foggy and you have trouble concentrating. All of these signs point to a lack of energy and balance, which can be easily rectified by exercising regularly.

    Maybe you have a full schedule of classes, you work a part-time job and still need time to study on top of that. Don’t worry – you can fit in exercise each day in simple ways! Try walking to and from school each day, if possible. Speed up your normal walking pace slightly to get your heart pumping. You can also jog/run home from school each day to increase the cardiovascular benefits.

    If you have a little more time on your hands, even on weekends, try going to a community centre in your area. Community centres often have exercise equipment you can use for a much lower fee than a regular gym would. Treadmills and elliptical machines are great ways to get in a cardio workout without having to worry about poor weather.

    Many of us feel uncomfortable working out in front of others, so you can even do exercises at home while watching TV or a movie. Try some simple yoga moves, sit-ups or even jumping jacks. There are many great (and free!) websites that offer tips on different at-home workouts you can do that do not require any equipment. You may also want to purchase a workout DVD that combines your interests with exercise. For example, there are DVD’s that involve dance, ballet and even Bollywood moves.

    Another easy option is to play Wii or X-Box Kinect. Many of us own these systems already, so playing a game that involves movement instead of sitting will add up. Many Wii systems come with sports games inside the box, so there is no extra expense incurred. These games will even track your progress and tell you your “exercise age”, which are great motivators.

    Exercising regularly will ensure that you have energy when you need it most. Exercise has also been proven to lower stress and help with anxiety and depression. When you exercise, your body releases endorphins which essentially help you to feel better and calmer. You should aim to exercise for 30 consecutive minutes each day for the maximum benefits. It is also important to not exercise just before you go to bed, as the increased endorphins can prevent you from falling asleep right away. However, exercising regularly does help you to get a deeper sleep more often.

    So make time for yourself each day and get in some exercise. Motivating yourself can be difficult sometimes, so be sure to tell a friend or family member about your goals and they can help to get you moving. Remember – short term pain, long term gain!

  • Career Profile: Social Worker

    Career Profile: Social Worker

    Helping people can be a satisfying experience. You probably know the good feeling you get when you help your grandparents or friends with jobs that need to be done, such as raking leaves in the yard or helping them move to a new home. You might not enjoy everything about the job itself, but in the end, you can feel good about doing something to help people in need. If you enjoy helping people, even with difficult or unpleasant tasks, a career as a social worker might be right for you.

    Becoming a social worker is a bit like helping friends and family with the things they need to have done. Not everything that social workers do is pleasant or even safe. Sometimes they have to deal with dangerous situations and  it may seem as if nothing they do can help improve people’s lives. However, all of these struggles are part of their job.

    Basically, social workers help people in crisis. They might go into the hospital to help someone who needs assistance in everyday tasks because of an accident or major illness. In Canada, about 85% of social workers are in hospitals. Others take children from dangerous homes and find them safe places to live. Social workers help unemployed people, the homeless, people with physical or mental disabilities, young people who have committed crimes, and many others. To do this, they often work with counselors, psychologists, and other professionals.

    For each person or family that social workers help, they have to make a plan. They decide what information to give on government programs or arrange for meetings with a counsellor who can help people with their family, employment, or personal problems. It usually means spending time with the client (the person in need) to see what help is necessary. People are all different, and social workers have to try to find out the best treatment for each one. Over the next months or years, the social workers have to keep on checking in with the client to make sure that everything is working and report back to other people working in the field. Often, this means that they spend a lot of time writing reports on what they have done.

    Many people do social work without ever having official training. Someone who washes the dishes at a homeless shelter, for example, is doing social work. However, becoming a full-time, official social worker usually requires university training to learn the theories and principles of the field. A bachelor’s or master’s degree in social work or social services is often necessary for high-level jobs, although many lower-level workers often need no special education.

    A career in social work can be difficult, but it can have many rewards. If you like working with people and want to help them, it might be a good career path to consider.

  • Second Time Around

    Second Time Around

    It can be discouraging to look back at a portion of your life and realize that you were totally lost, not focused or, even worse, focused on things that really didn’t matter. Sometimes we can get down on ourselves because of this, blame ourselves for our failures and generally experience low self esteem because of mistakes made in the past. It is important to realize that your past mistakes are just that – mistakes that you’ve made in the past. If you are able to realize that they are just mistakes, you are on the right track.

    Mistakes are good because they are not regrets, but rather lessons. Mistakes are not the same thing as regrets. Mistakes are meant as a lesson about the right way to do something. For me, my lesson was going through a university undergrad degree without a sense of purpose and a secure sense for the rewards that come from hard work. During my undergraduate degree, I experienced at first a real sense of purpose and determination to do well, but this feeling gradually faded over the course of my five years in university. Whether due to a lack of rewards along the course of my years or a lack of feeling recognized for my efforts, I slowly lost the feeling of satisfaction from working hard and I lost sight of my goals.

    I know now, after having experienced my first mistake, that I can do better and that I can really and truly accomplish what I want to accomplish by setting goals and going about a second degree in a different way than my first degree.

    A good starting place when you are looking to re-do a mistake is to identify the areas of weakness in the past and make solid plans for improving upon those areas for success in the future. For me, I identified three weaknesses from my first undergraduate degree:

    1) Too much at once – My first undergraduate degree was a double major in French immersion, while working for the university, running a committee and trying to stay in great shape by working out every day. This overload created a depression in my mood and in my motivation to achieve my academic goals. I got to the point where I lost focus because I was trying to do too much at once. The second time around, I will be sure to have a manageable load of work and extracurricular activities.

    2) Choice of subject – My first undergraduate degree was a selection based on virtually no career plan. I chose something that I would find interesting and that would have enough substance to keep me interested for the length of the degree. When I chose my subject of study, I didn’t think about what I would do with the degree and there was not much thought about the future. This time around, I will be sure to plan my career and exactly what I will do with the degree.

    3) Clear academic goals – The first time around I lost track of what I wanted to achieve and why. I didn’t really have a career plan and didn’t motivate myself to achieve high grades because I didn’t have an end result in mind. This time around, I am looking to the career I want and educating myself on what it takes to get into that career. I want to get great grades in order to successfully continue my educational journey.

    Overall, it is important not to get down on oneself for having made mistakes in the past. It is important to look at mistakes as guides, teachers and lessons in what you want and how you can do better. Using mistakes in this manner will allow you to realize your dreams in a conscious way that you control.

  • Career Profile: Tourism Promoter

    Career Profile: Tourism Promoter

    Job Description
    A tourism promoter is someone who promotes tourism for a specific area by developing and organizing many of the events and attractions that draw tourists to that location. The other responsibilities of a tourism promoter are quite extensive and require a lot of communication and partnership with businesses, the local community and the public.
    Some of the other duties of a tourism promoter include:
    • Promoting potential and functioning tourist attractions through various advertising campaigns
    • Researching the overall approval rate of existing attractions in order to discover where improvements need to be made
    • Using the views, interests, and history of the local people to influence the development of new attractions
    • Advising local tourism businesses on what they can do to contribute to the overall tourism of the area
    • Writing press releases and articles for tourism guides, magazines, and newsletters; organizing special events, holiday shows, exhibitions, and festivals (attendance is often required)

    Salary and Conditions
    The salaries of tourism promoters differ based on factors such as the location, the employer, and the amount of tourists that the location receives. However, the average starting salary of a tourism promoter is around $26,000-$30,000. After about two years of work, the salary may increase to about $35,000-$40,000 and after five years, $45,000-$58,000. In some cases, quality of work may positively or negatively influence the salary. Typically, a tourism promoter works a 37 hour week. Since the job requires a lot of involvement with planning, organizing, and attending social events, many additional hours may be spent working. The majority of work is done in an office or a similar environment. Sometimes the job calls for work to be done at various locations around the community or at specific attraction sites. Most tourism promoters work individually but it is not uncommon for them to work in teams.

    Just like any other career, working as a tourism promoter has both advantages and disadvantages. Some of the benefits are being able to travel overseas to other tourist attractions, receiving invitations to exclusive exhibitions, and events, and receiving credit for new successful attractions. Some of the disadvantages are having to meet strict deadlines, dealing with criticism from the public and the media, working late nights, and having your presence mandatory at certain events. One of the main disadvantages has to do with the fact that a tourism promoter is not necessarily needed everywhere in the world. So a job in this career may be relatively difficult to find.

    Education
    A career as a Tourism Promoter is an option for all graduates and people with a diploma. However, achievements in certain subjects can significantly increase the probability of getting a job as a tourism promoter. Some of those subjects are tourism management, archive and museum studies, business management, journalism, modern languages, marketing, media studies, town planning, urban/rural regeneration, and environmental/sustainability studies.

    Having extensive post-secondary education may not be as important for tourism promoters, but experience and communication skills play a major role in this type of job. Activities such as helping at social events, working with tourism-related businesses, and being familiar with local attractions can be considered experience.

    If you think tourism promotion could be right for you, do more research on the field and start working toward your dream career!

  • Get Your 40 Volunteer Hours

    Get Your 40 Volunteer Hours

    As you know, all high school students need to have 40 hours of community service in order to graduate. Use this information to discover where your 40 hours can best be used.

    Volunteer Centres work in local communities to strengthen volunteering and citizen engagement. With more than 200 in Canada, each volunteer centre’s name, size, structure and services reflect the unique characteristics of their community.

    To find a volunteer centre in your area, click here.

    Many volunteer centres are independent non-profit organizations, while others are part of a United Way, Social Planning Council, Community Information and Referral Centre or municipal services. Though diverse in many ways, they share the following common functions:

    – Promote volunteering

    – Build the capacity of organizations to engage volunteers

    – Facilitate connections between people with volunteer opportunities

    – Provide leadership on issues related to volunteering and citizen engagement

    If you want to volunteer, your local volunteer centre is there to connect you to opportunities in your community. It may have a database of volunteer opportunities or can connect you directly to opportunities within its member organizations.