Future Students

Vancouver Island University’s ‘su’luqw’a’ Community Cousins Aboriginal student mentorship program is celebrating its 10^th anniversary in September 2021. In honour of this important milestone, we are sharing the stories of 12 people closely connected with the program – one per month – leading up to the anniversary.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, homes have begun to serve as multi-purpose areas—especially for students. Our living settings have quickly morphed into other forms of essential spaces like gyms, libraries, and offices. This has given us the opportunity to re-evaluate our living environments. The field of environmental psychology gives us insight into optimizing our homes to meet our needs.

A little bit of stress can be a good thing, increasing our alertness, improving performance and heightening our ability to focus. However, when stress levels increase beyond that optimal amount, our performance and ability to focus can be negatively impacted, and there are other physical and emotional impacts. With the uncertainty and ongoing anxiety of the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with the regular pressures of being a student, you may be experiencing elevated levels of stress.

Here are a few stress management 101 tips to help you maintain your focus and stay healthy:

Being happy affects both your brain and your body in positive ways. Cultivating personal happiness is something you can do every day. There are many actions we can take to improve our mood, build our resilience and our sense of well-being.

Here are 7 practices toward living a happier life to try:

Vancouver Island University’s ‘su’luqw’a’ Community Cousins Aboriginal student mentorship program is celebrating its 10^th anniversary in September 2021. In honour of this important milestone, we are sharing the stories of 12 people closely connected with the program – one per month – leading up to the anniversary.

The ‘su’luqw’a’ Community Cousins program builds capacity for mentors to gain leadership and employability skills through outreach and mentoring activities. Students hone skills in self-awareness, communication, leadership, self-care and an exploration of personal values, with an emphasis on “telling one’s story” as a path to self-empowerment through outreach to others.

We are all aware that it isn’t business as usual these days and as BC Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry says, “This isn’t forever, it’s just for now.” So, although we don’t know how long we will be adapting through the pandemic, there are jobs that need to be done during this time and although it may be a bit more challenging to find good jobs, be resilient, adaptable and open. As non-essential businesses and services continue to re-open, more and more opportunities will emerge. Here are a few actions to take to help you work toward your employment goals.

Wow, we’re now in October, which means we’re a few weeks into classes for many programs. What a September it has been! I imagine that for much of the VIU Community, if not all, this September has presented some new challenges and has involved some pretty major adjustments. The shift to this hybrid education model, with so much being online, has meant that we’ve all had to learn new things on top of our usual day-to-day requirements.

Do you find yourself constantly fighting a massive to-do list that never gets smaller or struggling with completing assignments on time? Sharon Kelly, VIU’s Success Coach, says conquering the to-do list starts with first knowing your priorities.

This post is excerpted from Lessons for Decolonizing Post-Secondary Institutions. You can find the full article on The Ripple Effect Project, the Office of Aboriginal Education and Engagement’s blog.

Starting university creates a lot of new. New school, new friends, new classes, and along with all that there’s new lingo to learn! University lingo can be hard to navigate at first, but our fourth-year veterans, Kass and Dayna, have compiled a list of commonly used terms to help get you through!

Alumni

Graduates/former students of the university. They often provide support to current students. Singular: alumnus (male) or alumna (female).

Bachelor’s Degree

A degree given to a student after studying at University for four-years.