My #TryItUofT Experience

Last week I wrote about some personal strides I’ve been hoping to make academically. Another thing I want to do this semester, though, is to become more involved in the U of T community. Seeing as how it is still #TryItUofT month, I thought now would be a perfect time to change things up. On Monday (#MondayClubsDay!), I made a post on Facebook about the Blue Sky Solar winter recruitment session. This wasn’t just a random thing I found and thought would be neat to share. A friend had told me about it at the beginning of the semester, and I thought it’d be a great way to try to get some hands-on experience in a design project. I might be in engineering now, but my high school never really had the kind of kinesthetic learning that others in the faculty have had (robotics, circuits, etc). By trying to get into these design teams, I can get valuable experience working in a team environment in the field. At a time where seemingly many of my fellow first-years already have resumés chock full of relevant experience, I can use all of the additional know-how I can get. While that professional aspect of affairs does get a boost, it’s the effect such an endeavour could have on my persona moving forward that really has me excited. The project is one that I’m really interested in, and willing to invest time into. By pushing myself to join the project now, I’ll definitely be more eager to join future teams and my time here will be all the more fulfilling for it.

In the past, I’ve often been reluctant to join initiatives such as this one, that are outside my comfort zone. When I first arrived here in Toronto, I wanted to become more of an extrovert in that regard, but only ended up with a couple of extracurricular activities. As the winter semester began, I wrote about how I was making strides towards becoming a ‘new me’. Making concerted efforts to become an active member of projects such as Blue Sky is just one way in which I hope to do just that as I #TryItUofT.