Graduating right now is kind of wack. It isn’t quite hitting yet that this is the end of university. These past four years have gone by more quickly than any other period in my life. Some things are still the same — I’m still fairly cynical, enthusiastic about the things I choose to get involved in, I really love to learn and to have silly times with friends. On the other hand, I’ve definitely changed a lot. I’ve also done some cool things while at university, like living in France and donning in my final term.
Without knowing, you might assume that my favourite year of university was my third year, where I was travelling, posting cool photos, and gaining all of this “cultural experience”. However, when I look back at my time at university, my second year is the one that sticks out. Lately, I’ve been wondering why — I lived at home and the commute was exhausting, I worked two jobs and had four volunteer positions, and my courses were a significant jump in difficulty from those I had taken in first year.
I think my second year was great because of the busyness. This isn’t to say that being busy is always a good thing — I think our society places too much value on busyness as a measure of success, while in reality value doesn’t come from how much someone is doing. For me, though, that busyness was good because I was intentional about each and every thing I was involved in. Whether that was playing basketball with my conversation partner, planning Grebelwear with the other Special Projects reps, working with the advising team at St. Jerome’s (I know, call me a traitor, but it was great), or working on reading skills with some kids in grade two, each volunteer endeavour I participated in was something I cared about deeply. I began to create community in my everyday life instead of waiting for someone else to do it.
One final highlight that came out of that year and has come to define my time at university is hymn sing. In first year, I remember Anna Kuepfer organized one hymn sing in the first week of school. It was a really cool moment, but it wasn’t yet a consistent event. When I decided to associate in my second year, that was something I wanted to be consistent at Grebel, and Katrina Steckle, Mykayla Turner, and I were able to make it happen in second year. Running hymn sings was a really neat way to connect with different people and to work to create space that hadn’t been there before. That ritual became an important feature in my second year and something I missed deeply while I was away.
The day I came back from France, I came home for a quick shower and then was picked up and whisked off to hymn sing, mere hours after landing in Canada. Despite not knowing half the people there, there was a really neat atmosphere that I was re-welcomed into — it’s very humbling to be welcomed into a space you helped to create. It seems fitting that the last event I participated in at Grebel was a Sunday night hymn sing. Building connections that way was a special part of how I experienced my undergrad, and its odd consistency has shaped my understanding of community. As I move on from Waterloo, the memory of hymn sings is something that is going to stick. Not because we’re the best combination of singers, or because we chose the best hymns, but because we were able to create something brand new, welcome people into it, and through that, create a space of comfort and hope that continues to be important even as those who were there at the beginning move on. While I know my classroom knowledge has been significant, I think the most important thing I’ve learned in university is how to care deeply about others, to choose not to care about what other people think, and how to live in a way that creates space for others to grow.