Using Your Degree For Good (Even If You Haven’t Graduated Yet!)
As university students it can be easy to adopt the mindset that you have to wait in order to accomplish something like making a change in the world. Procrastination comes in the form of “I’ll do that after I graduate”. My message for you is that you can make a difference today because you already have skills to make it happen.
A few months ago the Cathie and Crystal, who lead the MyUVic Life blog, invited UVic’s Ukranian Student Society (USS) to join one of our blog meetings to discuss what is happening in Ukraine, what the USS is doing for UVic students, how the blog team can help, and of course for a classic blog training meeting dinner.
Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash
Through conversation one of the questions that came up was “What can students not personally affected by current events do to help, and what actions would be supportive?”
The four main questions UVic Co-op and Career use to help students find a career can also be adapted to making a difference in the world!
We shared ideas about how students with different skillsets can provide support even if they may not be in a situation to take in refugees or donate money to relief efforts.
My mind went to a framework used by Co-op and Career Services to help students find careers. The two relevant here were “what are you great at?” and “what does the world need?”.
This is different for everyone but some of the ideas we discussed were using interpersonal skills to create spaces for students to talk about how they’re affected by what’s happening in Ukraine, or using your data entry skills to make resource collections that folks can access in times of need. While simple, we decided as a group that even small actions could be meaningful.
So my challenge to you is this: how will you use skills you have to make a difference in the world?
