Dread, terror, nausea. Those feelings weren’t what I expected to feel after my first day on campus, Imagine Day, all those years ago. I was 18, fresh off the plane from a 3-week trip to Maui, and generally stoked on life because I was going to be a Thunderbird! I was excited to get the next phase of my life started, and to start to become the person I knew I was meant to be. My expectations of UBC and campus life in general were way too high, as I consequently found out later.
It was 7 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, all-around gross outside, and my friend was waiting in her car for me. We parked at Fairview Crescent, and half-ran to our meeting places for Imagine Day. We knew we would be in separate groups, but we didn’t really clue in that we wouldn’t see each other until after the Pep Rally.
I was so overwhelmed by not only the magnitude of the campus, but also how no one was willing to talk to each other, myself included. My Imagine Day experience was the exact opposite of everything it should have been and the exact opposite of what UBC promotes. I left campus that day an anxious wreck, and even more scared for my first day of classes than I was before. What I didn’t realize until much later was that everyone was scared. We all didn’t know what to do or where to go, we were all confused and anxious. I held these feelings inside for a long time, longer than I should have, and I was terrified to talk to people. I kept waiting for people to come to me, instead of taking the initiative myself. I did the complete opposite of what students are supposed to do in their first year. I didn’t get involved on campus, never raised my hand in classes and tried my best to just disappear.
Thankfully, things came more than full circle for me. Fast forward to September 2017, and this time I was the Orientation Leader for my last “first day” of school. The year before I finally had enough courage to be more involved on campus. I managed to get a room at Marine Drive, and a job at UBC Rec, and after a very long journey on campus, I finally got the opportunity to see things with a fresh set of eyes. Leading my group of first year Arts students around campus made me extremely proud that I was a part of this school, and brought back my 18 year-old, pre-Imagine Day, perspective. Some of the best times I’ve had on campus have happened in the past two years and looking back, I now realize that I needed to go through bad experiences before I could fully appreciate the good ones.