Tag: reflection

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Opinions

Opinions on opinions

Graphic by Carleen Loney @shloneys

What I’ve learned from my time as an Opinions Editor.

My first year at Concordia did not go according to plan. In September, I had the idea that I would lay low and scope out all the clubs and committees before I joined anything—a semester to get settled, and then I could think about where I wanted to get involved. However, within the first few weeks of school, I wandered into the club fair and had a conversation with The Concordian’s lovely Graphics Editor (shoutout to Carleen). The team was looking for an Opinions Editor, and I thought, Excellent—I love editing, and I have opinions. 

Eight months later, this is the last opinions piece I will write as the Opinions Editor, so it only made sense to reflect on the experience and (dare I say) share my opinion. I’ve learned so much, and this whole experience has left me with a lot to think about, both as an editor and as a writer.

Though writing has always been one of the most important parts of my life, I have always found it nerve-wracking. A piece of writing is a piece of yourself on display for people to scrutinize. I have sometimes compared writing to stripping down and announcing, Here I am! Point out all my flaws! What if people disagree? What if they misunderstand? What if they don’t like it? Writing opinions pieces is especially tough because they display your own thoughts and values.

This is particularly true because opinions evolve, sometimes so drastically and so quickly. We might receive more information, situations might develop, or we might simply grow as people. I’m sure we’ve all looked back on something we said a few years ago (maybe even a few weeks ago) and thought to ourselves, Did I really think that? Sometimes we become strangers to ourselves. With writing, however, these past versions of ourselves exist in a physical form, words frozen in the moment they were published. It’s difficult to fight the urge to double back and scrutinize every word, to agonize over what should have been worded better or what could have been said instead. It’s a constant act of moving forward. 

Editing other people’s opinions is a unique experience as well. I’m grateful for every contributor to the opinions section, and it has been interesting to engage with such a variety of perspectives. I’ve experienced the learning curve of figuring out how much to interfere in editing. To what extent do I let my own ideas influence my editing? How do I address the opinions that I disagree with? Is it even my place to decide what opinions are valid? For the most part, I try to step back and let opinions remain untampered with. 

Another question that always arises in this job is what to write about. There’s great value in light reads and fluffy articles, and I had such a fun time writing them—but everytime I did, I wondered whether I should be directing my energy toward speaking about something more important. Yet when I did try to tackle more serious issues, I went in circles wondering if I was doing the issue justice, if I was getting facts right, and if I was in a position to write what I was writing. 

Sometimes the answers only come in hindsight. I’m sure all summer I’ll jolt awake in a cold sweat with an article idea, only to remember that the days of weekly article writing are over. Mistakes, too, are only apparent when it’s too late. (A small example: Catching typos after publication, the cause of many sleepless nights.) 

Working in a position like this, it’s inevitable that there will be misunderstandings, miscommunications, and mishaps. I can only hope that I have handled these with grace, while knowing that all I can do now is learn from them. If I could start from the beginning, there are many things I would have done differently, but I’m grateful for the learning experiences I’ve gained. 

Beyond learning experiences, working at The Concordian has been a great experience in general. I couldn’t wait to pick up the paper every other Tuesday—there’s a unique joy that comes from being part of something, especially with such a dedicated team. This is why I’ll definitely try to stay a part of The Concordian in one way or another for the rest of my time at this university. I know there are more lessons to be learned, and I’ve also just had a lot of fun. I genuinely loved my treks to Loyola (the campus is so much prettier than SGW) and there’s something about the weekly pitch meetings that just kind of hit—especially when Keven brought cookies. 

Categories
Opinions

An ode to student media

Graphic by Carleen Loney @shloneys

As my time with The Concordian comes to a close, I can’t help but think back on the journey that got me here.

In the corner of my kitchen, on the wall next to my fridge, hangs a white board that I use to keep track of my chores and deadlines. But over this last semester, I have been using that white board to countdown the days until my mandate with The Concordian ends.

If you have ever worked for a student newspaper or a campus radio station, you’ve probably heard the joke that student media is a gaping black hole that consumes all of those who cross its path. Everyone who I know  has worked for a student paper has admitted getting overwhelmed by the seemingly unending demands of the profession. As someone who has been at the centre of this black hole for the past two years, the prospect of stepping out comes as a much needed relief.

But as that countdown on my whiteboard gets smaller and smaller and I think back on what I’m leaving behind, the sense of satisfaction has slowly started to fade away.

I started writing for The Concordian in September 2020, back when I was still an English literature major and was beginning to consider pursuing a career in journalism. I still remember the night my first article, an opinion piece about the 2020 American presidential elections, was published. That article encapsulated so many firsts: my first byline, my first brush with controversy, my first missed deadline, and the first time I felt like a real journalist. 

Nearly every journalist I know started off with contributing to student media. For those of us coming from outside the tightly interconnected journalism world, student media is an important avenue to establish our presence in this daunting media landscape.

The Concordian has opened more doors for me than my lackluster GPA ever could. It was my portfolio with The Concordian that got me into the journalism department. Being on masthead has, directly and indirectly, provided me with some of the best experiences of my life, such as attending NASH 85 and the Thessaloniki International Summer Media Academy. I owe so much to this paper that I don’t think I could ever repay it, even in over a hundred years.

And yet for all the good this has brought me, any picture I paint would be incomplete without  acknowledging the bad. The stress from this job has taken a tremendous toll on my mental health and strained many important relationships. At this point, my trash folder contains more resignation letters than I could possibly count. The only thing that kept me from walking away has been the amazing support of my team. I sometimes wonder if I could go back in time knowing what I know now, both the good and the bad, would I still have gone on this journey?

As the Managing Editor, I followed in the footsteps of many great student journalists before me. Over the last year, I’ve had to grapple with so many questions: Where is my place in all of this? How will I be remembered? Am I doing enough? Am I doing too much? Am I doing a good job?

I don’t know the answers to any of these questions. I have made more mistakes than I can possibly count. But it’s comforting to know that I’m just a small link in a much larger chain, a tradition far greater than myself. I know that my memory will quickly fade compared to the accomplishments of the greats who have come before me and the promise of those who will come after. In the face of overwhelming adversity, I was able to preserve and hand off the torch to the next generation. 

If I could go back in time, I would tell myself to savour this journey. I would tell myself that the stakes aren’t as high as you think they are, the mistakes you will make along the way are to be learned from, and that you can do this work without getting sucked into that black hole because once it’s over, you have to be ready to move on. And yet, I’ve dedicated so much of myself to this paper that it’s hard to picture what my life might look like without it. 

Scientists aren’t quite sure what lies beyond a black hole, and neither am I. As I approach the threshold, I can’t help but stand back in awe of all the beautiful memories that encompass me. 

Categories
Opinions

Reflections on grief

Graphic by Finn Grosu @tesdoncbenfinn

Why grief is nothing like I thought it would be.

My cousin once compared living with grief to a butter croissant. The grief is butter being folded into the pastry; at first you don’t know what to do with it, but gradually it becomes a part of you in a way that makes a little more sense. 

I’ve been thinking about grief a lot lately. This spring will mark 2 years since I lost my sister, my closest friend. She was 22 years old when she lost her battle with depression. 

Before I experienced loss, I had a preconceived notion of what it would be like. In the days and weeks that followed her death, I kept waiting for the “real” grief to hit, that wave of despair that they show you in movies. But instead of an acute pain, it was more of a constant stomach ache. I started wondering what was wrong with me—why wasn’t I able to feel as deeply as I thought I should?

As the months went on, I realized that maybe I would never feel the way I expected I should feel. I began thinking about how grief can look different for everyone, and how your own personal experience is not invalid just because it isn’t the exact same as someone else’s. Some people pull away from work and friends following a loss; other people throw themselves back into their usual routine in order to distract themselves. One isn’t more legitimate than the other. 

For me, grief looks like avoidance. I go months without saying my sister’s name—not because I don’t want to talk about her, but because I’m not sure how. When I tell stories that involve her (as so many of my stories do), it’s become a reflex to omit her. When someone asks me how many siblings I have, I almost always lie. 

Just a few days after I got the news, I went back to work and pretended that nothing had happened. Heavy emotions never suited the image I projected of myself, so I just didn’t express them. There’s only so much I can run from this, though, and I have had to learn to be more comfortable with discomfort.  

Discomfort and grief are intrinsically tied. This is apparent in the fact that following a loss, nobody can say the right thing. Sometimes I felt cloyed by people’s sympathies; conversely, I made hit lists of people who didn’t reach out. People don’t know what to say—some people have reassured me with, “Don’t worry, I won’t ask,” when really, I desperately wish they would. 

The best response was the most honest one: a close friend said to me “I don’t know what to say—what do you need from me?” Hearing that was like a pressure being lifted. People often claw at the right answer, and don’t realize that the answer might change from person to person, and day by day. Or that there often is no right answer, and it’s okay to acknowledge that.

On the note of acknowledgement, here’s something else I’ve learned: It’s okay for it to not be okay. Talking with my cousin that night of the croissant analogy, I was making verbal lists of everything I’d learned from grief when she stopped me.“You don’t always have to do that, you know,” she said. She said that although it’s positive to find wisdom in bad experiences, we’re also allowed to admit that it just sucks. 

I find myself guilty of that a lot—of spinning the tale in a way that will make the listener more comfortable. I have started to work on this a little bit. I mention my sister a little more these days, and I have been trying to talk more about loss.

I think in the beginning, I was afraid of grief. I remember saying to a friend, “I don’t want to feel like this for my whole life.” The idea of that permanence—the permanence of her absence, the indefinite nature of missing her—seemed so ominous. I heard so many people say that grief never goes away, and that terrified me. 

It turns out they were right, but not in the way I thought. I still think about her every day, but it isn’t all-consuming. My life has continued; the new experiences and other people in my life don’t fill the hole she left, but they build around it. Grief never does go away, but as you sit with it, you begin to understand it a little bit more. Like butter in a pastry, it becomes a part of you in a way that feels more manageable.

 
In the same way, my sister Hannah will always be a huge part of me. Every time I write an article, I think about the ones she would write for McGill’s Bull & Bear, her commitment to serious issues juxtaposed with a wry sense of humour and a fantastically terrible taste in pop culture. So many aspects of my personality, my values, and the things I love are the result of growing up beside her. In many ways, I am her. Similarly, grief will always be a part of me—this is something I have learned to live with.

Categories
Opinions

The eternal drive toward Montreal

Graphic by Mackenzie Sanche

I always joke that half my personality is that I grew up in the Laurentians. I never shut up about the commute to school—it’s nearly four hours out of my day. Some might say I’m basically a superhero for it (nobody says that). I most definitely am not. People literally live in this city and spend the same amount of time crossing it as I do fleeing it.

My mother sometimes says it would have made my life easier if we hadn’t moved so far from the city. My dad often spends his days on the road for work. But they came here to find peace: the comfort of the fields that hug sinuous roads, stars we can actually see, silence. I’ve never been a city girl and I can now confirm that I never will be. Montreal is too fast-paced for my little heart.

I would be closer to school and my future dream job if I moved to Montreal. But I don’t want to narrow my world down to a single island, however great it may be. I would rather spend hours of my life in traffic or in the train if it means I get to escape the endless buzz of the city in my downtime.

If you live within a 50 km radius of a major city, you probably have already felt the pressure to escape your small town for bigger things. Maybe that stems from the American Dream concept. To me, Montreal has always felt like the ultimate goal, the ultimate success—get a fancy university degree, get a “good job,” get a house that costs much more than it’s worth. Some people might dream of Montreal like others dream of New York City.

That’s how I ended up attending university in Montreal, which made me very anxious very fast. My therapist suggested taking with me some of the things that make me feel safe. He might’ve meant something physical, but I took memories: listening to a wailing loon with my dad from our tent, befriending ducks on the lake with my mom, nodding to the stars that listen, watching the silver maples dance when it’s going to rain.

I went to Gaspésie last summer for the first time. Out by those mountains and shores, I was so far from the usual breakneck Greater Montreal ecosystem that Montreal felt like a hazy concept. For a second there, I envied the simplicity of being far, far away from the pressures of city life.

I’m just starting to adapt to the rhythm of Montreal and Concordia, but now I’m graduating. I’m standing at the edge of a cliff, windswept and awed as I stare out at the ever-changing landscape of my future. I don’t know what life is without school. I still don’t know what I want to do with my life. But my time here has taught me to better identify the people, the places and the things that make me feel happy and like myself; and my therapist has taught me to keep those close to my heart wherever I go, like a portable safe space.

The Laurentians are half of my personality probably because they’re a collection of memories and people who have shaped me into who I am. While university has fiercely chipped at me like a diamond, the Laurentians have polished me with love and kind intentions. No matter where I go, I know I will always circle back here even if it seems counter-intuitive toward my “success.” 

But really, what is success without bliss? There’s something admirable about respecting your boundaries and keeping sight of what makes you happy, even if it doesn’t make sense on paper. My parents moving out to the Laurentians might have complicated a few things, but it was also the greatest gift they could’ve offered me.

I’m happy for those who found a home, a dream or a haven of anonymity in Montreal. Meanwhile, I might as well spend my whole life with one foot in the city, looking for success and creative opportunities, and the other foot in the Laurentians, looking for peace—just like my dad did, and he turned out just fine.

Categories
Opinions

A Concordia student’s wake up call

Graphic by Alexa Hawksworth

One student’s experience as a first-year journalism student and what he has learned

As due dates for finals rear their ugly heads in the nearing weeks, it’s a good time to reflect on my first year at Concordia. When I was accepted into the journalism program, I didn’t think much of it. I didn’t expect it to be hard, because I was in a journalism program in CEGEP. I had this stupid thought that journalism was simple and that I had basically learned all I needed to in CEGEP. Two weeks into my first semester, reality hit me like a freight train. This year, I’ve learned some valuable lessons that came from trial and a whole lot of error.

The first lesson I learned was when we were asked to interview people for a streeter article. I don’t have a problem talking to people one-on-one, but not when I have to engage the conversation, so it was already a rocky start.  When one of the first people I tried to talk to told me to “go away” using more colourful language, morale was pretty low. However, determined to do well on my very first serious assignment of the semester, I kept at it, and sure enough, some people were willing to talk to me. I learned that while not everyone will want to talk to me, people are generally nicer than I think they are, and it’s all about how you approach the conversation.

Another important lesson was to always have a contingency plan. No matter how bulletproof you think your plan A is for an assignment, you always have to be prepared for the worst-case scenario. I recently learned that the hard way, when a topic for a feature story I was going to write fell through just over a week before the due date. Being the ever-so-foolish optimist that I was, I never considered a plan B, because I never considered the possibility that my story might fall apart. I was anxious and stressed out, but my teacher and classmates helped me find a new topic for my article. Everything worked out in the end—but it was a real eye-opener.

The most important lesson wasn’t something I learned from the journalism program, but from applying to another program, creative writing, and failing twice. When I first failed to get into the program, I was shocked; I was sure my writing was good enough to get me admitted. I thought it was simply because I didn’t read the guidelines clearly (I didn’t) and that my rejection had nothing to do with the quality of my portfolio.

When I failed the second time, I reviewed the stories I submitted, and noticed all the amateur mistakes I had made; mistakes that I’d never made before. It was a real wake up call for me. I was so focused on shaping my story the way I wanted that I didn’t consider writing it properly. So confident that I was above making stupid grammatical mistakes, I never bothered to reread them before submitting. Those failures made me realize that no matter how good you think you are at something, that shouldn’t stop you from improving and working hard.

After only one year at Concordia, I have learned a lot about myself, especially what I need to improve. My time studying journalism has taught me to be more diligent, better prepared, but most of all, to never take the easy way out—to always work hard. I hope the following years spent studying here help mould me into a better student and a better person.

Archive Graphic by Alexa Hawksworth

Categories
Opinions

My Concordia, my community

Graphic by Alexa Hawksworth

One student’s experience finishing her studies at Concordia, and what she’s learned

Dear Concordians, when asked to reflect on my time at Concordia, I must admit it took me a while to collect my thoughts. I didn’t know where to begin explaining what Concordia means to me. After spending the past six years as both a Concordia undergraduate and graduate student, and an employee in multiple student services, I could probably sit here and write a novel about what this school has given me, in terms of academic, professional and most of all personal growth. But instead, I will give you the cliff notes version.

If I had to sum it all up in one sentence, I would say Concordia gave me a community. As my time at Concordia comes to an end (for now), I find it difficult to accept leaving such an incredible environment. I have been a Concordia student since 2014, completing my Bachelor of Arts in both Human Environment and Communication and Cultural Studies, and am now nearing the end of my Master’s in Environmental Assessment. Suffice to say, I have experienced my fair share of course registration, midterms and exams. Although I am a nerd, and will probably continue my studies further, the most rewarding part of my Concordia experience happened outside the classroom.

It all started during my undergrad, when I got involved with the Hellenic Student Association, which introduced me to a world of extra-curricular involvement on campus. I quickly realized that I enjoyed interacting with other students from various disciplines, all coming together with a common goal. These interactions exposed me to a whole roster of clubs and associations to join, ranging from program-specific student associations under ASFA, to the Inter-Fraternity Council and the Zeta Tau Omega Sorority.

Through these experiences, not only did I learn transferable skills like time-management, but I also learned more about myself. I became a productive version of myself and realized that I like keeping myself busy, being involved, interacting with and learning from others, and representing the university through my Concordia pride. This sense of familiarity, belonging and community cultivated during my undergrad was just the beginning.

Being active within the university led me to appreciate the outstanding services, the diverse people and the incredible opportunities available to us all. As soon as I started my graduate degree in 2017, I began working with various academic service departments, such as with the Student Success Centre, the Examinations Office, the Access Centre for Students with Disabilities, GradProSkills, and more. One of my most rewarding roles was as a Welcome Crew Mentor, during which I learned how most services on campus function, which introduced me to the many opportunities Concordia provides.

For this reason, when asked about Concordia by friends who are looking to attend, or when asked for help from people in my personal circle, I cannot stop gushing about what the university offers (it is often times embarrassing… for them, not for me). A major part of the reason I love working at the university is because I believe I had a truly fulfilling undergraduate and graduate experience—learning, growing and evolving as the best version of myself—and I take it as an opportunity to help do the same for current students.

I am grateful for everything the university has taught me. Thank you Concordia! My advice for students who have read all my embarrassing gushing up to this point: take advantage of your time as an undergrad or grad. Dare to step out of your comfort zone and take on opportunities, both the ones that come your way and the ones you must search for, but that are yours for the taking. Make the most of your time at Concordia, get out there and discover what you love doing in the Concordia community and make it yours!

Sincerely,

A Proud Concordian

Archive Graphic by Alexa Hawksworth

 

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