The term is coming to an end, and I feel… relieved. Challenged. Nervous. Excited. Like my head is going to explode with the amount of information that professors somehow managed to pack in.

Seriously though, I’m pretty sure I’ve learned more this term at UBC than I did during my last two years of high school combined. That’s all well and good, but now I find myself with a massive load of information inside my head, and therein lies the problem. The information is inside my head. Eventually, like most other information, it will start to leak out after final examinations.

This time though, I’m not sure if I want it to.

Personally, the best way to retain information is for me to apply it in my life. In all of our ASTU papers, we have been asked to identify the “so what” of our topics. Why is what we’re writing about important? How does it matter to knowledge? I want to draw out the “so what” in some of the topics we have been covering in ASTU this term.

In September, we talked about the TRC happening here in Canada with the Aboriginal people. Witnessing is important, but I don’t think I meet people everyday who have gone through trauma and are telling the world their stories. However, if there is one thing I learned while observing the art pieces in the Belkin Gallery, it is that there are countless numbers of people who did not/could not witness. Over and over, I saw descriptions by the artists dedicated their art pieces to the people who had repressed terrible memories so far down that silence had become their only option. How many people around me are keeping silent about traumatic personal events? I want to create and to be a safe environment in which they can witness and remember their past.

In October, my group and I did a presentation on PostSecret. The genre of confession has been around for a long time, most likely having started in the church. Frank Warren’s PostSecret has been extremely successful, with almost 650 million visitors to date! The appeal of PostSecret supposedly lies in the anonymity… So how am I supposed to create anonymity with the people that I see and talk to everyday? Well, I think it goes beyond just anonymity. One of the PostSecrets that my group chose to analyze in preparation for our presentation went like this: “Why is it so easy to share our most private feelings with complete strangers and so hard to tell those we love the most?” The answer to this is that you’ve got something to lose with people you love. This is where I can make a difference. If I can build relationships to the point where others know that there is no judgment or fear of losing me, anonymity doesn’t matter anymore.

I know that class is generally supposed to be within academia, but I think that moral “so whats” are just as important, if not more. These “so whats” are the ones I’m going to be taking with me for many years to come, even if my academic knowledge fades.

Term one, it’s been a real pleasure. Term two, here we go.