Well readers, this is my last blog post of the term, thanks for tuning in one more time. Although in ASTU we’ve been talking about Mohsin Hamid’s novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist I’d like to spend my last post reflecting on CAP and particularly our global citizens themed stream. The term is almost over, and I can confidently say as a citizen of the world I feel more connected with my fellow citizens and more in-tune and aware of the issues going on all over our globe thanks to CAP.

Over the last seven months I’ve gained a much better understanding about how society functions and why it does the way it does. While my peers and I may not be engineers, Sauder students, or science wiz-kids I think what we’ve learned and the way we’ve learned it allows us to contribute to society in different, yet highly important ways. Politically, 2015 was and 2016 will be a crazy year. We’ve seen Donald Trump and his overtly racist, xenophobic, and sexist rhetoric rise to scary high popularity in the United States. In Europe, where many of the countries there have been taking in thousands of refugees from war-torn Syria, we’ve seen a rise in right-of-centre populist movements reminiscent of mid-20th century movements. Concurrently, we’ve seen Europe targeted by the radical group ISIS which remains a terrorizing force in the Middle East. While all of this is certainly frightening, it is imperative that young people are properly educated in these matters, and that some are prepared to help fix these global problems upon entering the “real world”. That’s what the global citizens stream is doing for us in CAP. First, we’ll spend four or five years learning, maturing, and growing through university, and then it is up to us to lead our generation down the right path in the future. CAP has made me proud to be an Arts student; where before I felt inferior to other faculties, I know better recognize the importance of what we’re doing and how our contributions out of university will shape the future of the globe.

I’d like to thank all my CAP profs for impacting me in such a positive way in my first year of university. And of course, thanks for reading this term and feel free to comment!

Ben Ross

Hello readers, great to back blogging! This week I got to experience another benefit of being in UBC’s CAP program. On Wednesday, instead of having my normal two hour lecture block of sociology followed by geography, all the CAP professors (sadly without David Ley) did a joint lecture on a growing movement in the United States and in the world; the Black Lives Matter movement. This subject was especially pertinent because my CAP stream is themed “Global Citizens” as we all know by now. As global citizens, it is important that we all understand movements like Black Lives Matter and the impact it has on our society. It is equally important, in my view, that we understand the critiques of movements such as BLM and why these arguments (Like the ridiculous #alllivesmatter) are flawed.

Reading about BLM on the internet and social media certainly can help anyone better understand what’s going on, but I think hearing the perspective from someone who’s actually been involved is invaluable. Luckily my geography TA, Guille, was involved with BLM in Ohio before coming to UBC, and he gave a short presentation on his experience. He talked about individual members of the black community in Ohio who he knew that lost there lives to police violence as well as some friends of his in BLM that battled with depression and other issues due to the pressure of contributing to BLM in the face of such prevalent institutionalized racism in America. While I didn’t find I learned a whole lot of new things about Black Lives Matter as a whole, my understanding nevertheless, changed. This got me to think of the importance of primary sources as academic tools and as ways for personal growth. I could read every article online commenting on BLM (although it would take quite a while) and subsequently know a lot about it, but the learning experience of primary sources, in my opinion, has a different and very important value to it. This reminded me of my ASTU trip to IKB during first term where we were lucky enough to examine primary sources on Joy Kogawa’s novel, Obasan. Though while we were there I didn’t feel like I learned way more about Obasan as a novel, I definitely gained more insight on how society reacted to the book and other things I could not find in a textbook or in some online article.

All in all, I was very satisfied with CAP’s joint lecture on Wednesday, and I am very glad Guille shared with us. Thanks for reading and as always, feel free to comment!

Ben Ross