“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around for a while, you could miss it.”

(Shoutout to Ferris Bueller’s Day Off for the quote, I love that movie, I highly recommend watching it if you haven’t seen it already)

It’s crazy to think that in just a few weeks, the school year will end. It honestly feels like it has just started because it went by so fast. Anyway, this transition from high school to university has come to be something else. Coming into UBC I didn’t expect anything I’ve encountered this year to be something I would have to encounter… or maybe I have just been naive about this whole experience (which is totally okay I guess). Looking back on the year and having to reflect, I’ve definitely learned to look at the world within different lenses; whether through my classes this has been through a sociological, political, geographical, or literary perspective. In this Global Citizens stream, a question we’ve all probably pondered is, “how can I be a global citizen in my society?”. Sociology has taught me to use a sociological imagination, as Geography does the same with a sort of geo-political imagination – to view our local selves as significant to larger global forces. In ASTU, literature has reinforced this same understanding, and bypasses this “imagination” by prompting human agency.

In ASTU, what had also caught my attention was the way in which scholars write and create global discourses on various subjects. I was once familiar with the basic essay structure of beginning, middle, and end, however I’ve learned that there are other methods to go about writing on certain topics and adding to the conversation. It’s catching me off guard right now that I’m attempting to write like a scholar for the final, something I did not expect I would be able to do in the beginning of the year.

This class has also allowed me to gain a greater understanding of 9/11 and the “War on Terror”. Prior to entering university, for me at the very least, this was a topic that was sort of left astray, it wasn’t discussed as much in elementary and high school. I had gotten my basic understanding from questions I asked my parents. What perked my interest in this class was Foer’s novel in understanding 9/11 because it had not entirely put focus on the political. It took readers to a personal level, to a personal story about losing loved ones and the journey in finding an identity when coping with trauma. And on a completely different note, I appreciate how each of the novels or works of literature we delved in were all coming from a child’s perspective. For me, I found I could connect with the literature better because it broke that single adult perspective I’ve come to known in previous education. It “deterritorialized” me in this sense, because the works showed me that there are still other perspectives to consider. And again, this is how the theme of global citizenship reached me.

All in all, it has been a good year! I wish everyone the best of luck with whatever you are all planning to pursue, and am especially thankful for the friendships I’ve created this year, it’s been a blast with CAP! 🙂

Good luck on all of your final exams, I hope you have an awesome summer! I hope to run into you guys again in the future, keep in touch!!! 🙂

KYLO