My name is Crystal and I would like to share my experience with the Trek program and especially on my experience volunteering with UBC Learning Exchange. Coming into university everything was new and it must have been like the second if not the first lecture that Professor Greer introduced the program of Trek to the class. Thinking back then I wasn’t sure which option to pick Trek and discussion for once a month or no Trek and discussions. I actually really wanted to do the discussions because I thought that discussing more in-depth about Soci would’ve been fun and I was afraid of missing out on the discussion but I also wanted to see how Trek would be like. Because I have been volunteering with a neighbourhood house so I have heard of Trek students and the many compliments they received making me also want to be a part of the program because it sounded like there’s a lot of good things that can come out of this program.
The UBC Learning Exchange is an asset-based community development where their goal was to connect UBC with people in the Downtown Eastside. They give students the opportunity to gain experience working in the community organizations and also learn about their community and the social issues that need to be addressed and understood. I really agree with their goal that in a way us students are providing them a service by volunteering and teaching the participants but really, we are learning more from this opportunity and experience with the participants.
When I picked the placement of UBC Learning Exchange, I chose it because it seemed a little different from the volunteering that I usually do, it’s not a neighbourhood house and it’s not with children, it’s with adults and the program I was first interested was the English teaching program. I didn’t end up being able to teach English to the adults but instead led the karaoke program which is an extension of the English programs where it would allow them to practice their English learned or just sing for fun. Coming into this placement the participants and staff were unexpectedly busy welcoming and accepting me as their new volunteer and the new leader. I also had a lot of fun seeing the participants every week and singing with them, at first I was really shy to sing, and having some new participants once in a while.
Trek allowed the integration with university a little easier by providing a topic to discuss with the other Trek students and creates a sense of affinity even though we don’t meet up often but it’s nice to hear about how others are doing at their placements, any funny stories that came up or any problems they have we can share and try to help each other. For the Trek program, we also had to attend one dinner and one workshop together which I think those helped a lot with meeting up with other Trek students because even though we were all in the same program yet we don’t have the chance to meet each other.
In conclusion, I feel like joining Trek was a great idea because not only we got to learn from the extra dinners and workshops but we had a hands-on experience in the society where we were able to see the actual issues of our community. We were able to communicate with the participants who might have been in a different situation than me and we were able to exchange our knowledge and understand how they feel about their society. It also allowed us to visualize the concepts learned in Soci 100 making it easier to understand by having real-life examples that relate to us. Trek created a very good opportunity to link us to these placements which might have been harder to integrate into if we did not have this program to back us up. Overall, I really enjoyed Trek and after volunteering at so many different places I still can’t believe how amazing this placement was in accepting me into their community right away and how welcoming the participants were, I was really surprised. I feel like Trek is definitely something you should all try in the first year of Soci 100 because even though you can always go another year by yourself but I feel like having all these other students doing it with you creates a stronger support system and it always feels good to go to the Trek workshop with a bunch of people that are in your class.