Student Stories

What we choose to learn and who we choose to learn from shapes how we think and the futures we build. From my perspective as a grad student working under pandemic conditions, certain types of learning opportunities vanished, but there was more choice in online formal and informal learning than ever before. In fact, the abundance of webinars, online courses and conferences was overwhelming at times. So how to tune out the noise and tune in to real learning? For me real learning is when my ideas about what’s possible expand or shift.

Sophia Hou is an undergraduate student in the Applied Human Nutrition program in the Department of Family Relations and Human Nutrition at the University of Guelph. Sophia keeps a nutrition and health blog titled houbakes.com. In her latest blog post, she shared with us her mission to celebrate and preserve her Chinese heritage and her reasons for doing so.

My PhD journey began in September 2016. My start was probably a bit different from the average student’s. I pulled up to MacDonald Institute reminiscing about my graduate school days that I had finished a few years before. I thought about the classes I took and the friends I made during my MSc program in Family Relations and Human Development. This time I was not arriving to Student Orientation with one of my best friends (who happened to be in the same program as me during my master’s), but I was arriving with my parents and my four-month-old son.

Emily Smit is a PhD student in the Department of Geography, Environment and Geomatics at the University of Guelph. She is also the mother of three small children. Emily shared her experience over the last year with us in her recent blog post published on nichegeographer.com.

Animal researcher, doctoral student, and winner of CSAHS 3MT People's Choice Award (2021), Briana Renda, from the Department of Psychology investigates the epidemic of teen vaping and its impact on the adolescent brain.

Bryant and Constantin, doctoral students in Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, developed and facilitated a self-compassion webinar to support fellow graduate students in learning how to relieve stress, develop coping skills, and to explore the benefits of self-compassion.

Abhilash Kantamneni, a PhD candidate in the Department of Geography, Environment & Geomatics, creates interactive maps to foster a sense of belonging with mapping the things that matter.

Emily De Sousa is a masters student in her first year of the geography program.

Alessia Pugliese is a student in her final year of the International Development program.

Megan Culyer is a third year student in the International Development program.