Unpeeling

Being involved with different student groups, both at my school and at the university, has helped me unpeel the complexity of the university's structure somewhat and understand why things happen the way they do. I am well into my second year at the university and a lot of my engagement has been around the graduate student experience, sometimes intersecting with internationalization and sometimes with other aspects.

I have so many thoughts on the subject and someday I hope to be able to reflect on this much more thoughtfully. But for now, here is, in no order, a list of things I have realized by choosing not to just be a recipient of the graduate student experience, but to shape it in some way:

• It is complex. It is a large university, with several schools, departments. Every place, division, every person brings in their own agendas and motivations. Sometimes these work well together, sometimes they ruffle feathers.
• The word 'international' has taken on so many meanings. The first time I met domestic/American students who self-identify as international, I wasn't sure of what I thought. I still am not (I am always appreciative of allies but the way my thinking in the past was shaped, you couldn't claim an experience by solidarity, even though you could be a supporter). To be international, to have an international focus, internationalization of campus, all of these things could mean so much. It is useful to arrive at a common vocabulary, and if needed to push the boundaries of the definition.
• I wish it were more agile, more nimble sometimes. But like everything else, things take time. 
• This is a paradox, a contradiction: there is a lot of flexibility, freedom but there is also a limit, a constraint. It depends on where you are placed.
• I will always believe that I am better off and my life richer by engaging with various student bodies. I understand so much more, and I actually am in a place to slowly chip away at things I don't like and do things I enjoy tremendously. I don't know how to convince people but if you leave without having engaged in any way, at your department, school, the larger university, you have missed out on an important part of the experience.
• I think (just like all parts of life), my gender, nationality, skin color all shape both my experience and engagement in one way or the other. Some ways are good and others bad, but these aren't invisible aspects.
• I think it takes a certain attitude because to engage means being okay with being uncomfortable. When I started, I couldn't even walk in the rooms where the meetings were held unless I knew someone because I felt like such an impostor. I have persevered through it, doing things that make me uncomfortable, forgiving myself for things I think I did badly. But the result has been a sort of almost blossoming for me personally and the chance to interact with so many people, people who are different and yet we find some common ground.

At the moment, I realize this is a rather whimsical list. But someday I hope to be able to reflect on all of my experiences, tiny and large, happy and miserable, and write about the sum of it all.