We've heard about research, we've heard about school... what about volunteering? Some U of C students share their insights on volunteering and its value.
Labiba
My name is Labiba Nawar, and I am a 4th year Community Rehabilitation and Disability Studies (CRDS) student at U of C. My love for volunteering dates back to the beginning of high school. I started volunteering for various programs at the library in Grade 9. Eventually, after years of volunteering with the library, I sought out opportunities to explore volunteer opportunities in the field of medicine and community support. In Grade 12, I started volunteering at the Peter Lougheed Hospital in the YPODs program. The YPODs program was an irreplaceable volunteer opportunity for me as it was the root of my interest in learning more about people with disabilities. That same year was when I became involved with the broader Calgary community through my participation in the event planning committee for the Cowboy’s Century Ride Bikeathon held at my Alma Mater, Crescent Heights High School. This experience motivated me to continue challenging myself and support my community in different ways, which I continued to do throughout my time at U of C through my involvement in academic and social clubs. I join the Bengali Students Society (BSS) at U of C, where I served as the VP of Events the term 2018/19. To bring a strong presence of the Bengali Community on campus, the BSS team and I facilitated multiple cultural events, including Pohela Baisakh, and hosted a few collaboration events with community organizations like BCAOC and other campus clubs. The following year I was appointed Co-President for the academic term of 2019/20. It was only the second year of BSS as a club. To continue the momentum of last year, we decided to broaden our community to include the Bengali student community from all across Calgary, including graduate students, MRU students, and other post-secondary communities. At the end of my term, I launched the BSS mentorship program, which aids international and local Bangladeshi students of U of C to get academic and student life support from our team of 11 faculty-specific mentors. Currently, I am leading the BSS mentorship program as the Lead Coordinator and overlooking the main BSS team as a Senior Advisor.
Alongside BSS, I also worked with the Community Rehabilitation and Disability Studies Students Association (CRDSSA) as a Junior Executive of Marketing. Besides being the main promoter of CRDSSA within the CRDS student body, I also helped facilitate multiple social events hosted by CRDSSA and supported the senior executives with club activities.
One of the biggest turning points in my leadership experience was when I ran as a Candidate for the Faculty of Medicine Representative position at the U of C Students Union General Election 2020. It gave me a large-scale platform to advocate for student representation, especially CRDS students within our campus community, as I was the second student in the history of CRDS to run for the Cumming School of Medicine Faculty representative position. During my campaign days, I developed a strong connection with the U of C student body through my interaction with students from my faculty and other faculties.
Volunteering has become a very important part of my life and honestly brings me a lot of joy. In a way, you can say that the Labiba I am now is heavily shaped by the countless number of people I have met through my engagement with the community, my love for wanting to know my city, the people here, and their journeys. Through volunteering, I have learned to truly appreciate just how vast yet small our world is and how different but at the same time similar we are.
2. Sushrut
Hello! My name is Sushrut and I am the VP of Finance for SIMS. I am a second-year Kinesiology/Business student. I enjoy doing outdoorsy activities like hiking, biking, and skiing in my spare time. I am considering a career in medicine/healthcare and currently weighing my options between physiotherapy and med school. I was interested in gaining clinical experience and research in my first year, however, I wasn't too sure how to go about this. I did eventually end up finding two amazing opportunities this year. One in a physiotherapy clinic and a research opportunity.
My experience volunteering at a physiotherapy clinic has been amazing so far. I have been shadowing a professional physiotherapist and learning a lot about manual therapy, anatomy, physiology, exercise prescription, patient care, acupuncture, dry needling, and electrical modalities. I love volunteering at the clinic because I get to meet all sorts of people with a degree of continuation, which allows me to build a relationship with the clients/patients that I work with. I get to learn about the effects of a wide variety of injuries and ways to treat them long term. One of the best things about working at a physio clinic is that you get to work with patients and see progress from one session to another which I find very rewarding. I also have responsibilities that include set-up/take-down of electrical and hot/cold modalities that are used for treatment. As a student, I understand that finding experiences in clinics can be difficult especially during Covid-19 as many clinics want to keep the number of staff/volunteers limited to prevent the spread of the virus. I think that a great way to get your foot in the door for volunteer experience during the pandemic is to take advantage of any available networks like friends, colleagues, professors, and students with experience. I was able to land an interview with the clinic through a friend that was volunteering there at the time and was very lucky to be taken in. Other ways to find opportunities in clinics is to e-mail as many places as you can and call in to ask if they have available positions for volunteers. I was successful at arranging interviews with two other clinics; however, they canceled their volunteer programs due to Covid-19 restrictions.
I have recently found a research opportunity more on the business side rather than the medical science side of things. I will be working on research in crowdfunding wearable technology with a business professor and his Ph.D. student. Although not as relevant to medical science the steps to looking for research are fairly similar. I know a lot of students early in their program are also looking to gain research experience and don't know how to go about looking. I would suggest first to look for a project that you are interested in and learn a bit about it so that you can have a conversation with the professor or person in charge. Secondly, reach out to as many professors as you can through e-mail or office hours and arrange a meeting with them. This can seem daunting but, the odds of getting through to an instructor increase significantly. Another thing I learned through this process is to send follow-up e-mails about a week after if you don’t receive a reply because a lot of professors receive 100s of e-mails a day and it is likely they missed yours. The last thing to keep in mind is to not give up. Keep sending e-mails and it is never too late to try to ask to get into a project. It could be easier if you start before November because professors haven’t committed to other students but unless funding is a significant factor to the research experience you’re looking for it's possible to find projects to join on a volunteer basis even after February. I hope this helps some people out on their journey to find research or clinical experience. Good luck to anyone who is still looking!!
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