Probably the most significant thing that happened to me at UBC was my involvement in the 2008 Terry Talks. Terry Talks is an event put on by Terry that highlights issues that are important to students. The format is based off of the now famous TED Talks that has highlighted some of the worlds most prolific thinkers. You can spend hours watching their fascinating talks on the TED homepage.

In 2008, nine students including myself were selected to speak about their passions. Each student was given 18 minutes to speak to an audience of 350. All of the talks were professionally taped and you can view them all online here. The talks were inspirational and diverse. They really highlighted the best part about going to UBC, the amazing and passionate students.

I was also fortunate enough to be selected as the 2008 ‘Wish’ speech. Just like at TED Talks, once every event, one individual is chosen to make a wish that the speaker, other speakers, and the audience agree to work towards. As my talk was based on the value of integrative education, my wish was to create a new way to bring integration into the classroom. Check out my Talk below:

The ‘Wish’ that I outlined at the end of the talk, IF, has changed dramatically since it was first conceived. This was a result of several series of consultations (both internal and external).

A notable one of these experiences was the opportunity to represent UBC at the 2009 Clinton Global Initiative University conference in Austin, TX. UBC Student Development sponsored me to go on this awesome trip. I met students from all around the world, discussed global issues and global citizenship, and attended seminars on how to make IF a reality. I even had a brief chance to meet and chat with President Bill Clinton, which was mind blowing.

Upon returning to Vancouver, I set upon putting things into motion. I soon discovered that the original concept of IF was far too broad to achieve any real success. It involved a large website along with useful interdisciplinary information, a social networking/discussion aspect, as well as connecting classroom spaces. Unfortunately, as good as the ideas were, if we stuck with a project of that magnitude it would never get done.
So I refined the goal and focused in on what I thought would really be a tangible difference: classroom partnerships.
I began by flogging the idea to anyone who would listen. I met with deans and associate deans, UBC’s VP Students Brian Sullivan and wrote letters to President Toope (thatss the only way I knew he would see my ideas for sure). After all of this I eventually wound up in a TAG session with two faculty members who became very interested in the project.
And so Celeste Leander (from Science One biology) and Carla Paterson (who teaches HIST 104) have officially become the first faculty members to embrace the UBC MIX philosophy. I couldn’t ask for better guinea pigs either, both profs are super excited about the idea and brought so much to the partnership. Come this September there will be 142 students registered in the partnership, exploring the biodiversity of BC and our campus and learning what that biodiversity meant to the aboriginal inhabitants of the land a thousand years ago.

Stay tuned to see where our next successes will be!