Reflecting on 5 years as a UofT Student Athlete

Time flies when you're having fun. Despite the difficulty of an engineering degree, my time at UofT was limited and I wanted to make the most of the opportunities at hand.

This is my reflection as a full-time engineering student, varsity soccer athlete, design team executive, VP alumni mentorship, and Trinity College resident.

My experience at U of T was one of the most transformational periods of my life. I'm forever grateful for the friends I made, the memories I cherish, and the opportunity to develop, in all facets, as a humanbeing.

My Story

I grew up as a kid from a small town, constantly surrounded by nature. This led me to become passionate about protecting the ecosystems around me and I wanted to pursue a career as a politician, changing the laws to address climate change. After a couple of years of watching slow government change and frustrations in model United Nations, I decided I wanted to tackle environmental problems through scientific advancements and tech. After all, I'd always loved math and physics. This led me to pursue an engineering degree.

I had the opportunity to fly out and tour the University of Toronto through an amazing program called GLEE: Girls Leadership in Engineering Experience. The gist of this program is they fly out girls who have been accepted into the university and shed a light into what the UofT engineering community is all about, in hopes of encouraging girls to envision their place at UofT Engineering. Through this program, I met other young women who would soon be my classmates and mentors, and it enabled me to make a difficult decision much easier. I'd found my place at UofT.

A multi-layered experience

When I returned to campus in the fall, there were a few experiences I'd always dreamt of that I'd wanted to make true. Play on the soccer team. Join a design team. Live in a "Harry Potter" residence. Graduate with an engineering degree.

In mid August, I went to soccer training camp as a walk-on, living out of a mentor's family's house in the Beaches and one of my senior teammates' in Harbord Village. After about 2 weeks of training camp, I had made the team and moved into my first-year residence, Trinity College. It all sounds great, like I was having the time of my life, but not everything was working the way I'd planned. I was doing terrible in school and not playing the sport I'd loved.

I had thought I'd be okay taking a full course load, but with training so hard to get on the field, I'd flunked my first midterm, not to mention, red-shirted first year. With season ending, I knew one of my dreams (design team) was still left to accomplish. With the extra time I had without soccer, I joined the Human Powered Vehicles Design Team.

As the only girl on the team and coincidentally being athletic, I got a lot of opportunities to learn applied engineering and meet the female quota on driving. I learned a ton about manufacturing, FEA, 3D design in solidworks, and got to drive the vehicle at the ASME Human Powered Vehicles Design Challenge in Michigan. I closed out my first year, with much to reflect on, some goals working, and some not so much.

Having not stepped on the field in season, I highly contemplated quitting soccer. But I'd spent the entirety of my first year, training everyday without experiencing the joy of playing. My sister, also a soccer athlete said to me "are you really going to quit before you've given yourself the chance to step on the field?" She was so right. So I continued to train all summer and went back to training camp with my expectations clear. Put my best foot forward, don't let myself give up mentally, and see what comes of it.

Next thing you know, I'd started most games that season, including achieving a silver at OUAs and bronze at the National Championships. My grades were slowly improving, and I was still on my design team. While things weren't quite perfected, I was starting to see growth across all aspects of myself.

Mantras that enabled me to curate that experience

It took me my entire degree to ever feel like I had hit a flow state and I was comfortable. But maybe that's the way it was supposed to be all along. Each time I'd felt some sort of comfortable with the work load, I'd always find more ways to keep myself busy, like being promoted to an exec on the design team, or joining the alumni mentorship program, first as a mentee and later as the VP. Although it was a grind, my 5 years at UofT were some of the best years of my life and I am endlessly grateful for how I grew along the journey.

A solid university experience looks different for everyone, but some mentalities that enabled me to maximize my university experience were:

  1. Don't give up Stepping outside of your comfort zone can be extremely difficult and your body may try to reject it or tell you to stop. However, if you allow yourself to give up too soon, you never allow yourself the chance to see the positives that arise over time. I wanted to quit Human Powered Vehicles because I thought I was too dumb and I wanted to quit soccer cause I didn't play, but every time I felt like quitting, I stuck with it a little bit longer than I'd felt comfortable and something incredible always rewarded the resilience and perseverance. This brings me to number 2;

  2. Progress is NOT linear Sometimes, you may be in the pits of the grind and it will feel like nothing is working. It. does. not. matter. Have trust in the process, take feedback, improve your approach, and keep going.

  3. Challenge to be successful This one comes from my dad and it's around stepping outside of your comfort zone. If you never venture outside the bounds of what you already know, you cannot give yourself the opportunity to learn something new. The world is here to be experienced. Not everything is gonna work the way you imagined, but it will either work or you'll learn something of it. Nonetheless, you won't know until you try.

Thank yous

A lot happened during my time at UofT and I have so much to be grateful for. I want to give a special thank you to some people who supported me as a I navigated an exciting yet challenging experience: My family who supported me to move across the country and pursue a dream, my friends and teammates (you know who you are) who gave me memories of a lifetime and supported me through the toughest of times, Gina (for always challenging and supporting me to believe in myself), my coaches (for giving me an opportunity when nobody else did), Sierra (for teaching me to lead through positive energy), Stephen and Megan from my PEY who changed my whole perspective on careers and life in general, and of course, everyone in the faculty, Dean Yip, and my profs who supported and enabled me to walk away from UofT with a hell of a lot more than a ring and a degree. Thank you.