July 17, 2024
Nicole Gonzalez Blanco, Student Recruitment Ambassador
Meet Nicole: My Most Memorable Experience as a UCalgary Student
Over the last four years, as a UCalgary student, I’ve had the opportunity to participate in a variety of fantastic opportunities – including an exchange program facilitated by the UCalgary Study Abroad Office, and a one-year Arts Co-Op, working with the Undergraduate Recruitment team – experiences that will shape many of my future endeavors. I am now in my final year of my Bachelor of Arts in International Relations, specializing my education, with a regional focus on Europe and thematic focus on international institutions and governance.
Taking part in an international exchange with the University of Calgary has, hands-down, been one of my memorable experiences throughout my time as a UCalgary student. As part of my degree in International Relations, I am required to take classes in another modern language besides English. So, I decided to study French and take my international experience to the south of France, in Aix-en-Provence, where I got to go to Sciences Po Aix, one of the Grande Ecole’s in France focused on political studies. If I was going to be spending almost a year abroad, I was not going to let it go to waste! Those 10 months in Aix have been the highlight of my university experience. Sciences Po Aix was a small school with about 1,000 to 1,200 students, and 100 of us being international students, which made making friends much easier. One of the things I really enjoyed was all the unique classes, including one called Human Rights and Global Crises. Additionally, one of my favourite memories was when my friends in the program threw me a surprise birthday party. It is one of my fonder memories and makes me appreciate the friends that I made throughout my global learning experience, many of who I still talk to this day.
I’ve also had the opportunity to participate in an Arts Co-Op Program, where I helped run and organized the campus tour program with the Undergraduate Recruitment team throughout my one-year placement. My time working within Recruitment in the Office of the Registrar has been extremely helpful in beginning to prepare me for professional life after university, and allows me to graduate with a years' worth of work experience. Although my co-op extends my degree by one year, it has given me the opportunity to find new interests, explore different career paths that I never knew were a possibility, and work in my field of study.
To conclude, my time at UCalgary was a mixture of so many different meaningful experiences throughout the last four years. Now, stepping into my final year, I am so grateful that UCalgary has provided me the opportunity to accomplish things I could only dream of doing and I am now looking forward to final year and my life at UCalgary, with more experience behind me than I believed I could achieve.
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