My supervisors Margaret and Grant assigned a lot of writing projects to me because they know how much I love writing, such as a piece talking about the benefits of internationalization for domestic students. I also was gifted the learning opportunity of collaborating with Indigenous leaders to curate an Alternate Admissions Pathway for Indigenous students at Renison.
What Willow learned in PACS aided them in successfully completing these important projects 鈥 more specifically, she learned about structural positive and negative peace in PACS 101, 鈥淧eace is Everybody鈥檚 Business鈥.
Beginning this co-op with an understanding of structural positive peace allowed me to address issues with a holistic lens. So often, the surface-level conflicts and issues we see have their roots in structural and cultural violence: peace and conflict studies taught me how to look below the surface to find these roots. . . working in recruitment allowed me to gain further insight into how structured admissions requirements often fail to account for the lived experiences of so many students, such as the structural and cultural violence many students have faced their entire lives.
In addition to working towards peace through curating the Alternate Admissions Pathway, Willow worked towards peace through the way she communicated with others. Their understanding of communication is founded on her knowledge of high and low context communicators, which they learned about in PACS 201, 鈥淩oots of Conflict, Violence, and Peace鈥.
In PACS we learn so much about communication, which has not only helped me in my co-op roles but everywhere else life has taken me. Understanding low-context and high-context communication, as well as individualism and communitarianism, has helped me to better understand those around me in the workplace, and ensure that I am being properly understood as well. . .聽It is not that either communication style is wrong, it鈥檚 just that that a huge part of PACS is dialogue and breaking down interpersonal barriers between people, and it is hard to do that when the message you think you are putting out isn鈥檛 the same one that someone else is receiving.
Willow found that her co-op term has built into their learning experience as a PACS student moving forward with her studies.
鈥淎s an Arts and Business student, I had initially believed that the skills I learned in my business-related courses would be more applicable in co-op roles than what I learned in my PACS courses, which has not been true. Now in class, I learn a new theory, concept, or framework and automatically think of how that could have applied to my previous work terms or future ones. The co-op program has shown me how what I鈥檝e learned as a PACS student can be utilized in any setting.鈥
When asked if she had any advice to offer PACS students entering co-op terms, they said:
If I had to offer one piece of advice to PACS student entering a co-op, it would be that you can work towards peace no matter what your role is. As a PACS student, you know that peace is so much more than the absence of war- it is the presence of equity, cooperation, open respectful dialogue, and so many other things. I promise you there will be a way to contribute to peace in your next role, you just have to find it.