Student Life – Page 3 – Graduate Student Society

How can we THRIVE in the time of Covid?

Posted on April 30, 2020April 30, 2020 by Comms

A normal research day for Theresa Pauly might involve visits to study participants across the lower mainland. Working in the Health and Adult Development Lab, which focuses on the links between social relationships and health, personal contact is an extremely important part of research.

“We work a lot with older adults, particularly couples, so we still advertise via newspaper or posters at community centres and do study visits in person. It’s great to meet with participants for a few hours. Even if most of the study protocol requires completing electronic surveys, face to face interactions provide a lot of insight into participants’ thinking.”

But the arrival of COVID19, and with it social distancing, has changed the normal research routine.

However, the change in circumstances has also offered a unique new opportunity to study social interactions and health, and so the THRIVE study was born. Tracking Health and Relationships in Varying Everyday contexts is led by Professor Christiane Hoppmann and aims to understand people’s thoughts, behaviours and feelings during the social distancing required by Covid.

Anyone over the age of 18 and living in Canada can participate. “If you sign up, we’ll ask you to complete a 45 to 90-minute online questionnaire about your background, personality, social relationships, attitudes, and wellbeing. Then, for ten days, we will ask you to complete two 5 to 10-minute questionnaires per day: one in the morning and one in the evening about your thoughts and how you are feeling, your everyday activities and social interactions.

“The results of our study will help us understand how people can maintain their wellbeing and social connectedness in times of social distancing. We expressly chose THRIVE as a title for the study because we want to convey the message that there are positive opportunities to develop new methods of social interaction even at this difficult time.”

There is certainly plenty of evidence that healthy social relationships are extremely important to good health.

“We know humans are social beings, we have a need to belong and that poor social relationships are poor for our health. Studies show that poor social relationships have a similar negative effect on health to smoking or alcohol consumption

COVID has created a unique context to help us understand how to manage isolation, what can help us make the best of the situation. Gratitude for the positive changes we can see like a view of the mountains untouched by pollution, more focus on creativity, new ways to connect with friends and family. While we all hope that the changes required by COVID will be short lived the resources that we find useful can be applied to help people that struggle with isolation.”

As someone who understands and researches the links between social interactions and health what advice does Theresa have for adapting to life in isolation?

“I enjoy alone time so the initial change wasn’t too bad. The most helpful thing I’ve found is to have a regular schedule. I still build my day as I did before COVID with scheduled work and leisure time and a daily walk for half an hour at lunchtime. I also try hard to set up social interactions each day, even if it is just a quick phone call. One thing I have tried with other grad students which works well is to have everyone in a Zoom meeting but to work independently. It gives you the feeling of working in a team and you can check in when you need to. I also can’t be watching Netflix all day because somebody knows!”

Thankfully despite the disruption to her work Theresa has been prevented from graduating on time: “In June I’ll be defending my thesis. I’ve heard stories from friends in Europe of thesis defences being delayed indefinitely, so I’m really grateful that UBC have been so organised. I just hope that there will enough normality to allow me to hit the ground running on my postdoc in Switzerland this September.”

More information about the study

https://blogs.ubc.ca/thrivestudy/

Sign up for the study:

https://ubc.ca1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6RwFu3ocxjDML1r

Immediate GSS Services and Events Changes

Posted on March 16, 2020January 7, 2022 by Comms

In light of the announcement that UBC classes will be moving online as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak the GSS has made the following decisions.

• All upcoming events, classes, and room bookings have been cancelled until further notice. This includes the Annual General Meeting on Thursday.

• Full refunds will be provided when applicable.

• The GSS offices in Thea Koerner House will be closed, but the Society will continue to work. GSS Executives and staff will be working remotely and can be contacted by email.

• Advocacy / Peer Support services will continue to operate normally, with student appointments being conducted online to minimize risk. If you wish to access our Peer Support Services, email advocacy@gss.ubc.ca

We encourage all students to keep up to date with UBC’s latest guidance on the issue: https://www.ubc.ca/campus-notifications/, and to minimize their risks by following the Province’s public health guidance.

The GSS is working closely with the Faculty of Graduate Studies to minimize the impact that the COVID-19 outbreak may have on Graduate Students. Please continue to follow the instructions given by UBC, and contact our Peer Support Services if you have concerns about being unfairly disadvantaged by the outbreak.

If you have concerns regarding your appointment as a Teaching Assistant, you should direct those to the TA Union, CUPE 2278, and contact either advocate@cupe2278.ca or president@cupe2278.ca

GSS endorses BCFS’s ‘Knock Out Interest on Student Loans!’ Campaign

Posted on March 2, 2020April 19, 2022 by Comms

Sara Hosseinirad VP External

The GSS is excited to announce our endorsement of the current ‘Knock Out Interest on Student Loans!’ campaign being running by the British Columbia Federation of Students (BCFS). We’re formally joining the list of organizations that have publicly declared their support for this campaign, including SFSS and UBC AMS.

First off, what is this campaign? And who is BCFS?

BCFS is a provincial advocacy alliance of universities and colleges from across B.C. They work to provide post-secondary student with a unified voice to influence access to education, operating at both provincial and federal levels. They’ve had some major victories in their campaigns, including their work to eliminate interest on B.C. student loans (which was successfully passed last year). Now they’re taking on eliminating interest on federal student loans in their ‘Knock Out Interest on Student Loans!’ campaign.

For the average Canadian student graduating from an undergraduate degree, they’re typically looking at $5,000 in interest on top of their federal loans. Interest on federal student loans has been shown to unfairly penalize low and middle-income students, making this a system that unfairly punishes those who can’t pay up front. Eliminating interest on these federal loans will help graduates focus less on debt and more on their career and lives. The GSS believes in accessible and affordable education, and we hope to see this campaign succeed.

So, what does our endorsement mean for GSS members?

Domestic graduate students often come to UBC with student loan debt from their undergrad. Despite the fact interest rates stall when individuals re-enter school, when these students finally finish graduate education they’re left with this accumulating expense from their undergrad. This is an additional burden and barrier to students looking to start their lives post-grad.

GSS VP External Relations, Sara Hosseinirad, says: “As always, we at the GSS will continue working and advocating for affordable education. Since this campaign is run by BCFS, they will be taking the lead on the advocacy and campaign work. The GSS will be supporting them by hosting local activities to raise awareness and support for ‘Knock Out Interest on Student Loans!’. If you want to have your own voice heard on this issue, any grad student can also sign the open letter individually.”

OPEN LETTER

Knockout Interest

Grad Life Through a Lens

Posted on February 5, 2020April 19, 2022 by Comms

Backpacking Brothers Graham Fonseca: Winner of the Winter 2019 Photo Contest

Graduate student life is better when it’s shared with friends and peers. Grad Life through your Lens is a competition that is about sharing. Sharing the experiences of campus life with other graduate students by capturing one of the moments of beauty, humour or friendship that make up graduate student life. We want images that capture your experiences at UBC!

Theme: Wonders at work! Show us something about your work or study as a grad student that you find exciting. It could be your workspace, an object or piece of equipment, a person – really anything, as long as it’s linked to your work or study (field work, internships or projects in all fields and disciplines).

Criteria:

All UBC Graduate students are invited to participate.
No more than 3 entries per person.
The judges will be taking in consideration the following: creativity, composition and relevance to the topic/theme.
Use common file formats (jpeg, gif, png, tiff) and a max. of 5 MB per photo. Make sure you retain a high-resolution copy of your photographs to ensure we can properly display them.
By submitting your photo to the contest, you must agree that you have permission to take the photo of the selected location, intellectual and/or artistic copyright, and individuals, and have their permission to enter the photo in this contest; and as the photographer, you retain copyright to the photo submitted, you grant the GSS a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual license to display your submitted images and use them in future marketing publications, on our website or elsewhere.
Judges reserve the right to exclude any photos that are deemed inappropriate and/or are a violation of Canadian Copyright laws.
Please do not submit photos of children unless there’s given consent.

Submissions:

Submit your photo via Instagram DM (UBCGSS) or to info@gss.ubc.ca
Submissions must include your name, title of the photo (description), location the photo was taken, and the name of your program.
Submissions close at noon on February 28^th, 2020

Judges:

Ben Hill, GSS Communications and Marketing Director, Ben manages the communications and marketing functions of the GSS as well as curating the GSS brand. As a communications professional in the the UK and Canada he has led a wide range of digital and print design projects.
Pouya Rezaeinia, GSS VP Students
Victoria Gomez, MLIS Student, LASSA Co-President, GSS Councillor iSchool

Prize: photo displayed in the GSS Loft as well as website plus $100 Gift Card

*Winner will be announced via email and posted on Social Media as well as the GSS Newsletter

Contact Us: If you have questions, please contact events@gss.ubc.ca

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Open Letter on the Changes to the MSP for International Students

Posted on January 28, 2020April 19, 2022 by Comms

This has been an advocacy priority for my Office over the last few months. The change to the MSP, which eliminates fees for Permanent Residents and Citizens came into force at the start of this year, but the same changes increased the fee for international students to $75 per month. This is a significant additional financial burden for international students, particularly for those with dependents.

The GSS were also extremely concerned about the decision to increase health care coverage fees for international students, without meaningful consultation with student associations, advocacy groups, or international students themselves.

We’ve been working with ABCS and student groups across the Province to create the open letter and to make these concerns clear to Provincial Government. We hope that the Province take notice of the strength of feeling, but even if this does not lead to immediate change, we will continue to fight for a policy that is fair to international students.

We’re delighted to join more than 180,000 students from 10 student associations across the province as signatories of an open letter to The Honourable Adrian Dix, Minister of Health regarding increased MSP fees impacting international students.

You can read the full letter here: bcstudents.ca/news but the key recommendation is that the BC Government: “commit to fairness on our campuses and either revert the changes made to international student contributions to the Medical Services Plan, or eliminate international student contributions to the Medical Services Plan altogether”. We’re very grateful to the Alliance of BC Students for coordinating the response.