A warm welcome to all new graduate students at UBC (and an equally warm welcome to those who want to come back for their second, third, or umpteenth year, you deserve a stamina award!).  

You begin your UBC journey in the late summer, greeted by green grass, verdant trees, pleasant architecture, and the breathtaking backdrop of the sea and mountains. You are excited by the possibilities before you… after all, you have so much time to accomplish your goals. The Graduate Student Society orientation events are fun, and you meet new people. Vancouver is a beautiful city, and you can imagine living here for 4 years or more. The future is grand. 

Fast forward: it’s raining for the 10th day in a row, the temperature hovering just above zero. Your eyes hurt from all the reading you’ve done, or papers you’ve graded. Your advisor seems unsatisfied with your research progress (or perhaps you are projecting your own anxiety). You would love to get out of your overpriced room and have a meal with some friends but you realize you don’t have any…and you wouldn’t be able to afford it anyway. You miss your family, your home.  

I’m not going to lie, graduate school is not all peaches and cream. There will be moments of excitement, satisfaction, curiosity, uncertainty, disappointment, stress, and fatigue. But our mission at the GSS is to be here for you. We listen to you, our fellow students, and advocate for your needs. We run surveys, propose reforms, lobby the university and the government, organize workshops and extracurricular activities, and host fun and silly events to unwind.  

The GSS executives and staff have a number of goals this year, including: 

• Advocating for continued increase of funding for graduate students  

• Creating more social opportunities for graduate students from different departments to meet each other 

• Enhancing our affordable food programs  

• Raising awareness among the UBC administration, and conceptualizing initiatives, to address various student concerns about teaching and learning modalities; research networking; supervisory relations; ethical investing; equity, diversity, and inclusion; and special challenges faced by certain groups of students (e.g. parent students; those affected by conflict or natural disasters; and others) 

• Supporting and connecting student groups 

• And generally being your favourite partner (if you don’t have one already!) in personal growth, health, and happiness. Who knows, you might meet your future spouse at a GSS event (it has happened, true story) 

I look forward to meeting (aka spamming) each and every one of you lol. But seriously, if you want to meet or chat about anything, from serious to frivolous, drop me an email (president@gss.ubc.ca) or a message on social media (IG: firth_m, Facebook: Firth McEachern). 

Enjoy the green grass and fresh glow of new student life while it lasts. 🙂 

Best, 

Firth MacKenzie McEachern