Hi all,
Since last January, my cohort has been placed in Vancouver, so that we get a “feel” for the downtown atmosphere. We have had some unexpected surprises (I will get to that later), and also some down-right weird things happen. When I registered for the course, I did not know that we would be in a PHS building. I thought that Stenberg had another campus located downtown.
A new environment
On the first day, that is what I was expecting. I thought it would have just been a smaller campus, but actual classrooms. To my surprise, I walked into a building that belongs to PHS, with a room reserved for Stenberg students. To tell you the truth, I was not too happy with it. I would have liked to feel like I was actually a part of Stenberg College. When it all came down to it, in the end, we are a part of the college.
On student appreciation days, we are sent to the Surrey Campus (if there is room), and if not, than we usually get a little treat delivered to us. After a while of being in the classroom, it starts to feel like home. You get to know your classmates a lot better than if you were in the campus, taking all different courses than your class. I eventually got over the fact that we are not in Surrey all of the time, but one thing is that the commute to the classroom is not very exciting. I live in Surrey, but go out to Vancouver daily for class. I kind of got used to that as well.
My CMHAW class
Now let’s get to the part about the interesting things that happen to my class. Every once in a while, we have a surprise guest pop into say hello…ha ha… it is rather inconvenient at times, as we will be in the middle of a lesson, but they usually just ask a quick question, then are on their way. Sometimes though, we get the odd person standing at our window, deciding to stand there and look at us. It can get quite uncomfortable. Usually, that is when our instructor will stand up and say something. Sometimes, we have some of the PHS staff walking through our classroom to get to the kitchen. I think it is a short cut. We usually don’t mind all of the interruptions, they are typically brief.
One time a few months back, we had an incident where the fire alarm kept going off in the middle of a PSYCH class, because they were doing testing all that day, so luckily we got an early dismissal. It was far too distracting. Sometimes it is nice to have our class out in Vancouver, because we have our own privacy, but at the same time, it can get irritating to have to go all the way out there (especially Monday mornings). It may have been a good idea to have the CMHAW class out there for a few months, just to get used to the area, but to have to go out every day is a bit too much. Not every cohort has to come out to the Vancouver classroom, but I am glad that mine does. It is a new experience.
