Sixty years through the eyes of a Waterloo student

Hannah Beckett shares her perspective on life at Waterloo

Hannah Beckett portraitHannah Beckett is a co-op student studying political science and digital arts communication in the Faculty of Arts.

As our community reflects on 60 years as an institution, I’m thinking a lot about a personal milestone sneaking up on me — my graduation next year. My time at the University of Waterloo has led to some of my greatest moments and some of my most significant challenges. I had to accept that my marks wouldn’t match the averages I became accustomed to achieving easily in high school. I moved away from a small town, lived with a roommate in Ron Eydt Village, and started with a blank slate, figuring out who I wanted to be. I experienced the stress of three midterms scheduled for the same day, and the anxiety that comes around every hiring season for co-op. While those moments felt like my whole world at the time, they helped prepare me to overcome obstacles.

The Waterloo community often speaks about the incredible achievements of its students, and rightfully so. Many are performing brilliantly in their fields, providing insights others have missed, and bringing the lessons of their education to everyday life. What we don’t see are the moments where the stress feels like it is almost too much, where things don’t work out as planned and the self-doubt is overwhelming. But I have always been surrounded by students who wouldn’t let me give up. These people motivated me to expand my knowledge beyond the silo of my program and to self-educate on topics that would never arise in my regular academic stream. Waterloo doesn’t simply strive for success. Sixty years of growth and development have created a community that, like its students, refuses to be complacent and will continue to challenge limitations.

The opportunities I have had, both in the classroom and out, have made the last four years unforgettable. I spent two weeks travelling in Israel, studying business development and cultural literacy, completed co-op jobs in Calgary, Los Angeles and Toronto, and participated in a variety of extracurricular opportunities such as co-founding the UW Volunteer Centre. I found my niche in user-experience design by combining the robust research skills I developed in political science with the courses I took as part of a minor in digital arts communications.

Through significant trial and error, I found a path that I feel confident in pursuing and feel ready to take my next steps, whether they take me to grad school or the professional world. When I reflect on who I was before starting university, that person feels foreign because of how much my experience has shaped who I have become today. When the University of Waterloo was founded in 1957, it was ahead of its time and it still is. I am grateful to be part of a community that celebrates our successes and will always offer a helping hand when needed.


Photo credit: One for the Wall