When Angelina Hang received her acceptance offer to Shad2023 she was over the moon with excitement. She had heard so much about the program and was anticipating all the amazing things she’d be exploring, and the people she would be exploring them with, that July.

Angelina Hang with Shadbot
Angelina Hang with Shadbot

What she was less sure of was where she’d be attending Shad. Angelina was part of the first cohort of Shads at the new Thompson River University (TRU) campus in Kamloops, British Columbia, which was a city and university she didn’t know much about. “Even though I live in Vancouver, I had never been to Kamloops and didn’t really know what to expect.”

But any reservations she might have had evaporated the moment she arrived in Kamloops and stepped onto the TRU campus.

“Kamloops is a city that not many young people are familiar with, but it’s really a beautiful city. The campus is surrounded by nature and feels so quiet compared to Vancouver. We literally had deer coming up to us on campus, which was wild. We learned about birds and trees and things that were indigenous to the area, it was an awesome experience.”

Landscape of areas surrounding Kamloops, BC
Landscape of areas surrounding Kamloops, BC

TRU as an institution has an environmental focus, so Angelina and her fellow Shads had the opportunity to explore climate science through workshops led by university experts. They learned how to build solar panels and how engineering is used for other technologies that are integral to fighting climate change.

The environment in Kamloops also presented the opportunity to explore a novel climate and the unique rocks and plant life it holds, as well as some amazing waterfalls in the area, which Angelina found particularly thrilling.

Zhiyuan with a Shad fellow at a waterfall in Kamloops
Zhiyuan with a Shad fellow at a waterfall in Kamloops

“Because Kamloops is technically a desert, we were able to learn so much about climate and geology. Our Program Director (PD), Tom Dickenson, was incredibly knowledgeable. He took us on a trip out to the desert area and taught us about the topography and the different plants that grow in that climate, which was really interesting, unlike anything I had seen before.”

Angelina had always loved chemistry and was able to explore that passion more fully in the university-level labs they participated in at TRU. The Shads learned how to use different chemicals to extract the fluoride from mouthwash, which measurements of each ingredient were necessary to maximize the amount extracted and how to use a spectrometer to examine the results. This experience solidified Angelina’s love of chemistry and her desire to pursue a degree in that field at university.

TRU cohort

Sierra Na had her own reasons for attending Shad, but like Angelina, TRU and Kamloops were a bit of a mystery to the student from Calgary, Alberta. Though she had expectations of the Shad program, namely the ability to explore a variety of different career pathways, she did not have any expectations regarding TRU.

“I wasn’t familiar with TRU before receiving the email from Shad telling me that was the campus I was assigned to. And I think that actually helped me to have such an amazing time, to really enjoy the experience, because I had no expectations built up in my head about how it would be. I was able to just absorb it day by day.”

Before attending Shad at TRU, the only knowledge of Kamloops Sierra really had was that of the city’s former Residential School, about which she knew little. Because each Shad campus offers local Indigenous programming that allows Shads to connect with teachings from local Indigenous communities, the Shads at TRU visited the former Residential School in Kamloops and were provided a history of the institution from a local Indigenous leader. The experience was incredibly impactful, and Sierra felt grateful to have been offered insight into this history from those who had experienced it firsthand.

Shads at TRU receiving Indigenous teachings from local Indigenous communities
Shads at TRU receiving Indigenous teachings from local Indigenous communities

“It was such an amazing opportunity to be able to go to the School and hear about it from someone with firsthand knowledge. It was a really powerful moment, because of course we had learned about it at school, but being able to see how deeply it affected Indigenous communities helped me to get a deeper understanding of the issue and the importance of perspectives and acknowledging the experiences of others.”

Unlike Angelina, Sierra hadn’t yet decided on which field of study she wanted to pursue at post-secondary. She didn’t identify as a STEM-oriented student who was passionate about a single subject, and instead had several interests she hoped to delve into. “I thought Shad would offer an opportunity to gain access to different degree options and careers that I could explore.”

The high school Sierra attends has only one business course, but at Shad she was able to gain broad insight into the world of business and entrepreneurship, which she realized she thoroughly enjoyed. She found the design project particularly exciting. She enjoyed the process of listening to a lesson from local business leaders, like Venture Kamloops, and then having the opportunity to put those lessons into practice with her group, using the information to tackle the real-world problem they had been challenged to address that summer.

Picture of the city of Kamloops as seen by Sierra Na
Picture of the city of Kamloops as seen by Sierra Na

“Working in groups, we were able to plan and engage in a cycle of ideation and prototyping to really bring our design idea to life. It was a structured process that really taught us the steps of starting a business, starting with the creative thinking, and moving into things like financials and business planning. I just loved it.”

The experience prompted Sierra to apply to post-secondary business schools for fall 2024, many of which are out of province. Her time away from home at TRU helped her to gain the confidence she needed to apply to university programs outside of Alberta, knowing she could handle being on her own. She remains grateful for her time at TRU and the campus placement she didn’t know she wanted.

“Even though TRU wasn’t necessarily my first choice because I didn’t really know much about it, it ended up being the perfect campus for me. I am really outdoorsy and TRU was so picturesque, it sits up on a hill and it’s surrounded by rivers and trees, and the professors there really helped me to see what I wanted to do at university. I’m so glad I ended up where I did.”

Shads at a workshop on the TRU campus
Shads at a workshop on the TRU campus

Zhiang Guo from Surrey, BC, feels much the same about his summer at TRU with Shad. He had heard from peers that Shad was an amazing place to make connections with others and had seen projects completed by alum that had really inspired him, which prompted him to pursue his own Shad journey.

He thought he knew what to expect from Kamloops, since he already lived in BC, but he was surprised by how different it was from his hometown. One of his favourite parts of the program was venturing out into nature on a camping trip with his fellow Shads, exploring Kamloops off the beaten path.

“We had an excellent mentor who was an expert in nature. He took us into his lifelong project, which was a fully self-sustaining cabin in the woods. We camped there for two days and learned all about how he designed the cabin, what tools he used to keep it working off the grid, the tech behind it. It was really cool.”

Zhiyuan with one of the AI nursing dummies at TRU
Zhiyuan with one of the AI nursing dummies at TRU

Because TRU has a prominent nursing program, the Shads were able to participate in a health workshop where they practiced providing certain emergency care, like CPR, to dummies with Artificial Intelligence (AI), which for a computer science enthusiast like Zhiyuan was pretty exciting. TRU is one of the few nursing schools to have access to this teaching technology, which made for a unique and exciting experience.

“It was incredible, they were basically these human robots that we could interact with, and they would talk to us and tell us their symptoms. We were able to practice our CPR and the doll would measure our compressions to see how effective they were.”

Because Kamloops is the “Tournament Capital of Canada”, no summer at ShadTRU would be complete without attending a sporting event. Zhiyuan and his fellow Shads attended a local baseball game to cheer on the Kamloops Northpaws. “They were playing an Edmonton team, so we cheered for Kamloops because they were our adopted home team for the summer.”

Shads cheering on the Kamloops Northpaws at local baseball game
Shads cheering on the Kamloops Northpaws at local baseball game

Looking back at their summer at ShadTRU, Angelina, Sierra, and Zhiyuan are all grateful to have been a part of the first cohort of Shads in Kamloops for Shad2023. Though they each had their own unique motivations for attending the program, they agree they couldn’t have asked for a better experience with a better group of peers. They hope future Shads will be open to the opportunity of exploring a city and campus they might not know now but that they will have the chance to fall in love with, just as they did.

“Looking back, what I know now is that there are benefits that exist at every campus, and many of them stem from the differences in the cities where they’re located and the difference in programs at the universities. There’s something amazing being offered wherever you end up, something new and exciting to explore, so just take the opportunity to dive in and enjoy it.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *