Connor Turland+App1+AppQ6

Over time, I noticed the 'work yourself to death' climate at University beginning to get to me. I didn't wait long to act and reduced my courseload, and while continuing to take some classes, began to see more clearly the negative impacts that fell on other students who stayed in full time classes. When the right time arose, namely January 2012, I began with my colleague Benjamin Carr what came to be known as SHIFT, a weekly meeting on Wednesday nights that provided a place of lively participative discussion, adventuring, risk-taking, creative thinking and more.  We consistently designed and facilitated these sessions, which proved to be incredibly rewarding for both us, and other participants. In this case, I identified a need which mattered to me, a gaping whole in the lives of students for meaningful discussion and connection, and produced the necessary results consistently to make a small iterative first approach, all generated from a place of internal motivation.