Sitting in a classroom eagerly awaiting the arrival of my French classmates caused a mixture of anxiety and excitement. What will I say? What do I do with my hands? Do I kiss them on the cheek or shake their hand? The doors swung open and a parade of students from Grenoble Ecole de Management (GEM) filled the seats, faces showing equal parts confusion and curiosity. This was the start of the joint semester in Social Entrepreneurship between GEM and the Beedie School of Business. Between the Anglophones saying “salut,” and asking, “ça va?” and the Francophones responding very politely, adding things like “tres bien” to make us feel better, I realized this isn’t a semester just for studying, but also for cross cultural learning.
After a welcome in
to the program, Dr. Sarah Lubik took the floor and introduced the academic side of the program. The day went on including a tour of the campus and a very funny, and quite accurate, presentation on Canadian culture (we do love our beer, eh?!). As the day at SFU was coming to a close we all met up by the Residence Dining Hall, hopped into a big, yellow, sadly not magic, school bus and made our way downtown for the welcome dinner. The drive was like no other. With loud chants originating from the back of the bus and making its way to the front we knew that the students from GEM were here for much more than just a semester abroad. They wanted to make their presence known; Grenoble Ecole de Management is here. The chats continued for the duration of the trip, we, the SFU students, joined after a few of the GEM students helped us learn the basics. Soon we arrived at our destination and poured out of the bus with our near empty stomachs ready to be filled. The dinner consisted of the SFU students, including myself, trying to learn French, everyone sharing great laughs, Russia scoring 3 consecutive goals only to lose to Canada 5-4 in the gold medal game of the world juniors (cheering ensued), and, of course, speeches from the program professors and staff.
The week flew by with everyone looking forward to the weekend retreat. Friday morning started with everyone meeting up and taking another big, yellow, and again not magic, school bus to Mt. Seymour to go tobogganing. After we grew tired of walking up the toboggan hill a small, but fun, free-for-all snowball fight ensued, which ended with a 5-year-old smashing one right in my face. His face read, “whatcha gonna to do about it?” He knew what he did and he knew he won. Well played 5-year-old, well played. After our lungs couldn’t bear being active anymore, we went up to the lodge and gathered for lunch. We were back to SFU shortly after that, and I realized something: This is going to be fun and stressful. We were comfortable enough to tackle each other, share some good laughs, and even joke around with each other, but there was also the worry of the semester. What about the work we have to do? That was answered the next day.
8am on Saturday we all gather
ed in the atrium above Tim Hortons and stuffed our faces with doughnuts and washed it down with some coffee. The day was dedicated to team building. After introductions we made a giant circle to play the name game. In the midst of associating everyone’s names with a silly action, we laughed, yelled, and got slightly embarrassed if we forgot a name. We then shared artifacts that had personal meaning, but also motivated us to become innovators. The artifacts ranged from photographs of families, to books, to travel, to volunteer mementos. Each had a compelling story behind it, all of them moving and motivating. We all wanted to be better, do better, and create change.
That’s the importance of this program; creating a change. We’re not here to become rich, we’re not here to innovate for the sake of innovating. We’re here because we’re driven, and from what this past week has shown us, we have an opportunity to use this drive to create the change we want to see. We bonded over our passion to discover, innovate, and materialize our ideas. Between that, litres of coffee a week, and some fun, who knows what this semester will bring us? All I know is that whatever it is, it won’t be mediocre.
