Student Stories

While Nadia Linning has always had an interest in the field of travel, tourism and recreation, a co-op opportunity this past summer resulted in a whole new experience and role for her, one that she ultimately ended up excelling in.

Nadia, a fourth-year student in VIU’s Bachelor of Tourism Management program, worked as a Fire Information Assistant with the BC Wildfire Service during the 2022 wildfire season.

For VIU student Hunter Jarratt, a social media account with a sizeable following and somewhat niche subject matter came about rather unexpectedly.

Hunter, a fourth-year student in the Bachelor of Natural Resource Protection Program, is the creator and personality behind @InvasiveSpeciesGuy on both TikTok and Instagram.

Every year in BC, a series of contests are held for university students learning Chinese to present their language and cultural knowledge to a panel of judges.

My name is Sarah Osborne and I am a fourth-year student in the Child and Youth Care program at VIU. This fall, I had the opportunity to go on exchange to the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences (Norges Idrettshogskole, or NIH) in Oslo, Norway.

Receiving the Queen Elizabeth II Scholarship Award this past year was an honour that allowed me to live the experience of a lifetime and fulfill a dream that I otherwise would not have been able to.

Gabrielle Hayashi Santos has been interested in the topic of internationalizing education ever since she was in high school.

It’s an interest that led the Brazilian graduate to apply for – and receive – a 12-week internship at Vancouver Island University in 2019, through the Mitacs Globalink Research Internship program.

What originally started as a “small summer project” for Samantha Beynon has now led to a published children’s book.

Samantha is a VIU Bachelor of Education student who is heading into her fifth year this fall. She says the book, Oolichan Moon, published by Harbour Publishing, will be widely available on shelves as of this October.

“I actually wrote it a couple of years ago, and self-published it,” she explains. 

Madelaine Jones says students should enrol in VIU’s Co-operative Education program because they can gain work experience that could help them land a good job after graduation.

She is currently completing an eight-month work term for the Federal Government of Canada doing software development and loves it. For the first half of her work term, Madelaine worked remotely. For the second half she moved to Ottawa, Ontario. One of the great things about co-ops is you can discover which jobs are the right fit for you, says Madelaine.

The living world has fascinated Ally Badger ever since she was a child, and she always knew she wanted to pursue biology.

She graduated this June with a Bachelor of Science, majoring in Biology. Navigating the challenges of the pandemic and the worsening climate crisis over the past few hasn’t been easy, but despite these obstacles Ally received a perfect grade point average.