SEBASTIAN LORA (they/he)

What brought you to KPU and your program of study?

When I started at KPU, I was seventeen years old, freshly graduated from high school, and of course, hadn’t the slightest idea as to what post-secondary path I should take, or how to navigate a system like academia given the tremendous pressure I felt to not squander this time in my life and the opportunities I was told it would yield. KPU came highly recommended to me at a high school career fair. I started in general studies with the aim to try new things, and was immediately moved by the passion and the innovation from instructors I have come to view as my mentors, and people with tremendous impact on how I engage teaching and research, like Seema Ahluwalia, who believed in me at a time when I didn’t believe in myself. I was also grateful to study under other wonderful instructors like Amir Mirfakhraie, Melinda Bige, and Kyle Mitchell.

Can you briefly describe your current position and your main day to day responsibilities?

Currently, I’m a second year PhD student at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (University of Toronto). I’m studying in the Adult Education & Community Development program, and planning a dissertation looking to more deeply understand settler complicity to genocide within an academic/educational context. After this coming school year, I will complete my coursework, and following comps, work on my dissertation full-time!

I hold two graduate student research positions, including a project in social economy and critical disability under Dr Marcelo Vieta (this project gave rise to my first publication, hopefully out soon!), and a position in the editorial board for Curriculum Inquiry (an internationally renown scholarly journal) under its editor in chief, Dr Arlo Kempf.

Which skills, knowledge, or experiences from KPU have been most valuable in your career so far?

There have been valuable networking experiences for me thanks to KPU instructors like Seema, whose practice invites experts from community and the field to engage students and inspire closer student-engagement with the material and the real-world issues they cover. During first year, Seema invited Tamara Starblanket (Nehiyaw Jurist and Native Education College VP of academics) as a guest lecturer for our intro to sociology class, and again for a book launch and teach-in organized for KPU's Indigenization & Decolonization event in 2019.

Seema personally introduced me, and years later, I went on to work for Tamara at the Native Education College as the department manager and instructor for the Family & Community Counselling Certificate & Diploma programs, prior to starting my PhD. Meeting these people has had an enormous impact on me, and has put me on a path where I feel I have not only advanced in my field, but I have done so more confidentally, and more ready to take on the world than I would have been had it not been for my experiences at KPU.

What advice would you give current KPU students who want to build a successful career after graduation?

I would tell them first that only they can define what "successful" looks like. School is difficult, deciding what you want to do with yourself after is difficult, and keeping it all together while you navigate life outside of those familiar structures is beyond difficult. But I also believe that there are things that are meant to be difficult and to challenge us, and that these can be good things. Those challenges exist to make us grow, to make us critical about the way the world works, and to make us creative in how we choose to address it all. Be kind to yourself throughout that entire process. And stay friends with your favourite profs! Ten years later, they still teach me new things that help me on my way.