Gurvir Chana

My name is Gurvir a.k.a GV and I am a third year honours Life Sciences student at McMaster University. Honestly, I didn’t know what I was applying to at first since it was a new course and no one really told me about it. I got an email about the course 2 hours before the deadline and just applied because it seemed cool and I can officially confirm that it is. CityLAB Semester In Residence (SIR) has been the best experience I’ve had at university by far. One aspect of the overall experience are the weekly field trips where we would go to a different part of Hamilton and think of ways to improve that specific area. For example, we went to an intersection in the heart of Dundas and we worked together to come up with a way to future proof the area and better utilize the parking lot in that area. In addition to the field trips, we do various assignments and reflections. The background learning that we get from our esteemed professors is actually amazing. The knowledge we gain and the discussions we have are all implementable. Everything we learn is action-oriented. We then take the new knowledge, mix it with our existing knowledge then apply it to real problems in the city. The coolest part is that we get to see our plans go into action and make real impact. Personally, I have learned so much about so many different things. This course is like one of those movies where they get individuals from a different field and expertise, and put them all in a room to solve the life and death types of problems. That’s what this course is, well minus the life and death part. I’ll walk in and think I’m Iron Man sometimes. I didn’t just learn tangible skills but personal skills that I’ll have for the rest of my life. I think the best part of CityLAB SIR is definitely the people. Having students from different faculties work on the same problems leads to bringing out comprehensive solutions that are just simply amazing. Learning from each and every one of them gives me a reason to wake up in the morning. Each person involved in CityLAB has a unique skill or quality that just makes them amazing and having the opportunity to be in the presence of such elite people is an experience on it’s own. I look forward to the lifetime relationships that were made during this experience with everyone at CityLAB. Honestly, I could write so much more about this experience but I’m going to sign off by saying that I’m so glad I decided to apply to this course and if you’re looking to apply, just do it because it’s worth it.