I guess what ill say in my blog to kick things off is to try my best to set the stage for the rest of the year.

If I have one piece of advice to give to you even though this sounds entirely cliché, that piece of advice is to get involved; to take that step and make that choice.

Decide to take that initial step and walk into our office. Take that leap of faith and get involved in a club, or at an event, or as a senator, or even as a security guard. It doesn’t really matter so much as to what you do, it’s more about the fact that you took that initial step; because in reality, that’s what we need as an organization. We need the people to come in and take that initiative, to take that leap of faith.

I can remember when I first got here. I was sitting in a seat in the engineering annex (aka L building). I remember the teacher had just got done doing his spiel and so did the student president of our petroleum engineering technology student executive. Then a random dude stood up and started to explain to us this opportunity to run as a senator for NAITSA. I remember him saying that it was a small commitment and looked great on a resume.

The first thing that started to run through my head as I listened to him speak, was how I used to be involved back in high school and how I was pretty good at it. I mean I can honestly say that I enjoyed those times, which so happened to have taken place more than 4 years ago.

Then I started to picture that one line at the bottom of my resume stating “SENATOR” and how it would be exclusive to MY resume, the advantage to my future employer, and what that would mean. Then I started to think of all the money in extra scholarships that I would get because I was involved at such a prestigious level within this school. To be honest I was feeling pretty good about it.

Almost simultaneously I began to realize that half the people in this room were second years. I mean what does that do to my chances of winning this? Then, well what if I lost! What would that mean? A huge hit in the pride factor that’s for sure. Then, well a second year really deserves this more than I do I thought. I mean they would kind of have seniority over me, wouldn’t they? Doesn’t putting in your time count for something? Well I know it does for me, but is this the place where a rule like this would count? In fact there is probably second years who have been planning for this since last Spring and have 50% of the room were sitting in ready to give their votes.

With all that going through my mind I hadn’t realized that I had taken myself out of the race even before I had put one poster up.

But then luckily my brain made a come back and said “well.. if that’s the case then what would it really mean if I could win, what if I could actually pull this off!”

Wow a first year actually taking this down! And what about next year? What could I get involved with next year? I pictured myself feeling unstoppable.

Looking back I’m not sure if what I thought was right, or wrong or even normal but I know one thing is true. Actually making that choice to go down to the NAITSA office and pick up a package put me on a route to something that completely changed my life.

It’s that decision that is responsible in itsself for where I am in my life right now, VP Campus Life. And its that decision that has me sitting here at my office on a Saturday afternoon excited to share a story with you because I love what I do.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t tell you this to impress you. I tell you this to impress upon you, the importance of going above the classroom and beyond the basic curriculum.  The friendships I’ve been blessed to be apart of, the “real life skills” I’ve learned over the course of the past two years, and the memories that I have close to my heart are things ill never let go of.

So I guess that might have been a bit deep haha. But you know what? My goal this year and the entire reason why I’m sitting here right and ran for this position is because I want to change people’s lives. I want you to look back on this experience and say to your self “wow”, I’ll never forget what NAITSA has done for me. I’ll never forget that memory. Now what that specific memory is can be different for every body and I cant tell you what exactly that would look like. But I do know that I have memories like that from a university I used to go to. I know that those memories are something that I’ll never forget, and those experiences have changed my life.

You may be asking “How do you plan on doing something like this Tyler?” Well I believe it lies in enriched experiences. I truly believe that putting the money back into the students is how you do this. To create an event that really blows you away or that you can take from and apply it in your every day life. To jolt you emotionally when someone from the International Justice mission comes in to speak at a 30 hour famine about human trafficking right here in Edmonton. Or when an Olympian comes in to speak of incredible odds and how they’ve over come them. Or that night on a riverboat where everyone was dressed up like pirates and rocked out to a cover band all night long like they’ve known each other all their lives, or maybe its helping you discover a hidden talent like playing guitar! It doesn’t really matter what the event is, we all have our ways of having fun, what does matter though, is what you take away from our events, and how our events can help you have the best possible experience here at NAIT.

I think I’ll leave you with a quote from a TED talk I just finished listening to. It was about James Cameron’s life, his quests to the bottom of the ocean, and how his creativity and brevity led him to creating the biggest blockbuster of our time, Avatar. In it there are two main themes in my opinion and here is one of them:

“Failure is an option, but fear is not”.