"I've been at Sheridan College for 6 years now. I'm currently trying to finish my final year of Illustration and I fear my thesis and shot at graduating is in jeopardy. I am witnessing the impact on not on myself, but my fellow friends, peers, instructors and even within my family. All of us are sharing the same pain at this very moment.
I am trying to complete my thesis and other assignments; however, my curriculum does not require us to complete assignments using textbooks and lectures. We rely on the feedback from our instructors as we treat them as Art Directors. Our curriculum in not an objective right or wrong concept, the arts is entirely subjective. The lack of response I am permitted from my faculty is causing my work to lead in a direction in which I don't know if it is going to help me gain the attention of potential employers if I am ever hopeful in graduating. I am struggling to go back to my work table as I am shooting in the dark while feeling intense emotional and mental stress through anxiety and soon to be depression. The limited schedule remaining will be detrimental to my workflow and my peers' that we will have to face whenever this strike comes to a conclusion. This is writing with whatever hope is left within myself and my education.
The current news of the plans for the Winter Break and Winter Term is a mind-boggling shock that's struck us all to the core. I've been working during the holiday season since I was in my later years in high school. That's 8 years coming this year of working during the holiday season which includes Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve & New Year's Day to allow me to make ends meet. I use this opportunity to help fund myself financially and my duty as a son trying to help his parents' independently owned family business. I don't party, I work by sweating and bleeding myself out to stay 1 or 2 steps ahead to the best of my ability to keep myself afloat.
This new plan for the Winter Term that drastically shortens the Winter Break and the loss of the reading week will, in fact, affect all students and even a faculty's mental health and capacity to work at their best. I assure you, the results will not be the greatest. If it is expected for us to summon what little willpower will be left of us and "suck it up", then that's living in a dreamland. We are humans made of flesh and bones with a presence of thought. We are by no means machines built from nuts and bolts. But even so, machines have a limit before they're broken and discarded. The lives of human beings are going to be put to the test-physically, mentally and emotionally. The last thing we need is a parent finding out that their child who went to study far away from home or 1 hours worth of commute is found in a condition I refuse to speak of. It may or may not happen here in Canada as much as in other countries, but it still can.
