Have you heard about the great PGSS events this academic year? Well I hope you have attended some too! My committee and I are very happy to organize and host them for all graduate students of McGill!

My name is Konstantina and I am a 3^rd year PhD Candidate in Mining and Materials Engineering. This year I am honoured to serve the Post Graduate Students’ Society members as the Internal Affairs Officer, I am the person sending you the bi-weekly emails!  My goal this year, is to create a sense of community, connect people from different departments and host meaningful events that grad students will look forward to attending.

The year started planning the Fall Orientation, with more than 20 events for incoming and returning students during September. Flourishing existing events, while creating new ones that were super well attended! The participation and feedback we got was overwhelming, based on which we are designing the rest of the year, setting the bar quite high!

Up to now, we had two major parties, the Housewarming and Halloween , where the whole house was packed with graduate students! Very exciting! During the past months, we hosted several events, such as board game nights, marshmallow and mulled wine nights, apple and pumpkin picking, while taking advantage of Quebec’s nature we explored hiking trails. We hosted a thanksgiving dinner and plan on hosting a holiday festive dinner  before winter break, open to all!

November’s new initiative is PGSS’ Eco Week, with daily events, which ended with an amazing Market at Thomson House. We had 25 partners tabling and almost 100 give-aways for the participants. The following week we hosted the Zero Waste week challenge, where students could participate in a week-long challenge, and as a community find sustainable ways and give practical tips to each other on how to lower our footprint in simple ways.

Our events are family friendly, and I hope student-parents feel included and welcomed to attend. We also host event designed only around them, like Parent-kids yoga. Grad life, in-between deadlines, meetings and lab work can be very demanding, so it’s vital to accommodate and do make everyone feel welcome!

Finally, the next step after these amazing first 6 months is the Winter Orientation! Planning daily events for incoming and returning students, like snowshoeing, skiing, skating, movie nights, board games and crawls. As a student who started in January myself, I believe so much more effort is needed to fit in. Therefore, incoming students deserve to have an Orientation week equal to the one we hosted during fall. I know, I know…we can’t have a BBQ when its -30 degrees outside! What about a Housewarming though? OK. Sounds like a plan. Saturday, January 12^th, book your calendars for the first big pyjama party of the year!

Please feel free to reach out to me at internal.pgss@mail.mcgill.ca , if you have an idea for an event or if you would like to get involved and plan these amazing events with me.

Cheers, Konstantina