This week’s campus celebrity is Hasina Shain Daya, this year’s president of Residence Society. Residence Society puts in their best effort all year long to represent and take care of the students living in residence, including everything from upholding residence rules to planning great social events for residents, and in the middle of it all is Hasina. Read on to get to know this great Gael as more than just ResSoc’s fearless leader!*
Name: Hasina Shain Daya
Title: President & C.E.O. of Residence Society
Year: 4th
Studying: Global Development & Religious Studies
So what extra-curricular activities are you involved in, including ResSoc?
Aside from a full course load, I’m the president of the Residence Society, which is about a minimum 40 hour commitment a week, and that’s not only engaging with my fifty staff members and the executives, but also sitting on things like AMS Assembly, Budget Advisory, Senate Residence Committee, admissions, fees, meal plan, Food Committee, things like that, so it’s a pretty hefty extra-curricular in itself. So I cut down this year, but in addition to Residence Society this year, I’m also a Girl Guide leader in the Kingston Community for a group of nine to twelve year old Girl Guides, and I’ve been a member of Girl Guides of Canada for sixteen years now. I also sit on the Board of Directors as an elected member of Ontario Council for Girl Guides of Canada. And I’m the Religious Studies Department Student Council chair, and I also hold a part-time job in Kingston.
What made you want to get involved in so much? Are you just someone who has always been involved in a lot?
In high school, I kind of came from that big fish in a fairly small pond setting, where the things I was involved in were successful and I had an opportunity for a lot of leadership things. Coming into Queen’s, it was harder because there was so much to get involved in and you didn’t know what were the clubs that were successful and what weren’t successful. So I kind of tested the waters by getting involved in everything, trying to get involved in as many things as possible and seeing what I enjoyed and the type of people I enjoyed being around, what clubs they were part of. I got involved through Clubs Night in second year, because I spent my first year at the Bader International Study Centre at the Queen’s Castle in England, and I also kind of followed the route of things that I thrived well in in high school, and where I thought I could provide some leadership and experience coming into university.
How did you find trying to balance all these clubs with your schoolwork?
That was a tough piece because I never really mastered it. I always say that I’ve learned the most from my experience at Queen’s outside the classroom. I’ve learned more in clubs and I’ve learned more from my leadership experiences and I’ve learned more sitting on committees than I have in any one given classroom just because it challenges you to put what you have learned in classrooms and by giving presentations forward. So I guess I manage things by prioritising; figuring out what’s important to me, what I’m going to be able to give the most to and where the most growth is going to come back to me, and then just going from there in terms of budgeting and a timetable. Prioritising is really important because in second year I got involved in a lot, and when I started to realise that things weren’t necessarily up my alley, I slowly started to cut those. And it sucks because at times you could be letting people down, but it’s important at the end of the day that you always think about what ultimately is good for you, and burnout is the number one thing to avoid in university because not only will your mental health and your physical health take a toll, your academics and your extra-curriculars take a toll, so it’s better to stop before you get to burnout phase.
[ pagebreak ]
What has been the most fun working with ResSoc?
I’ve really enjoyed working one-on-one and in groups with the staff this year. They’re all really diverse, they’re all from different programs, they’re all really involved in the Queen’s community, and they all have something different that they’re good at, and so I’m learning so much more from them, and often I feel like I’m taking more than I’m giving. Being in this role, I’m learning so much and I’m gaining so much growth, and I hope that everyone I interact with kind of feels the same way about my impact on them. So definitely the most fun has been working alongside really committed, motivated, enthusiastic, teammates.
What has been the most fun about your Queen’s experience overall?
What I really appreciate about Queen’s is how it’s something for everyone. So if you’re outgoing and enthusiastic, there are those clubs that involve you working with other people and engaging with other people and giving back to the community; if you’re the type of person who loves to volunteer there’s something for you, but if you’re the type of person who would just like to learn to dance and not really have to chat with other people and just go through those classes, there are things for you. If you’re the type of person who likes to watch anime there’s something for you. And so I feel like at Queen’s, if you want to get involved, no matter who you are, it’s fairly easy. There’s something for everyone. And I think that Kingston, once you make it your home, is a place you can never really get bored of, because every day is a new adventure, a.k.a. getting lost on the buses, but every new person you interact with, everyone has a story.
So what does a day in your life look like?
So the latest I mostly wake up is seven in the morning, and that would be the absolute latest, and normally if I have class I’ll go to class at 8:30, but I start my day by sending out e-mails to execs or staff members, catching up on anything that happened the night before, and figuring out what my day is going to look like, so looking at my schedule, looking at my calendar, looking at my one-on-ones and making sure all the executives that directly report to me are all on task. Then I go to class, most often I have a minimum of two to four meetings a day, I have office hours almost every day, so a day in the life is basically meetings, class, office hours, one-on-ones with execs and team-building type stuff and then a little bit of ‘me’ time, I try and find some. ‘Me’ time to me is time away from this work and school. I consider myself as far on the extraverted scale as possible, so some people, they need their alone time to kind of think and self-reflect. For me, rather than alone time, I like to chat things over with other people and talk about my day, so ‘me’ time is reaching out to people who might not necessarily live on the campus bubble or be part of my job, but talking to them about things that are going on in my life. And then going to work is something that I really enjoy in terms of ‘me’ time, in terms of letting go of all this stress and just putting your whole heart into it, walking in and walking out and enjoying yourself.
Where would you like to be in five years?
I don’t necessarily know where I’ll be in five years, but I know what I’m interested in. I’m interested in refugee rights on the borders of countries with different religious constitutions. I’m really interested in studying how there are human rights violations on the borders of countries that affiliate themselves differently in terms of religion. So whether that be India and Pakistan, Israel and Palestine, Haiti and Dominican Republic, Sudan and South Sudan, I’m just really interested in how something as beautiful as religion has been the cause of so much war in the world. Ideally I’d like to work in Canada as an immigration lawyer working with refugees from the borders of those countries to get them over to Canada, working towards a better life, and better education and a more stable future. But I know for a fact I’m not going straight to law school, so five years is tough. The other thing I really, really, really, enjoy is event planning. So if I could do anything, if I could drop all the pressure in the world, and I could just pursue anything, I would probably start my own event planning company.