When people bring up the topic of U of T, what’s typically discussed is how hard the students study and the difficult course loads they need to navigate through. Yet, there are a handful of students across U of T’s three campuses that dedicate their time and energy to improving student life at the University. Ryan Oh is one of these student leaders. Ryan serves as the Vice-President Administration of the New College Student Council (NCSC), the Business Manager and CFO of The Window, New College’s newspaper, and he serves on the Undergraduate Science Curriculum Board for the Faculty of Arts and Science. He has been actively engaged in student life throughout the entirety of his undergraduate career, placing the needs of New College students and the larger U of T student body, as one of his top priorities.
Ryan majors in Biology and is looking into extremely competitive graduate school programs to pursue the teaching of cadaveric anatomy to future university scholars. But that’s not an end in itself for Ryan, he also wants to be an entrepreneur and to start his first business venture by the time he’s thirty. One characteristic that has helped Ryan navigate through his life choices is his decisiveness, allowing him to always have a firm grip on his academic and future aspirations. “Go for THE thing you want,” he exclaims, “not just SOMEthing, and you just aim for that!” Ryan’s philosophy was at play during his university applications, he recalls that U of T was the only university that he applied to. In addition to the school having an outstanding academic reputation, Ryan saw U of T as a place to explore other interests and to meet new people. “U of T is a diverse place, it’s considerably diverse. It’s big enough to have everything, but small enough to be able to do things. There’s something for everyone,” he explains. And for Ryan that “something” is student life and advocacy. From the beginning of his undergraduate career, Ryan has felt embraced by his New College community and has found a place where he sees himself belonging, a difficult task for any student attending the St. George Campus. “New College is like my second home, and the community my extended family,” he gushes. Having found his perfect fit, Ryan immediately began to give back to his student community getting involved anyway that he could.
Now, Ryan finds himself as part of the executive for two prominent New College student groups, the NCSC and The Window. As the Vice-President Administration of the NCSC, Ryan is the second in command, aiding in all the organization’s areas. Why VP Admin you may ask? “Because I like event-planning, student life affairs, and various advocacy issues that the NCSC has tackled this year; I also use NCSC not just as a way to simply be involved, but also as a platform to bring positive change to New College at large.” His involvement in The Window is similarly motivated, stemming from his trust in the voice that it provides to New College students and the way in which it promotes New College events and activities. But for Ryan, there’s more to it than getting students out and involved in campus activities, he is also genuinely concerned about decisions made by the University’s administration. Last year Ryan found out that the Botany minor was removed as a student program. Since then, he has obtained a position on the Undergraduate Science Curriculum Board hoping to prevent a similar situation from occurring. He has made an extensive effort to actively fight to defend against any significant program deletions for students enrolled in Science programs. “I believe that one student voice is strong enough to influence any major or minor changes.” And he uses his voice not only to shape student life but to influence the academic well being of students.
With membership in three campus organizations in addition to his duties as a student one may assume that Ryan would be overwhelmed, but that’s not the case. He also manages to make time for a job with the U of T Office of Student Life where he is the Leadership and Development Program Assistant, again utilizing his passion for student affairs. So what is it that helps him juggle all of his activities and make sure that his voice, and by extension the student body’s, is heard? “I’m just really ambitious, bold-minded, results-driven, and I have a really strong character. I am not afraid to challenge authority,” he explains. It is this combination which has helped him excel in his extracurricular achievements, and which will surely propel him to future successes.