Despite being the president of a new club and assisting several influential students along their path throughout her years at UBC, fourth-year International Relations major Karen Dhaliwal has kept it on the low. Modest and low-key, yet remarkably involved on campus, she’s someone who loves “connecting people, encouraging them, and watching them succeed” – and it’s the fuel behind her motivation to be so active at UBC.
Having grown up in a small oil gas town in northern British Columbia, Dhaliwal says, “there was nothing really to be involved in.” But not having opportunities in high school didn’t deter her in university: in the past three years, she has managed to serve as the Assistant to the President of the Arts Undergraduate Society (AUS), an Assistant Chair for World Model United Nations as well as pursue several Work Study jobs at the same time. To top it all off, she’s now the president of UBC Intercultural Alliance (UBCIA) this term.
Her parents have been incredibly significant in guiding her. She’s happy to admit that they “have been my greatest mentors and the most influential on me. They’ve provided me with endless opportunities and are always challenging my opinions in an effort to make me a strong critical thinker and look at everything objectively.”
Her blueprint for success has thus proven to be a careful blend of patience, innovation, observation, good mentors and the desire to be involved – and noticing that you don’t always have to be obsessed with doing so from the get-go. “I didn’t get involved in extracurricular activities at UBC until my third year – and although I never got paid for the work I did for the AUS, the experience, knowledge and connections I made were invaluable,” she says, and that’s what she brings to UBCIA.
“If there’s anything I would recommend to all UBC students, it’s that it is never too late to get involved and it doesn’t matter if you’re getting paid!”
UBCIA: Bursting the Cultural Bubbles
So, what’s UBCIA all about, then? Dhaliwal says that its main aim is to “foster a diverse, united community of cultural clubs on campus.” She has been able to observe that, while “our university prides itself on its diverse student population… most of our student socialize in cultural silos, creating a culturally segregated student population.
“In an increasingly globalized world, it is important for students to be true global citizens who can transcend their own cultural identities.”
What she brings to the table at UBCIA is cumulative of her work experience, her major as well as the fact that she was fortunate to travel with her parents to “many developing countries… the memories and experiences I acquired from my travels have influenced what I’m studying today and what I want to do in the future.”
She and the founders of UBCIA note that many students usually choose UBC due to the diversity of its student population and the desire for an international background. But, “ask them where their three closest friends are from – more often that not, they all have a similar background,” she says. Despite the fact that there are 41,000 domestic students and 8,000 international students at UBC, she realized that most people tend to stick within a cultural bubble – the exact opposite situation many of them came to UBC for in the first place. Dhaliwal has avoided falling into that same pattern, mentioning that while she is from rural Canada, her “three closest friends are from Kenya, Sri Lanka and Taiwan.”
In recognizing this conundrum, UBCIA was created to step in and merge the diversity of rich cultures and peoples on campus, which is incidentally one of her favorite things to do: connecting people. “UBCIA acts as a facilitator between these clubs to create opportunities for cross-cultural collaboration on events – the more cross-cultural events, the more opportunities there are for students to interact with people from different cultural, ethnic, religious, or linguistic backgrounds,” Dhaliwal explains. The club has already successfully reached out to ten cultural clubs, with the hope of reaching fifteen to twenty in the next semester.
Looking Forward
What’s next for this ambitious woman after university? She admits that while she’s not aiming for a certain type of job, she does want to “to help people and know that what I’m doing is having a positive contribution to the community I’m in at a local level” – cliché unintended. Recently, she’s been “interested in urban and community planning,” but ultimately, she hopes to “help people realize their potential, then harness that potential so they can succeed and make a positive impact on their community.” Having already succeeded in trying to implement her long-term goals in the university sphere – with only more to come in the future – we’re confident that she’ll be making waves somewhere after university. Wherever she ends up – take note. She’s one to watch!
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