Paige - Edit 1-Up to 4K

I'm Paige, I'm in second year, and I'm from Ancaster. I came into University already with mental health struggles, so just coming into a new place and not knowing anyone. And I did an extra semester of high school, so kind of already feeling left behind or lonely. That was something I had to overcome. When I decided that I needed to wait another year, that was definitely the right decision. I was not ready to go to university. So then I was feeling really energized to come to school. I was feeling really ready, but it's hard. It's a new place. You're by yourself for the first time. You're expecting everything to finally fit into place, and everything is going to be totally fine. I was coming in, and I was excited to learn about something that I cared about and that I wanted to learn. When I was looking for schools, I didn't really know what I was doing, so the first year, being general, was really important. But by the time I was actually going to school, it was like, okay, I know what I want to do. So being in those general sciences it was like really hard. It's hard to not do great at something, especially when I thought I'm good at school. So then not performing as well as I did in high school, it was hard. I knew I needed some sort of support system in place. The big reason I came to Guelph was because I knew they have so many resources and supports available to the students. Within the first few weeks probably, I got an appointment with Health Services to see a doctor who I could get my meds all regulated with, and she kind of pointed me in different directions for different resources and I got set up with someone from Counseling Services and a lot of things run by the students, like the Student Support Network, which I actually ended up joining as a peer mentor. But just really great programs that are there, often run by the students, but for the students who are struggling to relate to students. It's nice to talk to people who are like, "Yeah, I totally get it."