Harjit Kaur Daljit Singh Khalsa

I believe that I would be an excellent candidate to be considered as a Student Governor because:

The major responsibilities that come along with the role of Student Governor are – making sound decisions that are in best interest of the University; acting selflessly and loyally for the Carleton Community; avoiding conflict of interests; having clarity of and abiding by the By-laws, policies, rules and regulations; maintaining transparency and confidentiality as required; acting professional in every possible way; being staunch in every activity, among others.

To effectively perform these duties and responsibilities as a Student Governor, it demands strong interpersonal skills, leadership skills, high-level of professionalism, and having some past experience in relatively similar roles can be supplementary for the incumbent. I strongly believe, that I would be an excellent candidate to be considered for the post of Graduate Student Governor, for I have been a part of closely akin leadership roles during my Bachelor of Engineering (Civil Engineering) in India, that gave me immense opportunities to develop and enrich my verbal and non-verbal skills, social skills, and people skills, that helped me improve my personality. The roles that I have been a part of, varied largely from being a Department Board of Studies member, being elected as Vice-President of Departmental Student’s Forum and as Class Representative for two consecutive academic years, being a Discipline Committee Member; to being an active participant in various co-curricular and extra-curricular activities like Peer-Teaching, Bridge Building Competition, Structural Conquest, Skit Competition, Panache: The Personality Contest, GHR Talk, etc. Having experience in these extensive roles, I am very confident to be considered as an excellent candidate for the role of Graduate Student Governor.

I have the following skills and experiences which would be beneficial in my role as Student Governor:

I have been a part of Board of Studies (BoS) as Student Nominee, in the Department of Civil Engineering, for two consecutive academic sessions during my Bachelor’s Degree program, in India. BoS is a body consisting of University Director, Adjunct Professors, Head of the Department, PhD Scholars, Assistant Professors, an Alumnus and an Undergrad Student Nominee (ex-officio Department Topper). The body thoroughly discusses and decides upon the course contents, course outline, course objectives and outcomes, number of courses to be included in a term, credits to be allotted to each course, open electives to be introduced (such that it enable students to widen their horizons) like MS Excel, MS Powerpoint, MS Project, various Computer-Aided Design (CAD) courses like AutoCAD, and Programming languages like C, C++, Linux etc.

Additionally, I have also been elected as Vice-President (VP) of the Departmental Student’s Forum. As a VP, my duties varied largely from assigning responsibilities to sub-ordinates, to building detailed programmes, maintaining and facilitating relations with office-bearers, time management of events and programmes (making sure the students participate in the event, without drastically affecting on their academics), maintaining sound relations with other members on board, reaching out to students to solve their problems and address their complaints, arranging NSS (National Service Scheme) activities, among others.

Also, I have been elected twice (each time for an academic year) as a Class Representative (CR), by my classmates. My major responsibilities were to reach out to Professors’ with the doubts and queries my classmates, to wisely select the dates and create final examination time-table. Other duties included – arranging site visits and its travel plans along with Professors, passing on the details of events and programmes to the class, arranging NSS activities, and moreover, to represent my Class in each CR meeting with the University Director and Head of the Department.
In second year of Engineering, I was a member of Discipline Committee, that maintained professionalism and high-level of orderliness during events, programmes, guest lectures, etc.

Along with these major roles, I have also been an active participant in various co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, like Peer-Teaching (Earn while Learn Scheme) under which I taught a course (Engineering Mechancis) for an entire term, and I was also nominally paid; Bridge Building Competition, in which my team’s Bridge Model was awarded the title of Most Economical Bridge; GHR Talk, which is along the same line as that of TED Talks; Structural Conquest, wherein my team bagged Second Position; Skit Competition and Panache : The Personality Contest under the First Year Forum called FAITH.

All these participations aided in enriching my interpersonal skills including social skills and people skills like listening to other’s point of view, following directions effectively, making decisions in the best interest of Institution; soft skills; and leadership skills. I strongly believe these experiences and skills would be advantageous in my role as a Graduate Student Governor at Carleton University.

If elected to the Board, what would you like to gain from the experience and/or what skills would you like to further develop?

In my Bachelors, I engaged myself in the roles and activities that majorly were limited to Department-level. Now that I have promoted myself academically by taking admission at Carleton University, I strongly feel, that I should also now level-up my participation in co-curricular and extra-curricular activities, by taking up challenging roles, that eventually would upgrade my personality and skills. So, if I get elected to the Board, of course there would be lot to learn, to gain from the experience at each step, to enrich skills that I already possess and to develop new ones.
Skills that I eagerly look forward to acquire and / or enrich, being a Student Governor are negotiation skills, accounting and finance / cost management, risk management, strategic and critical thinking, governance, operation management, ability to provide sound, reasonable and quick judgements, synthesing the elements of a situation, and ability to freely self-express. Building ever-lasting relations with peers and other board members, is something that I would cherish all my life, along with the skills I develop, during the course of incumbency. Moreover, I am pretty sure, there must be many skills, apart from the ones I mentioned, which with / without my cognizance, I would learn and cultivate within me, once I am on board.