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Jillian Wakarchuk

Jillian Wakarchuk (ArtSci’16), a Queen’s film and media student, knew from the start that she wanted to live in residence during her first year.

“It’s an excellent way to meet people and get introduced to university life,” she says. “Coming from Ottawa, I knew it would be a great experience to live in residence.”

But when Ms. Wakarchuk applied to Queen’s, she had no idea that there was something called “the West Campus.” So it came as a surprise when she found out that she had been assigned to live in Jean Royce Hall, a 20-minute walk from the activity of Main Campus.

“It was quite a shock, when I learned I’d be living away from my classes and everything that happens on Main,” she says. “At first I wasn’t sure what living on West would be like, but there was a good community on the Jean Royce Hall Facebook group that helped answer a lot of questions.”

While Ms. Wakarchuk notes that the community on West Campus was great at first, as the year went on she began to feel isolated. She particularly missed having easy access to the dining options on Main Campus and being within easy reach of downtown Kingston.

Having just competed her first year at Queen’s, Ms. Wakarchuk has taken the opportunity to reflect on her year living on West Campus, and she recently blogged about it on the Campus Master Plan webpage.

“There are so many things we could do on West Campus, from simply having fresh groceries for sale, to creating a café where you want to spend time studying or with friends,” she says. “The Campus Master Plan is a great opportunity to think about how we can build a better community on West and connect the two campuses.”

Ms. Wakarchuk, who plans on pursing a concentration in Stage and Screen Studies and eventually using her skills as a filmmaker, recently moved off campus, to downtown Kingston.

Do you have thoughts about how to better connect the West and Main campuses, or want to learn more about the CMP? Attend the on May 23. Drop in anytime between 2 and 6 pm in Stauffer Library.

and join the discussion by using #planyourcampus
and RSVP for the open house