51社区黑料

By Helen Lin, Events, Communications, and Marketing Assistant, Dialogue and Engagement Unit

Six months into my co-op as an Events, Communications, and Marketing Assistant at the 51社区黑料Dialogue and Engagement Unit, I can already say that this experience is one I will carry with me long after my time in university. 

As a member of the comms team, I help bring to life public programming and events that create space for people to come together and engage in meaningful conversations around social issues. My placement also gives me the opportunity to apply my creative interests in graphic design and video editing within a professional setting, where digital content creation is central to promoting and amplifying our work for wider audiences. 

Not only am I learning a great deal about communications and public engagement, but I have been fortunate enough to work alongside an incredibly supportive team that gives me the space to learn, improve, and build confidence over time. What began as a short four-month placement has since been extended into a longer-term opportunity. With a few more months behind me and many more experiences ahead, I hope to share some of the moments and lessons that have shaped my co-op journey so far.

Learning to Accept Uncertainty

The first few weeks of my co-op were undoubtedly a steep learning curve. Meetings moved quickly, filled with unfamiliar terminology and references to teams, initiatives, and ongoing work that I was still trying to make sense of. There was a quiet but growing pressure to keep up with every detail, as if my success depended on having a full grasp of the workplace.

This mindset began to shift in subtle moments within my comms team: when a question was asked during a meeting that I had assumed would be obvious to others, but was raised without hesitation, or when colleagues openly admitted they were doing a task for the first time and needed additional support. 

Through observations such as these, I realized that uncertainty does not disappear with experience but exists across all levels of the workplace and is inherent to this field. As I became more involved in event planning, meetings, and daily tasks, what once felt confusing slowly started to come together. While I have gained more confidence in certain aspects of my role, the unpredictable nature of communications and event work means there are always questions that have yet to be answered, which only open new opportunities for learning.

Experience Does Not Define Capability

As the youngest and least experienced member of the unit, I was plagued by the thought that I was not qualified for the position. In a university classroom, you are surrounded by people of a similar age, navigating the same assignments, deadlines, and uncertainties; there is an unspoken sense of equality in that environment. Stepping into a professional setting, however, I was suddenly surrounded by individuals with years of experience behind them, many of whom were in entirely different stages of life and career than I was.

My imposter syndrome was amplified when I attended an open house with my team for SFU鈥檚 new communications and marketing office space two months into my co-op term. People were moving through conversations, introducing themselves and their work or reconnecting with colleagues. As someone still relatively new to the role, I felt slightly out of my depth. Watching others navigate these interactions with such ease, I could not help but question whether I was as comfortable in this kind of space as someone in a communications role should be. 

Yet, within my comms team and the wider Dialogue and Engagement unit, I was never made to feel as though my inexperience diminished the value of what I brought to the team. My video content creation and volunteer coordination during events are only a couple of the areas of my work that are often recognized and appreciated by those around me. I have since come to understand that the self-doubt I experienced during my first few months is a normal part of the co-op journey, rather than a reflection of whether I actually deserve to be here. 

Seeing Beyond Hierarchy Through Connection

From spirit days to our weekly Tuesday Salons 鈥� a dedicated time and space for casual, non-work-related conversations to unfold 鈥� one thing that quickly became evident to me was the consistent effort to build a sense of community within our workplace. 

My first team lunch at Santo Taco challenged some of my initial assumptions about an office as a strictly formal environment. I was surprised by how little sense of hierarchy there was in the way we communicated with each other. Even small, everyday interactions 鈥� whether it was sharing photos of our furry companions, laughing over an unfortunate mishap, or exchanging stories from our lives outside of work 鈥� helped me see my colleagues as people first, beyond their titles and expertise. 

Over time, I felt less like I was trying to 鈥渒eep up鈥� with a system of professionals, and more like I was part of a community of people with their own interests, self-doubts, and unique perspectives. As the perceived gap between myself and my colleagues narrowed, I found myself more at ease in simply engaging as part of the team.

Rethinking Community Engagement

Before starting this role, I often associated public dialogue with large, structured events where a speaker shares their insights with a listening audience, much like a TED Talk 鈥� with information mostly flowing in one direction. 

However, at our first event of the year, Economics for the People: Inside Inequality with Mohsen Javdani, attendees were not positioned as passive listeners, but as active participants in the conversation 鈥� engaging with the speaker in a back-and-forth discussion and building onto the ideas of others in the room. In this moment, I began to understand dialogue as an invitation to community members to collectively shape solutions rather than as a means of simply presenting information to a broad audience.

This sense of engagement can also extend beyond the conversation itself and into the physical and social environment of an event. Small but intentional details 鈥� from culturally specific catering to live music by a Nigerian artist 鈥� shifted the atmosphere at our Black Public Joy Special Literary and Cultural Gathering in ways that made the discussion feel more intimate.

Together, these elements transformed the event from a traditional presentation into a shared storytelling gathering. Even as the evening drew to a close, participants continued to linger in conversation with others 鈥� a reminder of how meaningfully designed spaces can foster genuine connection between people.