KnoxNews-Dec2021

ALUMNI INTERVIEW:
UNIVERSITY IN A PANDEMIC
By Arusha Vegt, Development Director
Kristine Bernardino, from the JKCS
graduating class of 2020, shares
details about her life at UBC and
looks back at her transition from high
school to university.
You’re in your second year at UBC.
What are you studying?
I’m studying political science with
a minor in sociology. I hope to do a
year abroad and eventually work in
government or at an embassy after
getting a graduate degree.
Last year UBC was entirely online.
How was that?
Being entirely online was difficult
because there was no need to go
outside and it was hard to have good
study habits. We had to create an
online community, and now that we’re
in person you may recognize someone
from Instagram or Facebook and say,
“Oh, you’re a second year, too!” You don’t
really have that classic friend group
from first year because it was all online.
What do the faith-based clubs at UBC
look like?
There are thousands of clubs. It’s
insane. There are five different
Christian clubs. There are clubs for
everything and every religion.
Do you go to church near campus or
back to your home church?
The church I’ve gone to since birth is in
Vancouver so I can just take the bus. Or
I visit my parents overnight and go with
them on Sunday. My mom usually brings
me food to take back to my dorm.
Do you see fellow JK grads at UBC?
17 of the 26 people in my graduating
class went to UBC. We’re all in different
faculties but I see them all the time.
It’s the same group just at a different
school. I see a lot of 2021 grads, like
Sam Tso, around campus too.
How do you find UBC academically?
In the arts if you’re good at time
management, put the time in to work,
enjoy writing essays, enjoy reading
and enjoy the subject matter, it’s not
too hard, although it can get pretty
crammy at times.
When you look back at your time at
John Knox, do you think that John
Knox prepared you to go to university?
Yes. We talk about this so often. We
thought, “Oh, university is so hard!” but
now we say university is really easy.
For example, Kevin (Battilana) who is
at Sauder (School of Business at UBC)
already has two internships set up in
big accounting firms. Even he says it’s
not that’s hard. He says part of that is
because Mr. (Sergio) Brock (senior math
teacher) wasn’t big on calculators and
that really set him up for moving onto
university. It still can be hard, but the
workload is fine. I read more in Mrs.
(Rebekah) Loconte’s classes (senior
humanities teacher) than in university.
What else is surprising to you about
being in university after going to
high school?
At John Knox it was fun to have that
sense of community, but I realized that
community isn’t everywhere. It’s kind
of hard to find that small group. And it’s
hard to find that teacher connection.
Do you keep in touch with any
JK teachers?
I talk to them all the time! Mr. (Jaason)
Bennett (senior humanities teacher)
is the one that inspired me to go into
the program that I’m in now. I had an
interest in business because that’s
what my family does, but then I took
Mr. Bennett’s classes, like history
and socials and law, and thought, this
history and political stuff is where it’s
at for me. In my first year I emailed
Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Loconte all the
time when I didn’t want to do school
anymore. Mrs. Loconte was a big
influence too, with her courses on
ethics and philosophy.
What advice would you give to
students who are in grade 11 and 12
right now?
Take time to branch out and meet
different people, and learn to discern
who is going to be a good friend. In a
22 | Knox News - December 2021