The Rocky Twenties: StFX Professors Share How They Navigated Their Fears for The Future

On a chilly Saturday evening I lay in my mother’s bed, surrounded by sleeping cats and a pile of tissues, crying about my future. When I turned twenty, it seemed like everything I thought I knew about myself, my goals and what I wanted to do with my life, had simply vanished. My mother listened as I poured out my worries with my tears. How am I supposed to take steps towards my future when I haven’t got the faintest clue what I want it to look like? How do I navigate these feelings of being lost? Everyone tells you your twenties are some of the best but most challenging years of your life, and that these are the years to discover who you are. But how do I deal with the immense fear?

Many other students in their twenties feel this fear. As a child, we are taught to dream about our adult life and “what we want to be when we grow up”. Exploring the possibilities for our future and changing our minds was normal and expected of us. Yet, after post-secondary education, the pressure to find a good job, settle down, and begin a new chapter weighs heavily on many graduates. The imagination and the search for self we’ve nurtured since childhood are pushed aside to make room for one’s career trajectory.

This pressure can often make students feel isolated from their peers, especially when some are dragging their feet toward their future while others are taking it in stride. Yet StFX’s own professors have experienced these same rocky years, some in rather unconventional ways. “When I started university, I thought I wanted to be a physiotherapist,” confesses Angie Kolen, Professor of Human Kinetics. “I was interviewed [for physiotherapy school] and didn’t get in.” Then, she discovered physical education (the equivalent of StFX’s Human Kinetics) and loved it. “But I did not really know what I was going to do.” The fourth year came around, and nothing had changed. “I discovered I was pregnant in the final term of my fourth year. Here is where my career takes an interesting twist,” Professor Kolen recounts. She was asked to teach a university class as a sessional instructor for students wanting to teach physical education to elementary school children. “I dabbled in that for four years before going back to school. Four years mature, two babies later, I was twenty-five years old when I went back to school, and I loved it. It wasn’t until my master’s degree that I realized I wanted to be a professor”.

For Assistant Professor of Management Mark MacIsaac, there was no hard plan after graduation. “I had a general sense of what I wanted to do, and even that wasn’t very well formed,” Professor MacIsaac recalls. “I went into business because I thought I wanted to work in business, and that was only due to what I saw growing up – my father, putting on a suit, going into downtown Halifax, into an office building and working”. When graduation rolled around, he had yet to develop a specific plan. “I wasn’t really intentional or deliberate about what my career would be. By the time I got to graduation, it was kind of scary. Because I was uncertain, one of my professors recommended I go do my masters in England, which I did.” This led to the beginning of a career in business. Yet Professor MacIsaac learned that his expectations outgrew his reality. “It wasn’t really right for me. It was only when I started to teach at part-time teaching gigs that I realized, wow, this is something I really enjoy”.

“I didn’t graduate high school,” says Associate Professor of History Chris Frazer. “I had a very different experience; I didn’t go to university until I was 30.” Professor Frazer spent his twenties working, traveling, and going to community college with the hopes of transferring to a university. He also met his partner, and they had a child together. “When I started university, I was a dad, working and being a full-time student. I didn’t get my university degree until after having a child”. Professor Frazer's twenties coincided with a tumultuous state of the world; the imminent threat of nuclear warfare and the height of the AIDS crisis were events that majorly shaped his worldview and political organizing. Amidst this crisis was an extremely hostile climate towards the LGBTQ+ community. “I had to watch many friends die of AIDS. That left me wondering, am I ever going to be able to grow up and be myself completely?”

Each of these professors had to navigate many fears during this period of their lives. “I wondered, is it me? Am I never going to get a job?” recounts Professor MacIsaac. Coming out of a master’s program in a time of recession added another layer of difficulty. “It took probably 6-8 months before I landed what I characterized as a ‘“real job,” and that was uncomfortable.” But he kept trying, and, in the end, it worked out.

For Professor Kolen, her twenties were vastly different than many of her peers. “My twenties were not like my friends’ twenties: I was a young mom, fraught with a lot of self-esteem issues,” she remembers. She experienced many doubts about being good enough during her days as a sessional instructor. “I often wondered, was I going to amount to anything? I think being a mom is so important, but sometimes it felt like it wasn’t enough. Was my life going to be worthwhile?” When she went back to school, however, she found it an amazingly challenging experience and built her confidence back.

It’s easy to forget our professors were in their early twenties at one point, and they have learned incredibly important life lessons. For Professor Frazer, the most important thing he wishes to impart to his students is the importance of exploration. “Have experiences, go out and learn about the world,” he says. “I’m not unhappy with how late I made it to university. There is nothing wrong with taking your time, and there is no actual formula. It’s about discovering who you are, what you want, and finding like-minded people.” Professor MacIsaac reiterates this statement. “Uncertainty is a part of life. There’s a certain component of uncertainty that we all need to get comfortable with.” He highlights the importance of trust. “Trust the process. Don’t think that you need to have it all planned out. Things tend to make sense much more retrospectively than they do prospectively.” For Professor Kolen, she wants her students to take chances. “Don’t rush into another program just because you don’t know what to do other than school. Take a step back, and if you can, travel. Be brave and experience life and learn more about yourself”.

The twenties can be a time of fear, doubt, and many worries. Yet, they can also be a time for exploration and provide opportunities one can only dream of. Many of the successful adults around us have had to navigate their way through these same suffocating feelings. But what they all have in common is that they took risks and trusted that it would all work out. Like Professor Kolen says: “Dare to go through a door or window that you’re not sure is the right opportunity for you”.

Because at the end of the day, you have to try something to know if it’s right for you, even if it scares you. You can be scared and try anyways.

“Don’t Ambush Us”: StFX Student-Athletes React to Last Minute Fees

All X-Women & X-Men interviewed in this story spoke on the condition of anonymity.

It was early August when StFX’s student-athletes began trickling in for their pre-season camps. Football, rugby, and soccer were first, followed a few weeks later by cross country, hockey, and basketball. As players began their training, their focus was interrupted by a surprise: an August 13th email saying StFX’s Athletic Department is charging its athletes an extra $250 in fees. 

The email was not met with open arms. Athletes were angry at the lack of notice, close to half of them had already begun training camps and many more were getting settled in town. As a student-athlete myself, it seemed unfair to be asked for money that had never been discussed with us previously, especially as we already pay hundreds of dollars in team fees every year, ranging from $250-$700 depending on the sport. Many other student-athletes shared this sentiment.  

“It was very frustrating”, shared a member of X-Women Hockey. “I felt very confused. My budgeting for the school year is done over the summer, and this extra fee wasn’t accounted for in my planning.” When asked how this extra fee affected them, a student-athlete with X-Women Rugby stated that “with [the rugby] season starting so early this year, that was over three weeks' worth of work gone. It’s another added stressor, another additional cost. Prices for everything are going up. The lateness of this notice was the biggest issue.” This feeling was reciprocated by a member of the X-Men Football team. “Money is tight. $250 is a lot of money. I’m not on a scholarship, and this money ended up coming out of my food budget for the year. We didn’t find out about it until it was too late”. 

In an interview with Krista McKenna, Manager of Varsity Athletics and Communications, we discussed the timeline of the decision for the fee. “The fiscal year at the University ends on March 31st but we start budget planning in October. So [the decision] would have been over the course of last year into the spring,” says McKenna. Yet the letter, dated July 30th, was only emailed to student-athletes on August 13th. McKenna says the delay “might’ve come down to staff vacations... Leo [MacPherson, Director of Athletics and Recreation] drafted the letter and sent it to me through the student portal”.  

If the fee was decided on in the Spring, why was the letter of notification only drafted on July 30th? Not to mention it being tabled for two weeks due to “staff vacations”. StFX student-athletes deserve better from our administration. A member of X-Men Football asks Athletics to “let us know early and clarify on the reasons why this is happening. Don’t ambush us”. One of his teammates reiterates this statement: “I understand that there are expenses that come with a university athletics program. But you need to realize that we are students first, and this is a lot of money. We need ample warning so we can budget beforehand”. A member of X-Women Hockey notes, importantly, that “our athletic and academic scheduling doesn’t allow much time to work in order to make this money up”.  

Expecting student-athletes to hand over a sum of money without proper preparation is simply unfair. It is unacceptable that a decision about our finances, made in the spring, was only communicated towards the end of the summer, leaving most athletes with no opportunity to make up this money.  

In the email, the distribution of funds is described?  as being directed to “Athletic Therapy, Strength & Conditioning, Mental Performance, Sport Nutrition, and Leadership Development”. Many athletes find this list too vague.  “I’m still confused as to where this money is going. This kind of confusion and lack of notice harms our relationship with the Athletic Department. It feels like there’s a gap in communication between athletes who make up the program and the higher ups that run it,” says a member X-Women Soccer. 

McKenna explained the distribution in more detail during our interview: “It’s not an even distribution. It goes towards the costs that are above and beyond operating costs [of these services]. In terms of Sports Performance, there are a lot of equipment and human resources expenses to run that space. In terms of Mental Performance, funding will be used to pay for Performance Consultants that we hire. For Sports Nutrition, it would help to cover the costs of consultants and workshops we host for the teams. Athletic Therapy goes more towards supplies and equipment we need over and above operating costs. Because we’ve elevated them all, we don’t want to have to reduce any services.” While these are all necessary expenses, it is unfortunate that this kind of transparency was not included in the original email. Athletes deserve to know where their money is going and what it will be used for. 

“Wearing the X is an absolute privilege,” says a student-athlete with X-Women Rugby. “But being an athlete, we experience different lows than other students, different pressures. And the financial pressures are weighing heavily on a lot of student-athletes, in a way I’m not sure it always has. More athletes are accessing services such as food banks and financial aid. While I understand that it is a necessity, the more heads-up that can be given, the better”.