Non-traditional learning, while slowly becoming recognized as important in primary and secondary schools, is still somewhat irrelevant and widely unused in post-secondary education. As many of my fellow PCJ360 students learned on our field trip to the Kingston Peace Support Training Centre, learning outside of the classroom is nothing short of beneficial to our studies. Furthermore, as all of us will learn come next semester – through the internships that will be organized for us in PCJ361 – learning through hands-on and practical means helps students grow, develop better communications and “real-life” skills, and it also fosters a new level of professional inquiry that can certainly not be achieved through merely textbooks and lectures.

Now, I don’t mean to belittle the formal and traditional style of learning at all – in fact, sometimes I even find myself enjoying reading the assigned 150 pages of ancient philosophy on top of another 50 pages of international security theory. I understand how important it is to understand the scholastic works of academics, and I do see that my writing has undoubtedly improved since I started to appreciate the style of writing that only comes in academic papers. Most of the time, lectures are interesting, engaging, and sometimes leave me with more questions than when I walked into the lecture hall. This appreciation for the work of my professors and academics has made me realize the importance of needing to discover more, to learn more, and to achieve more. Despite all this, I’ve always felt that there was something missing from traditional university lectures and studying.

The Peace, Conflict, and Justice program has seemingly found a solution to this. Firstly, with hands-on classes that apply theories and ideologies learned in mainstream classes to more practical and on-the-ground issues. Secondly, it hosts an engaging environment that includes external lectures and conferences, as well as field trips. Lastly, (although this is a new introduction to the program,) PCJ361 students will now be set up with an internship in the second semester to help students apply global ideas to local needs.

Though we haven’t started this internship pairing yet, which will be accompanied by the occasional class meeting and assignments, I am extremely excited to receive my pairing and begin working with my assigned non-profit organization in Toronto. These pairings were chosen based on our ranked interests related to Peace, Conflict, and Justice themes, and aim to help my peers and I apply things we have learned in our class to the “real world,” as well as to help us understand that global needs can also be addressed through local means.

Non-traditional learning such as the application of knowledge through mandatory internships not only help students grow through formal lecture, but also provide an experience in which students learn practical skills such as an increased inter- and intra-personal abilities, a greater self-dependence, reliability, and it also encourages a deeper sense of inquiry that is required in traditional learning. These internships and the opportunity to engage and interact with professionals in fields that many of us will inevitably end up in also offers a chance to network and experience the daily lives of non-profit organization workers.

I very much look forward to this experience – stay tuned until next semester to hear about the experiences that some of my peers and I will have with our internships!