<div class="fr-view"><p>When I started FASS Connect during Welcome Week in February 2024, it was just me and whoever chose to join the session. I had been the Faculty Representative for FASS for around six months, still learning the role, still figuring out how the faculty worked, and still finding my place within it. I often said that I wanted to run the sessions because I wanted to connect with students, understand their experiences, and create a space where their voices could be heard. That was true, but there was another reason that I didn’t really talk about at the time. I needed to find my confidence in my own voice again.</p>
<p>In my early twenties, public speaking and engagement didn’t faze me. It feels strange to say that, because as a child, I had a speech impediment and an accent that shifted constantly because I moved so often. I was the definition of a third culture kid who never really cared what I sounded like. My voice never really belonged to one place, but it felt like mine.</p>
<p>Throughout my life, I had learned to think before I spoke, partly because I needed to work around words I struggled to say. That habit stayed with me. People often listened not because I spoke loudly or confidently, but because I had considered my point before voicing it. I didn’t waste words. I had to choose them carefully. It made people pay attention. That was my quiet strength. But even that felt lost when everything began to unravel.</p>
<p>My late twenties were the years when my voice, alongside my confidence, went quiet. Those years were marked by a series of deaths that arrived too close together. The grief didn’t just touch my life; it seeped into everything. My depression deepened. My confidence slipped away without ceremony until one day I realised it wasn’t there anymore. Some days, I didn’t speak to a single person. Not because I didn’t want to, but because speaking required a sense of connection that I no longer felt. I drifted through life without direction, doing what I needed to do but never really feeling present. A constant fear threaded through it all: that I wasn’t good enough and might never be good again.</p>
<p>By the time I became a student rep and then Faculty Rep, I wasn’t just learning a new role. I was trying to relearn how to be present in a room again, how to speak without rushing, how to hear my own voice without flinching. FASS Connect became a structured opportunity to show up, to talk, and to practice being the version of myself I remembered before everything became so heavy.</p>
<p>The first FASS Connect session went well. A good turnout, good engagement. Then came the unpredictable months: sometimes busy, sometimes quiet, and one month where nobody turned up at all. I blamed TMAs/EMAs, beautiful weather, and busy schedules. Even when students attended, I wasn’t comfortable with the way I spoke. I rushed through my points, trying to get past the moment before anyone noticed my stumbles. I fell back on humour, not because I wanted to be funny, but because it gave me a way to mask how uncomfortable I felt underneath.</p>
<p>It started changing during Welcome Week in September 2024. I had the pleasure of welcoming Professor Adrienne Scullion, Executive Dean of FASS, along with Associate Dean of Student Success and Scholarship Rachel Penny. Nearly 70 students attended. It was an incredible session, full of energy and thoughtful discussion. But afterwards, I still felt uneasy. I didn’t feel like my voice matched the confidence the session deserved.</p>
<p>Despite my worry that the session was terrible, Adrienne agreed to return for the next Welcome Week. This time, she was joined by Matt Staples, who had stepped into Rachel’s role. This session was different. From the start, the conversation flowed. It felt natural. I wasn’t rushing, stumbling or overthinking. I was listening, responding and contributing without feeling like I had to outrun my own voice. For the first time in over a decade, I felt thrilled while speaking to a large group. It felt like reconnecting with a part of myself that I had assumed was gone for good.</p>
<p>That experience gave me the confidence to speak at the Faculty Assembly the next month to around 150 academics and support staff in person, and hundreds more online. I had now been in the role for over 18 months and I begun to feel comfortable with the complexities of being the student rep for over 60,000 students across 14 disciplines and 88 modules. I had met dozens of academic and support staff on online meetings, but here I was going to speak to the entire faculty. I felt confident, although still a bit uncomfortable. When I began speaking, I found the same steadiness I had felt during the Welcome Week session. I still stumbled occasionally. A joke fell flat. But I finished my piece and felt genuinely proud. I spoke about the priorities of the Student Leadership team for the term. While I mentioned all the priority areas, I focused on the Academic Experience, one that I was deeply involved with. Afterwards, several people approached me to talk about the points I raised. They had listened. They had engaged. It meant more than I can express.</p>
<p>Nearly two years later, FASS Connect has become something I look forward to. Each month, I speak with students and host conversations with a confidence I once thought I would never get back. I contribute more freely in committees. A Teams meeting full of unfamiliar faces no longer intimidates me. I feel that I am able to represent FASS students with clarity and conviction. Not perfectly, but authentically. Confidence can return slowly, gently, and unexpectedly if we give ourselves the chance to grow into it again. In the darkest days that were filled with silence, for that, I am deeply grateful.</p>
<p>I hope you can join me for the next FASS Connect on the last Wednesday of the month at 6:30pm to 7:30pm.</p>
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