Meet KPU’s Student Ambassadors

Helping build university culture, one student at a time

by Kyle Prince and Monica Mah

You may have noticed a group of Kwantlen Polytechnic University students flooding your social media accounts with pictures and promotions for everything related to the institution. These are KPU’s Student Ambassadors, and their mission is to “represent the university from a student perspective.”

“We work closely with the prospective students, basically anyone who has applied to Kwantlen,” says Zerlinda Chau, who joined the ambassador team after volunteering for KPU’s open house. “We generally want students who are very active on campus.”

Like most recruits, she received an email about the opportunity to join the team, though Chau mentions there are also applications to become a student ambassador available online.

Argel Monte de Ramos, another member of the team, claims that what the ambassadors hope to do, first and foremost, is “build a culture” for KPU students. That involves attempting to change people’s perspectives when it comes to Kwantlen being seen as a commuter campus, and encouraging students to stick around outside of classes. Monte de Ramos admits this is no small task, but remains confident that the ambassadors are up for the challenge.

“A lot of the ambassadors on our team used to be introverted before,” says Monte de Ramos, who runs both the ambassadors’ Twitter account and KPU’s Snapchat account. “And now they’re become extroverted and going through the spectrum, and it’s just really cool because it’s helping them a lot.”

Damanpreet Garcha says the reason she wanted to be a part of the ambassadors is because of her experience at student orientation. When she was still considering whether or not to choose KPU as her university, the student ambassadors were there to provide lots of information and encourage her down the path towards Kwantlen.

During her first semester, Garcha says she noticed others in her class struggling, and thinking back to the help she got from orientation, “that’s kind of what I wanted to do for someone else. I love helping others, this sort of ties in everything I love doing into one thing.”

The primary initiative for the student ambassadors has changed over the years, but one thing has remained constant: they are here to help students. They look at potential students, current students, and even Kwantlen’s alumni in order to give the best possible experience to all of us involved with the university.

The current team is composed of Zerlinda, Argel, and Damanpreet, as well as David, Rajdeep, and Julie Ann. Together, these seven students have a passion for helping others and want to give back to the school that has given them so much enjoyment during their time here.

Correction: April 25, 2016 – An earlier version of this article suggested the ambassadors were building Kwantlen culture, when it should have stated university culture. Kwantlen culture implies a relationship to the Kwantlen First Nation, which is not the case. The Runner deeply regrets the error.