Student Voices

List of student reflections

• It was so much fun! My beadwork didn't turn out well — it came out all crooked — but listening to the teacher talk about Orchid Island I learned a lot and got to know the island much better. It was really fun!!! I'll definitely keep coming to residence hall events; they're fun and you learn so much!!!

• It was great. I learned a lot of genuinely practical things and picked up plenty of new knowledge, and I even made lots of new friends. For me this talk wasn't just about gaining knowledge — it was also a great way to build connections! Many thanks to the organisers for putting on such a rich and meaningful talk. I got so much out of it!

• This talk was really worthwhile for me. I'll be job hunting soon, so hearing this information about finding work was very useful — it adds to my soft skills for interviews and will help me put my ideas across better.

• Today I took part in a hands-on shuttle weaving workshop, and it was great fun and full of surprises. The teacher first introduced the basic tools and steps, then walked us through them — from threading to weaving, every detail took focus and patience. I was a little all over the place at first, but once I found my rhythm and saw the threads cross into a pattern of my own, it was really satisfying. It relaxed me and let me experience the charm of a traditional craft; the joy of finishing something with my own hands is hard to beat. I'm so glad I had the chance, and I hope there'll be more hands-on activities like this.

• The teachers were all very patient. It was my first time weaving, and although I have no eye for design and mine came out crooked, the cloth still has its own style — a special experience in its own way! I've never been good with my hands, ever since primary school, but this was easy to follow and I didn't get flustered. I'll keep this cloth as a memory of university!

• Seeing the artist turn real landscape photographs into crayons made of abstract blocks of colour moved and stirred me. It felt as if memories themselves might be like that — real scenes turned into blocks of colour, kept as impressions that carry feeling. I was delighted to see each series of their work; it showed me so much that is beautiful.

• Before going I didn't expect much — I thought it would be a dry, boring lecture. But it opened with a board game, which made the whole event much richer. After that the speaker paced the talk just right, so I stayed focused throughout. I learned a lot: beyond the topic of stalking itself, the speaker touched on traditional social values, ideas about gender, feminism and other things worth reflecting on. When it ended I didn't feel I'd wasted two hours on well-worn advice — it felt like two very full hours, and I'm now looking forward to the university's other talks.

• I learned about pairing colours and seeing things from different angles — fallen branches and leaves, for example, turn out to be common and very practical decorations. This time I was given a poinsettia to decorate myself, and the instructor offered suggestions on arrangement. I got a lot out of it and would love to join more activities like this.

• I learned about many causes of insomnia, and we were even shown how to press acupoints, which I thought was great. I don't have trouble sleeping myself, but I learned about many herbs and ways of looking after my health. I think the university could hold more traditional Chinese medicine talks like this one, so that even when we have to stay up studying we can take care of our bodies.

• This talk taught me a lot about photography and photo editing — for instance, that a photographer needs to be bold and guide the subject, and that photos should look natural. I used to take pictures carelessly and didn't care how they came out, but after this talk I've learned a great deal and benefited enormously.

• After this talk on depression I understand the illness much more deeply. Feeling low is not weakness; it is a condition that needs to be seen and treated. The speaker shared many cases and reminded us to respect one another's feelings, and not to brush off someone's pain with "just look on the bright side". Most importantly, depression isn't something to fear: with professional help sought early, people can gradually find their way out. The talk taught me more ways to show empathy and support.

• I'm really glad I came. I thought the content would be very technical, but the speaker made it lively and fun. Beyond astronomy, they shared a lot about the attitude you bring to your work, and how to keep going with things you don't enjoy but have to do. Since the speaker isn't much older than us, they shared many experiences from their own student days, which showed me that now is the time to build myself up, so I have more to draw on in future.

• The talk had a lot of personal character, and explained both the practical and the psychological sides of tidying, which gave me new ideas about it. I'm something of a minimalist myself — I don't own much and my room isn't messy — but on letting go of things I really liked one line from the speaker: tidying and decluttering are like your room's metabolism; without ongoing decluttering, things just keep piling up.

• I used to shop whenever I was stressed or feeling down, and ended up with piles of things I didn't know how to sort or let go of. After the talk I learned how to categorise my belongings sensibly and tidy them effectively. I got a lot out of it and hope there will be more talks like this, so I can share them with friends whose lives are just as cluttered!

• The flower-arranging session let me feel how healing nature can be. At first I held the stems clumsily, unsure how to combine them, but the teacher guided us patiently from choosing materials to composition, and every step was a pleasant surprise. The beauty and resilience of the flowers, trimmed and placed, seemed to tell a story of life. My fingers were stained with sap, but my mind grew calm and I forgot the pressure of coursework. Finishing my arrangement gave a real sense of achievement! Flower arranging is not only an art but a way of cultivating oneself, and I'll keep trying it, letting flowers bring a little poetry to everyday life.

• This was my first residence hall activity — last semester the timing clashed, so I missed out — but this semester's first session gave me so much. The floral class showed me that arranging flowers, simple as it looks, is a real craft: the heights and the way you place each stem shape the final piece, and everyone's work turned out different. Seeing myself make something that looked like a master's work in just two hours felt amazing, and I'm so glad I got a place. I hope to join again next time!

• I really enjoyed this activity — hands-on sessions always leave us with so much. Today's teacher works in floristry; taking a floristry class outside would usually be expensive and hard to fit in. She was very gentle and taught us step by step how to complete the piece, and I'll definitely use what I learned to make more arrangements. Seeing the finished work was so satisfying.

• This was a deeply soothing and memorable experience. From choosing the materials I was drawn to the textures and colours of different flowers, and learning to arrange dried flowers, fern leaves and little figurines in the space took both an eye for design and a great deal of patience. I learned to fix delicate flowers with a hot glue gun and to wind fine fairy lights through the piece, so the whole frame glows dreamily when lit. When it was finished I felt a real sense of achievement — it is not just a decoration, but an expression of my own feelings.

• Through this event I came to understand Indigenous cultures more deeply, and began to wonder whether they are gradually disappearing. I'm grateful to the speaker for their care in preserving these precious cultures and sharing them with us. The musical performance at the end was superb and made the charm of Indigenous culture all the more vivid. I believe this talk will lead more people to notice and support the passing on of Indigenous culture.

• The hand tattoos are beautiful. This talk helped me understand their meanings and taboos, and the language carried by different motifs. I also agreed with the speaker's definition of culture and art — the talk itself was, as she put it, a meeting of cultures. I believe people sharing the same land can come to understand one another's cultures, and that every culture is beautiful.

• The speaker was very funny, and explained emotions in many simple, easy-to-grasp ways. I've always been quite sensitive to emotions, including other people's small shifts in mood, and this talk helped me understand much better how to deal with those feelings. I loved it and hope there will be more opportunities and events like this.

• I found today's talk really unusual. Sex has always felt like a private matter to me, but today we could discuss it openly, and everyone came away understanding how important personal boundaries are. The bingo at the end was great fun! I hope some time I get to hear about the speaker's experience writing the lyrics for "Rose Boy".

• Today I joined a Wishlite workshop and was genuinely amazed! I'd never have guessed that dull grey recycled oyster shells could be processed into such high-quality diffuser stones.

  The event gave me a whole new understanding of ocean education. Far more than dry textbook knowledge, making something by hand let me feel the beauty and endless possibilities of turning waste into something new. Bringing sustainability into everyday aesthetics makes protecting the ocean not just a slogan but an elegant way of living. Looking at the piece I made and catching its faint scent was soothing — a truly meaningful afternoon!

• It was my first time at this activity — I saw it at the service desk, thought it looked pretty cool and signed up — and it was even more fun than I expected. Just the fact that the powder is ground oyster shell is so cool, and I love the whole idea: we get pretty, fragrant, eco-friendly diffuser stones and cut carbon emissions too. A big round of applause for the team — the environmental idea is great, and thank you for coming to run this at our university.

• I've always loved the residence hall mentor talks, especially the recent hands-on ones. Making something in my free time is really soothing and a nice way to switch off. I've also been to the flower-arranging session and last semester's sea urchin pendant workshop and loved them both — and you get to take your work home.

• What struck me most about this talk on solo travel was that it wasn't simply about where to go or how to plan an itinerary; it made me rethink what travelling alone actually means. We often imagine a trip is only complete when shared with friends or family, but the talk showed me that travelling on your own can be a precious way of sorting yourself out.

• Hearing how the speaker fought through major hardships in life and still came out brave and optimistic was deeply moving, and the talk showed me how many different possibilities life holds. I hope the speaker's story encourages more people facing difficulties and gives them strength. Thank you for holding this talk.

• In today's talk the speaker described injuring his spine at 17 and later going on dialysis — a life full of twists and hardship. Yet he never gave up; instead he shared the open, optimistic outlook with which he views it all, and urged us to take on things we believe impossible, and not to give up easily or end our own lives. It filled me with positive energy.

• Today's talk was really helpful for relaxing body and mind. There's no set way to make a yarn ball, so there's no fear of doing it wrong or falling behind, which let me focus on my own piece. I loved this session.

• I came to recognise my own emotions and why identifying them matters. Making a wrapped yarn ball taught me a small craft, and doing it after the introduction helped me understand my feelings as I worked. Thank you to the speaker for sharing, and to the university for arranging such a rich programme of residence hall talks.

• I came to see that a career has no standard template, and that changing direction is also a kind of courage.

• I learned how local stories can be carried into new forms, and it opened up what I imagine film and television can be.

• Learning about rights in non-standard employment gave me more courage to face the challenges of the workplace.

• Thank you for organising these cross-disciplinary exchanges — studying far from home, they gave me a clearer sense of direction.

• A senior student's account of a summer internship abroad really got me excited.

• The study-abroad exchange let me trade information with senior students, which helped a great deal.

• One-to-one counselling eased my anxiety and helped me see where I'm heading.

• Under our mentor's careful guidance we turned our programming skills into something that gives back to society. We stepped away from our screens to run a "Python Coding Camp" for primary and secondary school students, and felt the satisfaction of mastering programming knowledge and passing it on. We also created "Python fun facts" posts on Instagram, and became fluent with collaboration tools such as GitHub and HackMD. The course not only taught us a great deal, but through sharing out the teamwork and maintaining our environments, deepened our communication skills and sense of social responsibility as future engineers.

• Our mentor arranged for us to work with the Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation on an advocacy project for facial equality. With a tight preparation schedule and the exacting demands of working across organisations, the process was honestly full of challenges and pressure. But it was precisely through intensive communication and learning to share the work that we learned to pace ourselves, handle the unexpected, and manage the details of collaborating with an outside non-profit. This demanding, hands-on course showed us why facial equality matters, and how much expertise and patience it takes to advance a public issue — solid learning that was hard going first and rewarding after.

• Our mentor set out a range of public issues for us to explore, including food and agricultural education and new immigrants. Working in groups taught me a lot about handling relationships and managing a team, and I also gained a deeper understanding of the state of mother-tongue education in Taiwan. Extending from my own field into cross-disciplinary learning strengthened my major and improved my communication and teamwork. We even had the chance to plan a science camp, learning to prepare lesson plans suited to primary school pupils so as to better meet the needs of those we serve.

• With our mentor's step-by-step guidance, we went from group discussions and writing experiments to making our own lesson plans, then travelled to rural primary schools to lead children in hands-on science — and in their bright, focused faces we felt how teaching and learning grow together. Our mentor arranged professional training in lesson preparation and regularly checked our progress with each group. The course also included a thought-provoking talk on algal reef conservation and coral bleaching, and field visits to ecological sites, which greatly broadened our horizons. A full year's commitment not only improved our lesson planning and communication across groups, but brought back the passion that first drew us, as life sciences students, to protecting the natural world.

• The course was more challenging than I expected. In an age when we're used to typing on our phones and talking through screens, our mentor took us off campus to do fieldwork, listening face to face to the life stories, joys and sorrows of strangers and niche craftspeople. We spent weekends arranging interviews and filming a documentary, and built an exhibition bit by bit out of group discussions — it took a huge amount of effort and was exhausting. But when we finally saw everyone's interviews presented in full at the exhibition, the sense of fulfilment was irreplaceable. Thank you for showing us the real warmth in society's quiet corners; it's a growing experience I won't forget.

• Our faculty adviser knows about all of the association's activities and offers suggestions at the right moments. We often go through our event plans in detail together, and whenever questions come up in running an event, she shares the experience of previous years and actively offers support and ways to talk things through.

• Our faculty adviser knows about all of the association's activities and offers suggestions at the right moments. When an event carries more risk, the adviser talks it through with us in detail; the adviser also reaches out to discuss event content and budgets, offers help, and strongly supports us in running all kinds of activities.

• Our teacher really puts himself into it — even in blazing heat he came down and ran with us, always reminding us to watch out for tree roots and slippery ground. I already knew there was a lot to learn in this sport, and the stories he shared stayed with me; that he has represented Taiwan in competition amazed me. He teaches very well, and I would take his class again given the chance. He is serious and patient, always encouraging us and correcting our form.

• Through my time on the dance team our teacher has been a constant presence. Beyond teaching technique, she has stood with us through every practice and every competition. There are inevitably times in rehearsal when things don't go well — when everyone is off form, or we keep falling short of what she is looking for, and the mood drops. But she never simply scolds us. She patiently shows us where the problem lies, then works through it with us. I often help her lead the team's practice too, which lets me feel how hard it is to lead a team day in, day out. Many things look simple, but only when you actually do them do you find how much patience they take — and she is always willing to spend the time getting every detail right with us.

  Somewhere along the way I realised that what dance gives me is not only the thrill of being on stage. From one rehearsal after another to finishing a competition together, I learned how to talk to my teammates, and learned that even when I'm exhausted I should still think of the team. As captain I don't always handle things well, but she always gives me the chance to try, and offers advice when I don't know what to do. Looking back, what I've really gained is a group of people to work hard alongside, and a precious memory. Thank you for staying with us and trusting us — you taught me more than how to dance; over that time I slowly became someone more responsible, more willing to give to the team.

• When I heard the university had a modern dance team, I had no background in dance at all, so I only meant to sit in on rehearsals and follow along as best I could. Being taken onto the team was not something I expected, and I count it a piece of real luck.

  At first the pace felt very fast — we would move on to the next sequence before I had the last one — but I approached it in a relaxed way, so the charm and fun of dance still filled me. Carrying that feeling and love, I stayed on the team for two years. Over time I went from simply following the movements to trying to understand them — thinking about where the power comes from in the body and holding certain abstract images of motion in mind — and, unlike merely copying where the limbs go, that let me feel my own progress on solid ground. It comes from the many ways our teacher finds to make a movement make sense: guiding us to imagine extension through space, explaining how the source of a movement connects to its extremities, showing how breath ties into the rhythm of the music. And as she got to know us, she adjusted what she taught to each student's body and experience, so each of us could progress towards our own goals. In this kind of teaching and environment, if you take every rehearsal seriously and absorb what her words and demonstrations offer, you learn far more than dance.

• Joining the dance team gave me more than somewhere to dance; it gave me a group of people working towards the same thing. Our regular classes are mainly modern dance, and everything from basic movement and body control to musical expression takes a lot of practice. Modern dance is not a matter of getting through the movements — you have to think about what each one is meant to say, so over the course of rehearsing I slowly learned to speak with my body.

  What makes competition different for me is that, far more than ordinary practice, it needs everyone working together. Each person's movement, force and emotion has to be as unified as possible; if one part isn't right, it can affect the whole picture. So rehearsals before a competition are usually more intensive, and we keep reminding and adjusting one another. Preparing is genuinely tiring, but going from those first rehearsals all the way to standing on stage together still leaves you feeling: we actually did this.

  What the team means most to me is that it lets me keep doing something I love while I'm at university. Beyond the dancing itself, I've met so many people I rehearse and compete with.

• Professor Chang is a wonderfully skilled and kind teacher! In the conditioning class before each rehearsal she designs movements around the parts of the body we understand least, so that during training we have related movements to refer back to. Her suggestions are genuinely useful; whenever there's a movement I can't follow I can ask on the spot, and she will demonstrate it again and again, always attentive and patient, and always reminding us where to be careful not to get hurt. Over these few years of team training and competitions, tiring as it can be, the progress has been unmistakable — it's a place full of happiness and the sense of having achieved something. Thank you so much for your teaching, Professor Chang!

• In my time with the dance team I have felt keenly how much our teacher gives to her teaching and to the team. In training she takes account of how everyone's body is holding up before raising the difficulty, and folds the rhythm, movement and coordination she wants us to learn into the warm-up or short combinations, so that the choreography and rehearsal that follow go more smoothly.

  When teaching movements she often uses metaphors or demonstrates herself, making it easier to understand how the body should move and where to apply force. Even when we don't do well, she doesn't keep scolding us but encourages us and tells us how to adjust. Sometimes she deliberately sets us challenges — harder movements, a sudden change of tempo, or doing the side we're not used to — so we learn to really feel our own bodies.

  I love the feeling of everyone rehearsing together and encouraging one another. Even when my timetable keeps me from a session, she adjusts the schedule so that everyone can keep up. She has made me feel that the team is not only somewhere to learn to dance, but a group in which we push past our limits and grow together.

• I joined the team only recently and haven't yet taken part in a competition or performance rehearsal; so far I attend the yoga and modern dance training on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, as well as the modern dance PE elective.

  Professor Chang teaches modern dance and yoga with real system. She points out the fine demands of a movement — the breath, the force, the part of the body you need to feel in a particular position — step by step, so we can work through them one at a time rather than being overwhelmed from the start. Where an individual falls short she gives a patient reminder, explains further, and demonstrates herself. She is also generous with encouragement whenever someone improves or does well, which gives us more confidence.

  When I first joined I worried about fitting in with the rest of the team, but everyone turned out to be friendly and welcoming, and always willing to help with questions about dance or the team. Beyond guiding our dancing, she takes a real interest in our daily lives. The whole team is like a large family, and I am very glad to be part of it.

• Professor Chang is skilled at teaching movement by drawing it out of you, and she looks after her students' physical and mental state. The team is well run — there are rules, but nothing rigid, and the atmosphere in training puts you at ease. What you learn is not only steps and technique but a fundamental way of using the body and of exploring space; in the lighter periods of training you can feel yourself moving and letting go. Competition season is exhausting and takes a great deal of time and energy, but competing alongside the rest of the team is deeply satisfying, and finishing a piece is a joy. It is thoroughly worth it.