\u201cIf you could walk in someone else\u2019s shoes for just one day, who would it be?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would have to be a famous and brilliant mathematician like Nicolas Copernicus, because my brain seems to shut down whenever I\u2019m given a task involving any sort of math. So I feel like being able to switch brains with a mathematician and seeing what happens in their head would be quite interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not random that Nicole Boles chose Nicolas Copernicus, of all the famous mathematicians. Copernicus was the mathematician and astronomer who, in the Renaissance era, proposed a model of the universe that had the sun at the centre of it, rather than the Earth. He had, one can assume, a very interesting head in which a psychologist could spend a day. He was also Polish.<\/p>\n
Nicole is very much connected to her Polish heritage. She still speaks Polish, although she says it\u2019s getting a little rusty and she needs to keep it up so as not to lose it. She has deep connections with the Polish community in Calgary, and at the University of Calgary where she studies. And she\u2019s actually been to Poland, traveling there with friends as part of a Polish folk dancing group. She was part of that group until her third year of university, when she found her specific passion, and quit to focus on her studies.<\/p>\n
Now a fifth-year student at the University of Calgary, Nicole is going to apply to graduate schools throughout the year, with an eye toward studying speech and language pathology. She is also working as a literacy instructor by following a one on one literacy program aiming at strengthening children\u2019s oral and written language skills. This was the passion she discovered in third year, and she is heading in a straight line toward the ultimate goal \u2013 working with children to help them with speech, language, and communication.<\/p>\n
Nicole is also the Undergraduate Student Affairs Officer for the Canadian Psychological Association. That means she manages the student representative program. Recruiting members and prospective applicants, ensuring constant communication with those members, applicants, and current representatives. Nicole also collects and distributes reports from each campus.<\/p>\n
What is the psychological concept that blew you away when you first heard it?<\/strong> You can listen to only one musical artist\/group for the rest of your life. Who is it?<\/strong> Top three websites or apps you could not live without and why<\/strong> Favourite book<\/strong> Favourite quote<\/strong> \u201cI wasn\u2019t really aware that CPA even existed until [that] third year as a university student. At that point I was now involved in research, and I had found my specialization, and I got a job related to it. At that time I became a little more involved with the psychology association on my campus, and they brought up CPA. It was super-cool to see that there\u2019s this higher-level association working to promote psychology. I knew I was going to want to be more involved.\u201d<\/p>\n Fortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic has not affected her duties as the Undergrad Officer very much \u2013 a lot of the job is sending and receiving emails from all over Canada, and very little of the job in the past has been done in person. It\u2019s the school year itself that might be a little more tumultuous, as Nicole will be taking her fifth year entirely online. She realizes that she\u2019ll have to adapt her learning style a little bit, to become more of a self-directed learner than she has been up to this point.<\/p>\n That includes the more difficult assignments and research projects \u2013 the ones involving math. Though she may struggle with math, Nicole is driven and ambitious and has a goal in mind. I get the sense that could she actually live for a day in the head of Copernicus, she would emerge a competent, if not a brilliant, mathematician herself.<\/p>\n For the time being though, Nicole is going to struggle through math, adjust to full-time online learning, and complete her fifth year at the University of Calgary. She\u2019s also going to spend the next two years as the Undergraduate Student Affairs Officer at the CPA, helping undergrads navigate this brand new world in which they find themselves.<\/p>\n \u201cI really like working for an organization that allows you to work closely with professionals in the field, and I really want to reach out to undergrads, so I\u2019m looking forward to that. I know that for me personally it was a bit of a struggle transitioning from high school to university, and I\u2019m sure that\u2019s a hurdle that many students face. So I feel pretty proud to be part of CPA, because they strive to make students feel more at ease, more confident, and more supported.\u201d<\/p>\n Nicole is certainly at ease when we speak, and she is confident in her abilities and in her chosen career path. It\u2019s a straight line toward the future, helping children with speech and language difficulties. And it\u2019s also a straight line from the past, a past which Nicole is intentionally bringing along with her. One day, she will be helping with communication in both English and French. And who knows? Perhaps in Polish as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nicole Boles is the CPA\u2019s Undergraduate Student Affairs Officer, collaborating with Undergrad Student reps on campuses across Canada. She is also a Polish folk dancer.<\/p>\n
\nA recent one is the Whorfian hypothesis. This is, basically, the idea that language influences thought in a certain way. People who speak different languages will construe reality in different ways. For example, Russian speakers divide light and dark blues. That is, they have a term for light blue and another term for dark blue. And research has shown that they can distinguish between these two colours at a faster rate than English speakers. The difference is not that English speakers are unable to distinguish between light blue and dark blue, but that Russian speakers are unable to avoid<\/em> making that distinction.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nI grew up listening to Fleetwood Mac, and that would have to be it. And the catalogue would be a lot wider if I can throw in the spinoffs \u2013 Steve Nicks solo, the Buckingham-McVie stuff. I actually attended Fleetwood Mac\u2019s final concert, which was very special.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nMy camera app. Also Apple Notes, because I always need to write down everything and I need it to be in once place or else I\u2019ll inevitably forget or lose it. And\u2026does the phone app itself count as an app on a phone? Like making phone calls? I need that one too.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nMy favourite book, hands down, is Kids These Days<\/em>. It\u2019s a game-changing book by a clinical psychologist named Dr. Jody Carrington. She offers strategies to educators, teachers, bus drivers, etcetera to re-connect with \u201ckids these days\u201d. I work with children, so I could really empathize with certain aspects of this book, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who works with kids or has worked with kids in the past.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n\u201cIf you want something done right, ask a busy person.\u201d I feel like there\u2019s nothing truer than that.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/p>\n