Gabriel Castro Xavier (IndE 1T8) is a third year, international student studying Industrial Engineering who enjoys long boarding, reading, and hiking. After completing his second year, he decided to stay in Canada for the summer for the first time. “To make sure I was utilizing my time well, I joined ILead Faculty-wide Summer Program and it was an amazing and useful experience.”
In the Summer Program, Gabriel engaged in several leadership and team building exercises, as well as trips to engineering organizations. These trips stood out the most for him. He thoroughly enjoyed the visit to TTC’s Hillcrest Complex because he saw where subway trains were fixed and heard from TTC’s deputy CEO Chris Upfold. This experience helped him gain insight into how leadership and engineering is applied in the real world. He also visited the Mayor’s Office and Gabriel got to sit in Mayor John Tory’s chair. “The coolest part of the program was that we went on a high ropes course at Evergreen Brickworks, and it was my first time doing so!” He was so inspired by this activity, that Gabriel is currently in the process of starting rock-climbing classes on his own.
Over the course of the Summer Program, Gabriel learned more about his personality and the way he operated in relation to others. “I got more interested in knowing my MBTI personality type and how different personalities work together. When you understand people better, you can work with them better.” Moreover, this also helped him understand the motivations behind the things he wanted to do.
Gabriel finished off the interview by saying – “The summer program helped me learn my weaknesses, develop leadership skills and hear perspectives from students I wouldn’t have otherwise met. This is going to help me not just in university but also when I join the workforce.”
-Namya Syal