My mentor: Genevieve Gougeon

Genevieve Gougeon is an amazing instructor/advisor who works at the Immigrant Services Society. She obtains a masters degree in pschology from the University of Montréal.

I met up with her today at Café Artigiano and spoke to her about my last project on helping immigrants. We exchanged some thoughts. Genevieve offered me many pieces of valuable advice and was very supportive. Our conversation then nicely segued into my current thesis project.

I started talking to her about my brainstorming progress and some ideas I have in mind. One of my ideas that she encouraged me in exploring is the idea of using a series of posters to form a conversation and trigger the public to start considering happiness. Given that there are too many ways to interpret happiness, Genevieve agrees that leaving my project open-ended would be more powerful. When she asked me what are some key ideas I want to get across the audience, I jotted down some notes and thoughts while I was talking along.

• little and random things that make people happy
• create conversation
• trigger people to start consider happiness
• stimulate minds
• not preaching
• create a domino effect
• bring a smile to people's faces
• make happiness contageous
• leave this open-ended and allow the audeince to project their own definition of happiness
  

Genevieve is such a classy lady with a demeaner that just makes you want to do better. She's one of the most patient and generous people I have met. I have such a respect for her, so I asked if she could be my mentor of this thesis project.

And, she said yes!