MIKAILA STRICKLAND, 18

Studying performance and production at Ryerson

HOMETOWN: Vaughan

WHERE SHE IS NOW: At home in Vaughan

L ast spring, I was accepted into the BFA program in performance and production at Ryerson, where I’d learn how to create costumes and design sets. I was looking forward to being on campus and using the university’s facilities and theatre. I planned to live with my nonna, near Finch Station, so I’d have a shorter commute. But all that changed with Covid—since I no longer needed to get downtown every day, I decided to stay home in Vaughan.

I live with my parents and my twin sister, who is starting her first year of English at Laurier, and my older brother, who is in graduate school for engineering at Lakehead. I’m glad I still get to see my siblings, especially my sister. We’ve never lived apart, so it would have been weird not having her around.

We’re all studying at home, which can be challenging. For the first few weeks, my bedroom was being painted, so I was studying in the dining room with headphones on. It can be distracting if people are using the kitchen or watching TV. My sister popped into a video chat once because she wanted to give me a hug and didn’t realize I was in class, and my mom often tried to talk to me when I was in the middle of a lecture. I’m happy to have my own space to study again.

I have five classes and I’m in lectures for about 15 hours a week. One of them is an online lab for a design class. We always start off the lab by doing a sketch. There are about 12 of us, and we’ve tried holding up our sketches to the camera, but the instructor can’t really see them. So now we’re uploading our sketches instead. I was supposed to have another lab where we’d learn about wardrobe and building props, but it was postponed while the school figures out how to adapt it for pandemic times. They sent us a costume kit with things like fabric and needles so we’ll be able to learn about making costumes from home. I think they’re still going to try to have some in-person elements for the lab, but I’m not sure how that’ll work for the students not living in Toronto. Some of my classmates are as far away as Saskatchewan and the U.K.

We started a group chat for our program on Instagram, but soon moved to Discord. There are about 50 of us. It’s been nice to get to know people online. We usually hop on a call together after class to talk about what we’ve learned. People also show off their pets, share baking recipes and play Minecraft. There have been a few small meet-ups in person. In September, I went downtown with five of my classmates to buy drafting supplies from an art store. Two more came to join us afterwards for lunch. I was really excited to meet them because we’d been talking online for a few months by that point.

School isn’t what I was expecting, but I’m not too worried. Because I’m in first year, most of my classes are still lecture-based. In second year, we’re supposed to start helping out with shows and productions, but none of that is happening right now. I hope I’ll be able to do more classes in person down the road.