Ronan Giguère
Like so many young people, Ronan Giguère came to university and found himself on the stage. Although, in his case, it may be more accurate to say he found himself while building the stage.
Like many students graduating this year, Giguère began his degree during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. “So, I was in residence for that,” he explains. “…the Foundation Year Program was the best first-year experience you could get during Covid. Because of the journalism school, we had professionally filmed lectures, it was all very streamlined. In that sense, it was definitely better than it would have been doing any other program.”
High production value aside, spending all day in a dorm room on a laptop was a far cry from the quintessential university experience Giguère had anticipated. So, when in-person instruction resumed, he wasted no time getting involved on campus—specifically, with the King’s Theatrical Society.
“I acted in The Bald Soprano in my second year, and then I stage-managed Copenhagen. In January of last year, I got elected to the executive as Pit Manager and produced a show that was student-written. This year, I’ve produced Classics in the Quad, the King’s Infringement Festival, Arcadia and built the sets for all the other shows.”
When it comes to societies like the KTS, much of the valuable knowledge and traditions are passed from the older students to the younger ones. The reduced campus activity during Covid created a disruption in that chain. When Giguère became involved, he and his fellow KTS members found they had to learn things they would normally have been shown by their predecessors. For example, Giguère taught himself how to rewire the stage lights in the Pit, the KTS’s black box theatre located in the basement of the Arts & Administration building.
Giguère has spent the past year making sure the younger students know how the theatre is run—assuring no knowledge will be lost after he graduates. Not only has this been a highlight of his time at King’s, but it’s influenced his future plans as well—after graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in history, he plans to move back to his hometown of Kingston, Ontario to pursue a job in outdoor education. He’s excited to combine his lifelong love of the outdoors with the passion he’s cultivated for mentorship, education and hands-on experiences.
“The first-years this year were incredible and bought a whole lot of energy; it was just really fun to work with them and teach them how to do things. And now at this point, I’m leaving behind a functional theatre with them, and a lot of them have picked up on the various aspects of it, and are now able to carry that forward.”
Andrew Dogurga
Three things compelled Andrew Dogurga to transfer to King’s in his third year: basketball, community and the allure of a bigger city.
“The athletic community at King’s is super tight-knit,” he says. “Those are people that I will be really close with for the rest of my life.”
Dogurga was born and raised in Turkey. He lived in New Brunswick briefly, before moving to Newfoundland. Speaking with him, you get the sense he’s a person who’s always thinking one step ahead. After graduating from high school at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, he made the decision to attend Memorial University—though he wanted to study out of the province, he didn’t want to grapple with the uncertainty of relocating during a tumultuous time. He took his time and when he felt ready, he made the move to Nova Scotia.
The decision paid off: in addition to playing forward on the Blue Devils basketball team, Dogurga rose through the ranks in the classroom, pursuing a Bachelor of Arts with a major in political science and a minor in sociology.
“I find that a lot of social theory is very interconnected,” he says of his degree choice. “I enjoyed the specific topics … and it just gave me a really well-rounded perspective.”
I’ve made a lot of great connections within the King’s community…
His degree choice is the result of lifelong interests in policymaking, law and government. In fact, Dogurga’s involvement in these topics extends beyond the classroom—in the summers, he’s worked as a policy analyst with Public Safety.
After he crosses the stage on May 23, Dogurga will take these interests one step further. In September, he’ll begin a law degree at Dalhousie’s Schulich School of Law; he hopes to go into litigation, though he’s open to exploring other fields.
Balancing a good GPA, a spot on the basketball team and postgraduate plans hasn’t been easy, and Dogurga’s learned a lot from the process. The biggest challenge for him, he says, was learning to embrace a lack of control.
“In high school, everything feels set in stone, almost. But then you get to university, where you have to take some risks with what you’re doing in your degree, and you almost want control over your entire degree, you want to be able to tailor it to go a certain way. I think at the end of the day, you have to be able to let that go a little bit.”
He says he’s grateful to King’s for this important life lesson. In fact, it was the community he built at King’s and in Halifax that inspired him to apply for law school right next door.
“I’ve made a lot of great connections within the King’s community, from President Lahey, who helped guide me through the law school process … all the way to campus staff,” he says.
“Everybody that I got to meet here and experience a relationship with made me really excited to come to campus every day and was definitely the highlight of this entire experience and of [living in] Halifax in general.”
