Social Connection Support

Staying connected and involved in the Western community while you’re away from campus and practicing social distancing is important to your well-being.

Social Media

Social media is a great tool available that you can use to connect. It's important to focus on meaningful connection as opposed to "likes" though. Student Experience will be sharing strategies to stay connected, win some prizes, and generally have fun. Follow our accounts below and share your own stories using #WesternUThrive. Follow us at any of the accounts below to participate.

Accounts to Follow:

Thrive Online: Your Virtual Western Community!

Visit Western's brand new student community blog site - Thrive Online. Thrive online is a space for Western students to tell your own stories in your own words. We know that being socially connected and able to share our learning is a vital part of being able to thrive, and we believe it can also happen when we’re online. We’ll be posting stories written by Western students that help us celebrate, engage, relate, entertain, and educate each other.

If you want to be part of building this space and sharing your voice, visit our Contributor Page to find out how to submit your own post!

E-Sports FREE Online Tournaments

Sport and Recreation is running free online E-Sports tournaments for current Western students. No experience necessary. Visit their website to find out more.

Events

Western Student Experience is offering a variety of digital events, including Game Nights, Coffee and Chats with the Chaplain, Therapy Dogs Digital Hangouts, Movie Nights and more. Visit Student Experience on Instagram daily for what's going on!

The International and Exchange Student Centre has just launched a series of virtual social programs to bring students together across global borders. Visit their website to find out more.

Online Ways To Beat Boredom

Social distancing can be really tough, but the good news is we have a lot of tools available now that can help. There are all kinds of ways you can connect and participate in activities just using your computer. Here are just a few suggestions:

Virtual Music, TV, and Boardgames

Check out live music performances that you can stream from home.

Burton Cummings performs live! Join the former lead singer and keyboardist of The Guess Who as he performs live on Facebook here!

Try out music lessons with the Arkells.

Find a variety of classical concerts to suit your fancy!

Rufus Wainwright performs daily on Instagram! Have a private concert with Rufus as he performs one song a day from his catalogue on Instagram.

Team up to make the ultimate playlist! Just set any playlist to Spotify Collaborative and your friends will be able to add, delete and reorder the tracks.

Try your voice at karaoke or lip-sync competitions like Karafun, SingSnag, or Smule.

Try out Netflix Party--it's a Chrome Extension for watching Netflix remotely with friends that synchronizes video playback and adds a group chat function.

Check out these board game tournaments like Pogo, Tabletopia, and Poki.

Digital Museum Tours

You don’t have to literally step foot inside a museum to enjoy a museum. Check out these virtual tours offered by some of the world’s most famous museums!

British Museum, London
Guggenheim Museum, New York
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
National Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art, Seoul
Pergamon Museum, Berlin
Toronto's Ripley's

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Uffizi Gallery, Florence
MASP, São Paulo
National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City

Animal Cams

Explore for live cams of not just puppies and kittens, but load of wild and exotic creatures too!

For more online ways to connect, visit Western Residence's Virtual Programming site!

Journaling

Journaling can be deeply therapeutic. Follow these daily prompts or host group journaling sessions while you livestream some relaxing music. Try these journal prompts to get you started!

Online Volunteering

You can still put some good out into the world from your couch. Multilingual students can serve as web translators, empathetic listeners can volunteer with 7 Cups, and sighted students can download Be My Eyes to lend a hand to those who are blind or visually-impaired.

You can also find more virtual volunteer opportunities here:

Online Cooking

Time to get creative in the kitchen with these Livestream tutorials straight from a bakery in London, England.

Binge-watch Julia Child’s “The French Chef”. Learn to cook from one of the best chefs of all time – Julia Child herself HERE!

Parent Questions

If you are looking for responses to questions about how your student can receive remote support, please contact Student Support & Case Management at sscm@uwo.ca or by calling 519-661-2111 x89152.