News and Releases

Keyword: student
Sunday@CMU: August 2025
Sunday, August 3, 2025 @ 12:00 AM
Voices of the CMU Community
This month on Sunday@CMU, we highlight student voices from the CMU community. Listen to stories produced by Communications and Media students in CMU's radio team course and hear performances from this year's 20th annual Verna Mae Janzen Music Competition finals.
Read More#myCMUlife | “Well… it depends…”: Four insights into studying music therapy at CMU
Thursday, June 5, 2025 @ 9:00 AM
Four years ago, I had never heard of music therapy. Now, I can't imagine doing anything else.
In the fall of 2017, I was heading into the last year of my Bachelor of Music in piano at King's University in Edmonton, trying to figure out what to do afterwards. As I skimmed through a promotional brochure about what to do with a music degree, the words "music therapy" caught my eye. I was instantly intrigued. I remember phoning a music therapist to get more information. When I asked what a typical music therapy workday might look like, she replied with, "Well... it depends...." While I thought this answer was profoundly unhelpful in the moment, I've seen how true it is after studying music therapy at CMU.
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Read More#myCMUlife | Finding your people at CMU
Monday, May 5, 2025 @ 3:59 PM
Life at CMU is full of unexpected lessons. Some come from professors, others from classmates, and many from late-night lounge chats or spontaneous games of hide and seek in the forest. For CMU students Ella, Jewels, and Adalynne, living and learning on campus has been just as much about personal growth as it has been about academics.
Ella doesn't just participate in student life—she's practically the poster child for it. "How much time do you have?" she joked, before listing off an impressive roster of roles: soccer and futsal player, Indigenous student leader, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion volunteer, member of the Music Student Association, CMQ, Arts and Entertainment, and the list goes on. Somehow, she does it all and still manages to sound genuinely joyful about it.
Jewels keeps busy too, but with a slightly different flavour. She works as a barista at folio café on CMU's campus and sings in two CMU choirs. Adalynne brings a thoughtful energy to their many contributions. They've volunteered in the student-run Blaurock Café and Meraki Maker Space, performed at coffeehouses, and played in the Mennonite Community Orchestra. "It's been a really nice experience," they said simply, the kind of understatement that hints at something richer beneath the surface.
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Read More#myCMUlife | Sustainability at CMU
Tuesday, April 15, 2025 @ 4:51 PM
With sustainable practices at the heart of many CMU students' values, it's no wonder there is a student group on campus dedicated to peace and sustainability.
The peace and sustainability committee, in collaboration with the arts and entertainment committee, holds a week-long festival every year with education and events to engage students in sustainability. This year's festival included a thrift store trip, a fashion show, a winter cycling workshop, a market, and last but certainly not least, a dumpster diving excursion.
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Read MoreNEW! CMU Elite Gold Unlimited Prestige Student Card (video)
Tuesday, April 1, 2025 @ 9:00 AM
Big things are happening at CMU! This fall we're introducing a student experience as excellent as our academics—the CMU Elite Gold Unlimited Prestige Student Plan. Enroll now for the finest experience CMU has to offer.
Read More#myCMUlife | Lost and found in translations: The international student experience
Tuesday, March 25, 2025 @ 1:41 PM
Philosophy books, lasting friendships, faint echoes of laughter, and the comforting scent of hot chocolate while rushing in the hallways...
As I make my way to my evening class on the north side of CMU's campus, I let flickers of past and present memories wash over me. The castle building looms in front of me, still as massive and beautiful as the first day I saw it. I get distracted by the beauty of the snow surrounding me, sparkling and looking like fairy dust in the faint light surrounding the pathways. I breathe out loudly to see the cloud made by the cold air and laugh childishly. Having previously lived on a tropical island where sunshine prevails for most of the year, winter is truly captivating, particularly to those who encounter snow only upon arriving in Canada.
Being an international student is no easy feat. Being away from your family and everything you know, while balancing part-time work and the pressure to excel academically, can be overwhelming. However, my CMU experience was transformed by its strong sense of community. I made a few friends within the first few days of university, not knowing that they would become life-long friends of mine. I remember the short presentations on how to prepare for the academic year and ensure success, along with the campus tours led by faculty members that helped ease the transition. Before long, I was familiar with all the buildings and rushing to my first few classes.
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Read More#myCMUlife | Where creativity and community thrive
Wednesday, March 12, 2025 @ 8:43 AM
CMU prides itself on its tight-knit and welcoming community, with plenty of opportunities to interact with peers outside of classes, whether you live on campus or you're a commuter student. One of the driving forces behind these events is the Arts & Entertainment committee.
As the title implies, the Arts & Ents committee is responsible for providing fun events all throughout the year for students to take part in at no extra cost to the students. One consistent event that has remained solid throughout the years is the coffeehouse, usually put on multiple times a year. Coffeehouses are a chance for students to showcase their music or any other forms of performance. As a university with a diverse demographic of students, it's nice to see what kind of projects your fellow students have been creating in their free time.
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Read More#myCMUlife | How do CMU students spend their reading week?
Tuesday, February 18, 2025 @ 9:00 AM
Reading week is something that every student looks forward to. Whether you're visiting home or staying on campus, it is a time for relaxing, hanging out with friends and family, catching up on sleep, having fun, and, well, reading.
Good study habits are important, but what second-year student and Poettcker Hall resident Shusmita Shovona took away from the fall semester reading week was the chance to have a fun time with the different residence events that were planned out. "My favourite events were the movie screening and sleepover in the lecture hall, and gargon." For context, gargon is a student-created game where you run around the north side castle at nighttime with an objective that changes every year, while being chased by enemies.
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Read More#myCMUlife | Finding purpose through music
Tuesday, February 4, 2025 @ 1:36 PM
If you would have asked me back in 2020 where I saw myself in five years, your guess would've been as good as mine. I've always been indecisive, but with the world in disarray, nobody knew what the future had in store. However, I do know my response would have involved doing something I'm passionate about, helping others, and making a difference. Still, I wouldn't have believed it if you'd told me I would be back at school, studying music no less, and just ten minutes down the road from me. Yet here I am, a CMU student looking to become a music therapist.
I have always had a passion for music and art. My mom is an artist, so she raised us surrounded by all kinds of music and art. My favourite childhood show was The Wiggles—need I say more? One of the only after-school activities I was ever in was elementary school choir, and I sang in school talent shows even though my anxiety made it extremely scary. Looking back now, I realize I should have taken band in middle school. I was a bit scared of the commitment to something so foreign, since reading music wasn't something I felt confident doing. Plus it felt like I didn't have the time for the early mornings and late after-school practices. So, I just continued to sing literally everywhere I went, if I could, and I began collecting instruments in hopes of learning how to play on my own (unsuccessfully, I might add). Because when I sing or play, I feel something deep inside connecting me to the music.
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Read More#myCMUlife | How CMU made me enjoy living in Winnipeg
Thursday, October 24, 2024 @ 6:31 PM
Growing up in Winnipeg, I always thought I would leave this wintery plain the moment I turned 18. University seemed like the kind of thing you had to move away from Winnipeg for, to have a good experience like you see in the movies. I had visited other universities around Winnipeg and had seen the thousands of students rushing around the overwhelmingly large and at times not-so-aesthetically-pleasing campuses, running to catch busses in the freezing cold. I thought, "Yeah, I might take my business elsewhere."
Then I ended up at CMU by chance for a high school internship. The internship itself taught me so much and gave me the opportunity to work with a publishing company at 17 years old, but I was also enchanted by the architecture of the old castle building and the tiny classrooms compared to large lecture halls of other universities. This learning experience seemed to promise a more one-on-one approach.
I grew up in the North End of Winnipeg, which I found difficult for a plethora of reasons. When I moved to northern Manitoba, I made a promise to myself that when I moved again, I would never move back to Winnipeg. If you've ever seen the movie Lady Bird, I had sort of the same melodramatic line of thinking as the main character. As she says in the film, "I want to go to the east coast. I want to go where culture is."
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