The RESET Room
The RESET Room is a space for university students to cut through the pressure, check in with yourself, and get a little clearer about what you want from university - and for the person you’re becoming along the way.
Through conversation, reflection, connection and some skill-building, students get a chance to step out of the noise, hear from people who’ve been there, and think about what success actually looks like for them.
Come as you are, leave with more of yourself, and connections with peers who are figuring some of this out alongside you
Why RESET?
Students are under a lot of pressure to have everything figured out, sometimes without even being fully aware of it.
Beyond succeeding academically, they’re navigating career decisions, finances, relationships, networking, leadership, social lives, and questions about who they want to become. With so many expectations around what a “successful” university experience should look like, it can be easy to compare, overextend, or follow paths that don’t actually align with what matters to them.
The Reset Room creates space for students to step away from that pressure, reconnect with themselves and others, and make more intentional decisions about both university and the life they’re building beyond it.
What happens in the room?
We’ll start the event with a conversation about the parts of life we don’t always talk about - pressure, choices, uncertainty, success, and figuring yourself out as you go. We’ll explore what it looks like to find and follow your own definition of success. See below to meet our hosts and guest for this conversation.
Then we’ll shift from listening to doing with an experience facilitated by host Gillian Nycum. You’ll have a chance to check in with yourself, connect with others, and set some intentions for what you want to bring into the months ahead.
Students will leave with
A clearer sense of what success means to them
More awareness of what they want - and what might just be pressure or expectation
A few intentions for the semester ahead
Practical tools for checking in with themselves when things get noisy
New connections, perspectives and people they can learn from
Hopefully, a little more permission not to have it all figured out
More Doors to Open
We’d like this to be the first event in a series we are planning over the course of the academic year. When you register, you can weigh in on the discussion and learning topics you are most interested in. To the best of our ability, we will plan experiences over the course of the academic year that correspond most to your interests as a group.
Themes like Unlocking your Creativity, Managing Your Money and Generating Wealth, Shift the Stories You Tell, Understanding Neurotypes (ADHD, ASD, “Neurotypical”)The University of the Future, Attuned and Clean Communication Skill-building, Giving Feedback.
If you would like to weigh in and attend future sessions but do not plan to register for this event, please complete this short survey to indicate the topics that interest you and to keep up to date on future Rooms or visit the Programs page.
Your Hosts
Meet Gillian Nycum- leadership strategist, coach, speaker, lawyer, and co-founder of The RESET Room.
For more than 20 years, Gillian has worked across higher education, law, government, culture and technology, exploring what helps people and organizations thrive in a world that is constantly changing and uncertain.
Today, using The Reality Practice, she works with leaders, teams and young people to cut through the noise, see more of what’s actually happening, and create the conditions for people to bring more of who they are and what they have to offer.
With The RESET Room, Gillian is creating the kind of space she wishes she had when she was younger: a place to step out of the pressure to perform, reconnect with yourself and others, get curious about what success might look like on your own terms, and learn future ready leadership and life skills.
Gillian is a certified coach and ADHD life coach and offers coaching, speaking and facilitation and higher ed consulting services.
Meet Sierra Antoine, student, community builder, and co-founder of The RESET Room.
For most of her life, Sierra felt the pressure to know where she was headed. She was always told she had a bright future ahead of her, but when she got to university, that expectation quickly became pressure to choose the right path, make the right decisions, and somehow already know what she wanted her future to look like.
From computer science to economics to sociology, Sierra changed programs three times while trying to figure out which path actually felt like hers. Along the way, she experienced what so many students do: feeling lost, overwhelmed, comparing her progress to others, and questioning whether she was doing university “right.”
Now in U3, Sierra is still figuring some of it out, and that’s a big part of why she co-founded The RESET Room.
Through The RESET Room, she wants to create the kind of student community she needed along the way. A space where students can be honest about not having everything figured out, meet people navigating similar experiences, and step away from the noise long enough to think about what they actually want from university and the life they’re building beyond it.
For Sierra, it’s about reminding students that there isn’t one right way to do university, and they don’t have to figure it all out alone.
Invited Guest
Meet Nicole Antoine - entrepreneur, experiential marketing strategist, and Co-Founder & CEO of BLAXPO, N/A & Co Inc., and Four Brown Girls.
With over a decade of experience working with 40+ leading brands, Nicole has built a career at the intersection of strategy, culture, community, and connection. Her work has been recognized by Forbes, The Social, The Globe and Mail, CBC, and Bay Street Bull, where she was named Woman of the Year.
An EMBA graduate of McGill–HEC Montréal, Nicole continues to create meaningful experiences and build platforms that make an impact.
Come as you are
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Leave with more of yourself
~
And connections with like-minded peers
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Come as you are ~ Leave with more of yourself ~ And connections with like-minded peers ~
