When you ask Mahima Kwatra why she keeps coming back to Yorkville University for frequent visits, despite the fact that she graduated last year, her answer is a simple one: “It’s like a second home to me.”
“I love to come back, because I have friends who are still here, and I have bonds with my old professors and YU staff members,” said the 22-year-old international student, who first enrolled in the Bachelor of Business Administration program at Yorkville’s Ontario campus back in 2019.
“I come back to the university because it feels good, and everyone is so nice!”
The other reason she comes back for such frequent visits, she admits, is to partake in one of her greatest life passions – dance.
A lifelong performer back home in India, Kwatra brought her enthusiasm for dance with her to Yorkville in a big way, by helping to found the university’s first-ever YU Dance Squad and encouraging her fellow classmates to get involved in the fun along the way.
“When I first came to the university in 2019, I had nothing except my classroom studies, so I used to just go to campus, study, and come home again,” she recalled. “That was my whole routine.”
Then she met Yorkville’s Student Activities Coordinator and the two began discussing ways she could help bring some “spark” to the university – a conversation that ultimately led to the launch of the dance squad.
“I wanted to do it so students like me could better enjoy their time here and be happy,” she said.
“The university experience shouldn’t just be about studying and the four walls of the classroom. Students need to out out of the box!”
And that, Kwatra said, is a goal she and her fellow members of the YU Dance Squad have been able to accomplish in spades – sharing their talent for dance with their classmates at YU’s annual Summerfest and other on-campus events and activities, as well as out in the wider community here in Toronto.
In fact, just last summer, the squad brought their moves down to Gerrard Street, where they performed a number of Bhangra, Indian Classical, Contemporary Persian, Bollywood Pop and Garba routines on stage at the TD Festival of South Asia.
After that performance, Kwatra said membership for the dance club exploded – from the six or seven people she first recruited, to the more than 60 members the squad boasts today.
“I’m so happy that I could help create this club and proud that I could help bring it in for future students coming to Yorkville, so that they have something to enjoy outside the classroom,” she said, noting all the friendships she forged through the dance squad at Yorkville.
“Through this experience, I made so many new bonds, so many new friends, for which I’m very grateful and happy right now.”
Just a month after graduating from YU in December 2022, Kwatra began working as a management trainee at Enterprise – a six-month program she landed, in large part thanks to the support she received from YU’s Career Services team.
But even though she’s now embarking on the next phase of her life and career as a new graduate, Kwatra said she’ll always hold a special place in her heart for Yorkville and all the memories she created here.
“It was not easy for me, as a student, to come to another country and settle my life all over again in a different place. Yorkville University played a big part in that phase of my life, through my happiness and sadness,” she said.
“I have that connection now to the university, and the people, friends and professors I met there. It’s my second home, my second family.”
