OCUS Lanyard

University of Guelph, 2018

Fabric, metal

49.6 x 1.0 cm

Distributed by University of Guelph

Personal collection

This is a lanyard given to me at a University of Guelph Orientation Week event in September 2018, printed with the text “EST 86 OCUS”, which stands for Off Campus University Students. Today, it symbolizes the big life-changing steps we undertake that transform our lives indelibly..

From childhood, personality is developed in relation to an individual’s surroundings.. Moving from home to school where I had a place of my own, away from both of my parents and the campus, transformed by everyday life and experiences, informing my current personality. This lanyard speaks to a newfound independence with new responsibility for my own place with its own keys - a big difference from the more insignificant objects from my childhood.

The entire university experience -developing new relationships, learning in-depth information, developing new study habits and time-management skills - have been major influences on my contemporary sense of self, and this band represents that to me. It symbolizes not only my time at the University, but specifically the moment I moved off-campus and was able to choose, for the first time, a place of my own. It is a symbol of school life and of all the little things a university does to create a sense of community., which has been critical during the pandemic as access to our everyday social lives has been significantly. It represents the commute, travelling to and from campus, studying in the library and eating lunch at the university centre. The move from high school to university represents a series of changes, and this lanyard encapsulates the most impactful of them all. In the future, OCUS will a distant memory, and the uncertainty that comes with living in your own place for the first time will have vanished. Still, this lanyard will remain.

Chrisoula Vergis