Duane Hicks
Matt Soprovich is among the 20 university graduates to be featured in Maclean’s 20th University Guide, which came out this month.
Maclean’s highlighted two decades’ worth of grads interviewed in the past, including Soprovich, to check up on them and see what they’re up to now.
Soprovich, who moved to Fort Frances in the fall to become local MPP Sarah Campbell’s new constituency assistant, originally appeared in the 2007 edition of the guide when he was a second-year student at University of Manitoba.
He graduated in 2009 with a degree in political science.
Late last year, he got a call from Maclean’s for a follow-up interview.
“To be honest, it came as a complete and utter shock to me,” Soprovich said yesterday.
“Maclean’s actually sent an e-mail shortly before Christmas looking for me through an old LinkedIn account I had asking if I was ‘the same Matt Soprovich’ that had spearheaded the campus food protests back in 2006 and that they were doing a retrospective issue,” he explained.
“All I could do was laugh,” he added. “I honestly hadn’t thought twice about those days since I left university, so I still find it completely hilarious that it’s continued to get traction now.”
For the Maclean’s interview, Soprovich talked for about 45 minutes on the phone with Maclean’s reporter Aaron Hutchins.
“He picked my brain about all different aspects of university life—how information got around in a pre-social media age, favourite classes, my partying habits, etc.,” he noted.
“It was a lot of fun to go down memory lane actually.
“When Aaron asked me if there was any particular memorabilia that I had kept, I had to sheepishly admit that I had totally lost my first degree,” added Soprovich.
“The life of a transient begets these kinds of things.”
Soprovich also clarified one comment made in the recent article on him.
“I was quoted as saying that by the end of my degree, I was ‘a little bit of a burnout.’
“What I actually told Maclean’s was that ‘I was a little bit burned out’ of politics,” he remarked.
“Big difference!”
Soprovich, 29, had a variety of jobs after graduating from university, ranging from planting trees and fighting forest fires to being a pedicab driver dressed as a pirate in Key West, Fla.
The Maclean’s article got him to reflect on his time at university, and he offered wisdom to future post-secondary students.
“I consider myself very lucky in the sense that my university experience was both very diverse and very involved—three years living in residence, the student activism, heavy involvement with our student union, and a year as the president of the student council for the Faculty of Arts,” said Soprovich.
“The University of Manitoba is very much a commuter campus—and as such, the typical experience for most students is to come in, go to class, and leave immediately afterwards,” he noted.
“I think I was quite fortunate to take a different route—most of my university memories come as a result of my extracurricular activities.
“And I can trace the origins of many of my good friends today to our time spent together in university, running around and causing a ruckus or two,” said Soprovich.
He stressed that “what happens in class is only a fraction of the experience that’s available for you in university.”
“I can’t advocate strongly enough to any potential or current university students this: there’s a whole other big, crazy, goofy section of what ‘is’ the university experience just waiting for you,” he remarked.
“Go ahead and explore it.”
