Joel Perera's introduction to cross country is about as unlikely as any in the world of athletics and recreation. He didn't fall in love with the sport by watching it on television or through a reverence of its most heroic figures. Instead, he simply gave it a try at school. 

In middle school, the Toronto native was not allowed to participate in cross country and track and field at his school; he was terribly asthmatic, and his mother was concerned that participating in such intense cardiovascular activity would put him at risk of severe injury. 

Undeterred, Perera began signing permission forms for himself in sixth grade and ran in school-wide track and field competitions. Much to the chagrin of his parents, he was successful in his first forays into running and continued through to high school.  

"My mom was furious," Perera recalls with a cheeky smile. "So, I just kept running."

After a successful stint as a runner at Scarborough's Neil McNeil High School, Perera came to Ryerson and enrolled in the university's Business Management program at the Ted Rogers School of Management (TRSM) in 2012, where he double-majored in law and business and human resources over a five-year degree. Though he initially left running behind when he transitioned to university, he missed the competition and community, so he and fellow runners Michael Park and Valerian Gomes revitalized the Rams cross country team in 2015. 

With the Rams, Perera competed successfully at invitational events at Western, Brock, and Waterloo. He also served as an assistant coach alongside Albert Dell'Apa, a role that involved him creating personal training plans for athletes, tracking mileage, and assisting in the team's finances and logistics, among others.  

Now, Perera is a second-year student at Ryerson's Lincoln Alexander School of Law, an educational decision that was inspired, at least in part, by the Tom Cruise movie A Few Good Men, which he watched in a high school law class. It helped that a lot of the classes concentrated on cases involving children and adolescents, a demographic group particularly relevant to his life at the time. Going even further, he took a course in Canadian business law during his undergrad at TRSM, and loved it so much that he's now a teaching assistant (TA) for that very same course. 

"I just kept being interested in it," Perera said of his budding interest in law. "I'm probably the only one who'll ever say this, but I actually liked the LSAT," he added. 

When asked why he chose to pursue his law degree at the newly minted Lincoln Alexander School, Perera noted that his loyalty to Ryerson made it an easy decision. Of course, the university's emphasis on practical, pragmatic instruction was attractive to him as someone with a career-first approach to his professional life. 

"Ryerson's done so much for me," he acknowledged cordially. "I felt that I also wanted to be part of the new school. It kinda just felt right." 

Not only is Perera enjoying his time at law school, but he's already beginning his career in the field; this summer, he'll be working at Hansell LLP in downtown Toronto and continuing to work there as part of his professional placement in the fall under Carol Hansell, one of Canada's most renowned lawyers in corporate governance. 

"It's so fun, I love it," Perera beamed when asked about his first two years of law school. "I really couldn't imagine myself anywhere else."

Though he's not currently training with the Rams cross country team, Perera hopes to finish his studies at Ryerson strong and parlay his real-world experience into a career in corporate law. Ultimately, he hopes to become a judge, as that will allow him to make a difference in communities through the legal profession he's come to love so much. 

"Being a judge would allow me to have more of an impact on society and allow me to enact the change I want to see in the world," Perera concluded proudly.