Rybak’s Rules

Campus conspiracy theories — not just for nutjobs anymore

In this piece, I’m about to break a cardinal rule of the Internet (twice!) and lend traffic and promotion to sites I consider inherently ridiculous. I allow myself this exception to the rule because the two sites are at opposite ideological extremes. I figure the net effect should be about even.

For some time now, Campus Conservative Watch has been a bit of an inside joke. This site alleges a vast and organized attempt by conservative forces to subvert the student movement and to infiltrate campuses across Canada. Particularly funny is this bit, where they call out the media. Macleans On Campus is one of the targets. And while there are sometimes opinions on this site that I don’t agree with either, I can absolutely promise that I wasn’t subjected to ideological screening before I was recruited to write here. If I had been, I can’t imagine I would have passed muster by any conservative standard.

That is the problem with Campus Conservative Watch, after all, and why some think it’s just a really elaborate joke. We all dislike people coming from different political perspectives, at times, but when you lump them all into a group and allege conspiracy among them it’s just a little too convenient. Anyone who disagrees with you — and in particular with your paranoid theories — becomes a part of the opposition and therefore a part of the conspiracy! It’s very neat and self-proving. This site uses the term “conservative” in the way McCarthy used the term “communist.” It’s a bogeyman word intended to encompass everything disagreeable and threatening. And needless to say, any term that removes discussion from the substance of what’s actually going on and turns the opposition into a faceless “them” is self-defeating at best and dangerous at worst.

And then, I ran across The Undercurrent. I’m still a little stunned this “campus newspaper” actually exists. I don’t even have words — you’ll just have to read it.

The Undercurrent is a campus newspaper. It is written for college students across the country, with additional articles from the Ayn Rand Institute op-ed program and other writers.

By “the country” they mean the United States. But they don’t seem to have any issues with distributing the paper in Canada too. And you know, it does look like a campus newspaper! Initially, I was fooled into thinking it was a local product of some sort. It’s especially tricky at U of T Scarborough because our local paper is The Underground. It’s very plausible that some clever person figured they’d riff off that with The Undercurrent. But no such luck.

The very notion of producing an ideological propaganda piece of this nature and calling it a “campus newspaper” is highly suspect. In what sense is it “campus?” It only tangentially relates to education issues. It is written mainly by students, yes, but certainly not from U of T. By that same definition I could credibly describe the local Starbucks as a “campus initiative” because the employees are mostly students of one sort or another. But we all know that isn’t what we mean in the ordinary sense of the word when we describe something as belonging to the campus. We mean our campus. This isn’t a campus newspaper. It’s propaganda aimed at a valuable demographic that the right-wing fringe is seeking to influence. I can’t possibly describe it as anything else. It isn’t even a national conspiracy — it’s an international one!

I almost feel as though I owe an apology to Campus Conservative Watch. They were right all along! Or I’d owe them an apology, at least, if they actually noticed this rag and said something about it. Instead, I suppose, they were focused on the “conservative conspiracy” among students who happen to not like the CFS. But I’ll give them points for effort, at least. When I finally realized what I was looking at, in The Undercurrent, I thought immediately of the paranoid little blog that almost-could. Wow they missed a chance to be relevant!

And here I’m left with a depressing thought. In spite of my desire to believe otherwise, post-secondary campuses are, in fact, a ripe target for ideologues. Conspiracy theories all sound nutty, on first glance, but that doesn’t mean they are all wrong. The student movement has been subverted before and may be again. And the culprits, lest I be misunderstood, come from every portion of the political spectrum. The fringe left, as it were, is no more above dirty pool than the fringe right.

All I can suggest is that students remain alert for bullshit of this sort on campus, and call it out when you see it. Extremes from one side inevitably breed extremes on the other. Those who are most inclined to cry “foul!” on the opposition are often the last to accept criticism or scrutiny themselves. So be especially skeptical of anyone who alleges someone else is lying and then demands you accept their own claims uncritically. What could be less consistent than that? Be critical of my claims as well. Review the material for yourself. It’s certainly a trip, if nothing else.

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Questions are welcome at jeff.rybak@utoronto.ca. Even the ones I don’t post will still receive answers, and where I do use them here I’ll remove identifying information.

What does it really mean, to represent students?

I recently created a twitter account. This is an unrelated fact, save that it explains how I was trolling around looking for a few people I wanted to follow. And I came across this article by the Ryerson Free Press. I resolved to ignore it, but now a couple days later it’s still in my head. So obviously it is more than just a passing annoyance. This article is almost a year old, but nonetheless I think it deserves a rebuttal.

The article calls out by name three former student representatives, and accuses them of (a) selling out the student movement and (b) using their roles as elected representatives as springboards for their later careers. I’ll decline to note who I was initially looking for when I found this article. But I will say that I know two of these people personally and the third by reputation. I wouldn’t call any of them friends exactly (if you’re wondering about my bias) but I’ve noted and appreciated their work in the past.

This article infuriates me for any number of reasons, but I’ll confine my criticism to the two primary critiques in the article itself. First, there is the idea that student leaders “sell out” the movement when they assume centrist – or even right-of-center – positions on issues. I simply cannot agree. I may find myself in opposition to the opinions expressed by these and other student leaders, but I am not prepared to dismiss their legitimacy simply because I disagree with them. The notion that there is only one orthodox position to assume on behalf of students is patently ridiculous. Students are free to elect whomever they want to represent them. And just as mainstream politics may swing among representatives that espouse one position or another, there is no reason to imagine that student politics must be different. If someone were to suggest that a candidate campaigned on one position and then did something radically different I would agree – that’s a problem. But simply to assume that centrist or right-of-center views represents selling out the movement is ignorant. This dismisses the possibility that students might have actually voted for that.

Second, and even more importantly, there is the assumption that these student leaders somehow used their former positions to form the basis of their future careers. As a former student leader myself, I find this very insulting. I wrote an article on this topic some months ago, but the central premise bears repeating. Students who assume prominent positions on campus are in no way guaranteed future success. Some do go on to achieve prominence in various fields. Others do not. But in either case the determining factor is not the positions they held as students. Elected office may be a brick in the wall of someone’s career, just as any job is one step along the path, but it is only that – one step or one brick. The totality of anyone’s personal career path is so much greater than any student office.

I need to refute this article because it perpetuates two very damaging myths. First, the notion that there is only one legitimate perspective to assume on students’ behalf. In my experience, students are very capable of electing representatives who stand for a large range of perspectives and views. Whether I happen to personally agree or not is irrelevant. So too if anyone else happens to agree. That’s politics for you. Sometimes people get elected who you don’t agree with. That doesn’t mean they are wrong, or ill-intentioned, or diabolical. Often, that simply means you have to rethink your ideas about the dominant views held by the voting base of people who elected them. Second, the idea that future success is created by elected student office. This is a dangerous myth because it encourages people to seek office for all the wrong reasons – no matter their political views. It isn’t true, of course. Maybe elected students are “successful” in greater percentages if only because they are naturally dynamic personalities. But the success still isn’t due to the prominence in student politics. I have plenty of counter-examples at my fingertips. But of course no one writes stories about the elected students who go on to do nothing in particular after their university days.

Student politicians and elected representatives make easy targets. This is true while they are in office and true even afterward. Part of assuming a prominent position is accepting this role as designated target. I lived through this myself and I have a lot of sympathy for students who are living through it now. But when criticism spills over from attacking the students of the day to attacking the movement as a whole, I need to make some reply. Flawed though the results may be, in an immediate sense, the system as a whole does work. Students are capable of electing a large range of potential representatives – and this range is what legitimates the choices they make. And elected representatives truly don’t derive enough personal benefit to ever make the job worth it for selfish reasons (even if a few may try) and this is what guarantees sincere, if not always effective, representation.

It does work. Don’t let the cynics get you down.

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Questions are welcome at jeff.rybak@utoronto.ca. Even the ones I don’t post will still receive answers, and where I do use them here I’ll remove identifying information.

A fantastic organization with a very awkward name

Recently I had the opportunity to attend and speak at this year’s annual western AMICCUS-C conference, hosted in Calgary by the Students’ Association of Mount Royal University. AMICUSS-C stands for the Association of Managers in Canadian College, University and Student Centres. That’s one hell of an acronym, isn’t it? But apart from the difficulty with the name it’s a great organization that people should know more about.

Students’ unions are big business. Okay, “big” may be pushing it, but far bigger than most suspect. Budgets in the seven-figure range are typical. Many unions have responsibility for their own restaurants and bars, buildings, and other services. And in order to run these things properly, unions quite naturally hire full-time managers to do the job. You wouldn’t want to rely entirely on students, after all, with the rapid turnover, annual instability, and general inexperience. Unions typically employ a lot of students also, but the full-time managers are different. They’re there to stay and it’s their job – for many it’s a real career.

How all of this infrastructure runs is frequently a mystery to students. First, many students don’t draw a clear distinction between services that are operated and delivered by their union and services that come from the university or college. For all practical purposes it often doesn’t matter. And second, even where students know what their union is really doing, the full autonomy and power of the union may not be obvious. It’s easy to imagine a relationship similar to student government in high school, where student activities are still directed at the highest level by the administration. But it simply isn’t true. Unions are separately incorporated. They exist outside the administration entirely. The directors of these unions have as much power and responsibility as the directors of any private corporation. And many are still teenagers.

Seen from this perspective, the role of a full-time professional manager in a union environment is very complicated. The manager is certain to be older – maybe much older – and to have far more experience. But the students are still in charge. This isn’t theoretical. Students do the hiring, set the compensation packages, make decisions about promotion, and yes sometimes fire people. When a union is running well students tend to do this with the benefit of a lot of competent advice. When a union is running badly, well, sometimes things go less professionally. But either way these decisions affect people’s careers.

There is also a very complicated dance to perform with the administration of the university or college. As I said, the administration isn’t calling the shots. But they do have deeply entrenched interests. While the union may own a building or control it with a long-term lease, the institution typically owns the land. While a union may run the campus pub, the administration probably holds the liquor license. Contracts for cleaning, maintenance, and utilities in student space may or may not be carried out by the staff of the institution. All of these relationships need to be managed. While the employees of the union and the employees of the school may both “work for” students in some sense, their relationship towards students is very different. And so their relationship towards one another is complicated.

U of T sessionals still set to strike on Nov. 9

The union representing part-time instructors at U of T has just taken the next step in a complicated dance that may result in yet another major university work disruption. If you’d like to follow all the news as it develops, you can watch for updates at the official strike website. It currently bears the following message:

Monday November 9
Day 1
In the event of a strike, the picket lines will be at the following locations:
-King’s College Entrance, College Street (just west of McCaul)
-Simcoe Hall, Galbraith Entrance (on St. George Street)
-Wellesley underpass, Hart House Circle
-UTSC, Military Trail entrance
-UTM, Mississauga Road entrance

In direct messaging to instructors who may be on strike, the union has some immediate tips, such as clearing out one’s office and making alternative e-mail arrangements in the event that U of T shuts down accounts.

Additionally, if you’d like the university’s own updates on the strike, you can access those here.

We are so many steps into this dance that it’s hard to remember where it started, but at the time 3902 was quick to reassure members that voting for a strike is a strategic consideration and that the union has traditionally not taken a strike mandate as far as an actual work stoppage. It’s entirely true that a strike vote has rarely resulted in a real strike, and that a strong “yes” vote gives the union clout at the bargaining table. But something about the tone of things this time around just makes me feel it in my gut.

So far it’s too early to assign any blame, and if we get as far as an actual strike there will be blame all around. It isn’t my intention to go around pointing fingers. But as someone who does believe in the power and value of organized labour, I’ve got to say that something is fundamentally broken in the post-secondary sector. Rhetoric and posturing seems to have replaced any kind of functional and respectful relationship between employer and union. This is true across the board.

As I wrote in the aftermath of the York strike, labour actions in a post-secondary context must be understood as unique. This isn’t the same thing as garbage collectors or drivetest workers going on strike. There are crossover issues, certainly, but the massive pressures on the rapidly evolving post-secondary system create a special situation. This isn’t simply jockeying over how much of the pie employees will receive. The entire sector is changing, and locating a reasonable benchmark for compensation, benefits, and job security in this context may be all but impossible. In such an unsettled environment, labour strife is all but inevitable.

I wish I had cheerier thoughts. And I hope my sense of the situation is wrong and it resolves quickly and without disruption to classes. But I suspect otherwise. Whether in this instance or in others, there will continue to be nasty and bitter labour disputes in the post-secondary sector for some time to come.

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Questions are welcome at jeff.rybak@utoronto.ca. Even the ones I don’t post will still receive answers, and where I do use them here I’ll remove identifying information.

Because it’s still that time of year, and people have questions

Since my last post about reference letters I’ve been fielding a grab bag of quick questions on the topic. So here are a few more tips on asking for reference letters, as well as one more reminder that it really is that time of year, and applications for all sorts of things will be due before you know it.

First, there was a question about asking the same person for multiple reference letters. Believe me, no one will be surprised if you hit them up multiple times for references. That’s just par for the course. Anyone you might ask for a reference almost certainly gets asked on a regular basis and probably keeps a folder for exactly this reason. Even I’ve got one. I know if someone’s asked me once they are likely to come back, and there’s no sense writing something from scratch when I can reuse elements from previous letters instead. That said, as a courtesy to the potentially less organized, if you know you’ll be asking someone again you might say as much. It could save some trouble.

On a related note, I was asked about keeping letters of reference for later and holding on to generic ones for use as needed. Generic letters of reference may be very useful for job applications and in a case such as that keeping them around for later could be useful. But for applications to post-secondary programs or for scholarships or awards (the purposes I tend to assume, at this time of year) you’ll want more targeted letters. That isn’t to say that every letter can or will be a carefully crafted work of art, but each one should speak directly to the purpose for which it is intended. If nothing else it should be addressed correctly.

You may need to ask someone for a letter who you actually don’t know very well. I know that can be awkward. Do keep in mind this is a very common problem and the people you are likely to ask will have faced this issue many times before. As I suggested in my last piece, be prepared to make their lives easier by having your CV and any relevant personal statements ready for reference. That way your referee won’t be left flailing around for lack of anything to say about you. But don’t feel you need to explain or justify why you’re asking someone with only a passing familiarity with you for a reference. It happens. It’s better to get a reference from someone who does know you really well, of course, but that isn’t always possible.

I was also asked about references for phone interviews. To be perfectly honest, I’m not familiar with anything that requires your references to give phone interviews, but I’m willing to believe it’s possible. It’s common to be asked for contact information for your referees or for people who can verify activities you may be citing in your information. Where that happens, however, it’s rare for anyone to actually be called, and even then it would be a very brief conversation. A full on interview would be very rare, and I’d assume aimed at something special.

It’s that time of the year again

Although it may come as a surprise to many students, right around now is the time to start worrying about reference letters, if you intend to apply to graduate or professional programs for next academic year. Don’t worry – you aren’t out of time yet if you haven’t started. But that’s part of the point. You want to allow plenty of time for this and you absolutely don’t want to be scrambling around at the last minute.

You may enjoy doing things at the last possible moment, but the odds are strong that the people you need to write your letters do not. Yes, it’s entirely possible that your professors and other referees (if applicable) may end up writing your letters at the last minute, regardless of when you ask. Procrastination is not a character trait unique to undergrads. But they’ll still be annoyed at being asked on short notice. Even if you get your letter it’s a bad idea to annoy your referee or appear unprofessional in your request. And really, it does take time to write a decent letter. You may find if you rush people you’ll get a poor letter as a consequence or even a straight up refusal.

A poor letter, by the way, is not one that directly criticizes you. I’ve never yet seen a letter like that. But if the reference is completely formulaic and it’s obvious the referee has nothing too personal or specific to say about you – now that’s a poor letter. Please keep in mind that the point is not simply to produce a couple of reference letters to prove that you can but rather to present references that speak to whatever qualities are sought by the programs you wish to enter. Properly tailored references are far better than general ones, and references that only prove you convinced someone to write a letter are almost useless.

A referee may ask that you give them a copy of your CV and/or any personal statement from the relevant application. You should have them available in case this happens. Unless you know your referee very well indeed (which is not very common, in our modern educational system) some additional details about you may go a long way towards personalizing what might otherwise seem too cookie cutter. Even if you do know the person very well, don’t be offended if they ask for the material. People who write reference letters tend to write a lot of reference letters. They may simply have a system. So don’t take the request personally.

It goes without saying that when you need references you should get the kind you were told to get. Academic references come from professors and instructors (more on that in a moment) while non academic references may come from an administrator, an employer, or someone else you know. Read and pay attention to any guidelines, as they will vary from place to place. For some purposes it would be entirely out of line to present a letter from your religious leader, for example, but if you were applying for a theology program it might be required. Whatever the system, don’t try to substitute one reference for another. The requirements were determined intentionally and you shouldn’t circumvent them.

Academic references are a special case. Depending on your purposes, it may be important to get your letters from specific professors or it may be less so. For graduate programs in academic disciplines you should absolutely attempt to get letters from tenured (or tenure stream) professors – meaning “real” professors as opposed to lecturers. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out the difference so don’t be afraid to ask. You might even make an effort to get one or more letters from particularly prominent scholars. For academic fields this does matter. When in doubt, speak with any professor with whom you have a rapport and get some targeted advice on who to approach for references.

For professional programs the standards are entirely different. Professional schools have no way to gauge the relative standing of your professors and so it doesn’t matter. In that case what you want are strong and personal letters from those who know you best and it’s fine to approach lecturers, graduate student instructors, or conceivably even TAs. Be wary of TAs, however, and pay attention to guidelines. That should be a last resort. But a strong and personal letter from a tutorial leader may be better than an impersonal one from a professor.

Show some consideration when you make your requests. Often you’ll be communicating by e-mail and it’s very easy to give a bad impression in that medium. Don’t request a reply “asap” or enforce rigid timelines. If you need a letter within the next three weeks it’s fine to say so, but at the same time be clear you’ll take no for an answer. No one owes you a reference, after all. If you haven’t allowed sufficient time to ask someone else that implies you feel you are entitled to the reference.

As a final note, just keep this in mind. When you’re about to ask someone to offer their opinion of your character and ability as a student, the last thing you want to do is give a poor impression immediately before that happens. So be on your best behaviour.

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Questions are welcome at jeff.rybak@utoronto.ca. Even the ones I don’t post will still receive answers, and where I do use them here I’ll remove identifying information.

When one institution grants degrees and another regulates accreditation, things are going to get messy

Unemployed students are in the news again. This they’re from the International Business Management Program at George Brown College, and they claim the program isn’t properly recognized and hasn’t qualified them for jobs. Hence the lawsuit. Here’s the Star’s article on the story:

Two former students, who took the International Business Management program at Toronto’s George Brown College, claim it didn’t confer three important industry designations it had promised.

Now, this claim isn’t quite accurate. It either reflects a gross over-simplification of the situation by the students at hand or by the Star itself. Most likely the Star simply repeated their claims verbatim rather than try to untangle the details. I think we can do better.

So here’s the program at George Brown. They claim that the program “can also prepare students to pursue three industry designations / certifications in addition to the George Brown College Graduate Certificate if they choose to do so.” Now there’s some waffle words for you. “Preparation” can mean a lot of things, and the implication that students “choose” (or not) to pursue these additional certificates should send up some red flags. Obviously there aren’t any promises made here.

Now with regards to the requirements of these three designations, here’s what a bit of research has uncovered:

• The certified customs specialist designation, from the CSCB, has three potential prerequisites. One is certification in the U.S., another is one year working in the industry, and the third is the completion of an approved college program – which does not include George Brown. So in that sense it would be accurate to say that other programs may be superior, though there are only two that are approved and both are in the GTA, so it would also seem unlikely to suggest that an approved program is absolutely required.
• Then there’s the certified international trade professional from FITT. From a look at their accreditation chart, it appears that study at George Brown is as recognized as any other college.
• Finally, the certificate in international freight forwarding, from CIFFA, apparently requires all of a high school diploma to begin accreditation. At that point you’re into their internal designation system, and you move up from there.

So what does this tell us, aside from the fact that the Star has less time to browse the Internet than I do? The preparation required for professional designations varies considerably, from place to place. It’s just about inevitable that it will. These professional bodies aren’t standardized in any meaningful way. These are voluntary bodies that stamp their seals of approval on students’ qualifications in much the same way that Fair Trade stamps their seal on chocolate bars. The various certifications may have some value and recognition, but expecting a standardized regime is a bit much.

It’s no wonder that students are frustrated, when they’re left to wade through this muck. Now I’ll gladly assign a large share of blame to the students as well. These are university graduates, enrolled in postgraduate college programs, who claim they were unable to learn in all that time what would be required to enter their chosen careers. And here I’ve gone and researched three different organizations in an hour. It wasn’t hard. But they are right to point fingers at the glaring disconnect between the program of study they take in college and the requirements of the relevant professional association(s) who regulate the credentials they may or may not need to actually work in their fields.

What all of this adds up to is simply a widespread institutional problem that isn’t going away any time soon. This isn’t really George Brown’s fault. They can’t control the requirements of the relevant professional bodies. And we haven’t even discussed the actual standing of these bodies and qualifications. Please don’t get the sense that all of these designations and certifications carry the same importance as being a registered nurse. They don’t. These designations may be sought by employers. They may even become de facto requirements for employment. But that’s only a function of whatever credibility and standing the relevant association can attract. Just like Fair Trade, it’s only meaningful to the extent that people care. And that, again, is a variable beyond the control of colleges.

What a mess eh? The only reasonable conclusion, as always, is buyer beware. In a perfect world we wouldn’t have this confusion of college diplomas and professional certifications and employment requirements that don’t mesh perfectly. But we don’t live in a perfect world and there are limits beyond which the government simply can’t police the situation and colleges can’t make firm guarantees. So students must do some research on their own and be sure of what they’re getting for their time and tuition. It’s natural to want to blame someone, when things go wrong, but going into the situation students are still in the best position to protect themselves.

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Questions are welcome at jeff.rybak@utoronto.ca. Even the ones I don’t post will still receive answers, and where I do use them here I’ll remove identifying information.

Students have plenty of reasons to be angry and frustrated

The Toronto Sun ran an article yesterday on the really bad summer employment situation for students. Of course I touched on this topic here already, but the Toronto Sun does add a new note of hysteria to the situation. It presents students as very angry and frustrated. And it connects the problem with the cost of education.

Lack of summer jobs, rise in already lofty tuition fees forcing university students to sink deeper into debt.

First, an observation. I don’t consider the Toronto Sun to be trend-setting media by any stretch but their politics are well established. When the Sun starts reporting on high tuition and debt burden among students as problems then it’s time to pay attention. These are not their usual political sympathies.

The situation with the summer job market for students, however, is a slender hook for this story. It’s well understood that this summer was a very bad time for a variety of reasons and this sort of perfect storm won’t soon be repeated. So the real story isn’t that students are heading into the new academic year down however much money they might have saved over the summer. A few thousand dollars more or less, when compared with total educational debt, just isn’t a big deal anymore. The story is the situation in general.

Students are frustrated with the cost of education and their future job prospects because they’ve been fed a load of crap and they know it. Increases in the cost of education are continually justified with reference to future income potential but the job market for your typical bachelor degree simply is not what it once was. More than that, it’s flatly irrational to suggest that the competing trend – to send more and more people through post-secondary education – won’t have an effect on the marketability of the resulting credentials. Downward pressure on the job market is very well understood at this point. But you’d think educational institutions and their promoters have never heard of the concept.

Your average post-secondary student probably isn’t thinking about these things in quite the same terms. But students are aware of their personal situations. They were promised an awful lot when they signed up for university or for college. It was supposed to be the “right” thing to do. And now, partway through, they find they can’t even score summer jobs spinning cotton candy at the Exhibition. It rather does tend to bring all the other frustrations and doubts to the surface.

This is a big topic all around. It touches on a lot of what’s fundamentally wrong with how we market and present post-secondary education and with deeply held political illusions on the topic. The summer job market, this year, is just a lightning rod for the frustrations that students feel. Unemployment is scary and frustrating. And for some, unavoidably, it’s just a dress rehearsal for the real scare they’ll face upon graduation.

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Questions are welcome at jeff.rybak@utoronto.ca. Even the ones I don’t post will still receive answers, and where I do use them here I’ll remove identifying information.

You may have heard of this – what the heck does it even mean?

In an unrelated discussion, my fellow blogger Todd Pettigrew referenced learning for its own sake with the suggestion that this is what universities should be promoting. Now I don’t want to pick on Todd at all. He brings an important faculty perspective to this site and I’m absolutely sure, with a few well-chosen sentences, he could easily explain what he meant by “learning for its own sake.” But I would like to suggest that absent any such explanation the phrase has zero content at all. It means absolutely nothing.

One of my most critical concerns is that many people are so deeply committed to their ideas of what education is and should be that they refuse to even perceive the variety of competing and potentially valid perspectives. This is the grounding thesis of my book. We often criticize students who show up to university for the “wrong” reasons. But I don’t find it helpful at all when anyone utters nonesense phrases like “learning for its own sake.” That’s only a very common shield behind which professional academics hide their own agendas and unexamined assumptions.

Some people will suggest that education is good for society. It’s an outlet for social growth and contributes to a more fulfilled life. Do you want to offer that as a motive? I’ll accept that. But that’s still a reason. You can see meditation classes marketed on a similar basis. Or perhaps education should be for the (probably quite small) percentage of students who simply find learning to be fun. But that’s a motive too. That’s why many people go hang gliding.

Nobody does anything “for its own sake.” Behind that claim always lurks an unexamined or assumed motive. And by assuming a singular, obvious and apparent motive, we deny the complexity of motives that actually exist to seek out post-secondary education. This throw-away phrase, so much employed by academics who are deeply committed to their personal views of what education should be for, is the very antithesis of everything I promote. Think about why you’ve sought out university education. Be aware of the competing motives around you. Try to perceive that the university you are a part of, motivated as it is to cater to these differing interests, may do things that don’t serve you very well and may in fact appear irrational to your particular perspective. Concentrate on getting more of what you want from the experience rather than getting what the next guy may want.

Far more often than not professors will be great allies and assets in terms of making the most of your time at university. Certainly I can’t imagine my own university experience divorced from the incredible influence of a few key mentors. But be aware that they come to the table with their own agendas and biases. Simply because they have their own – doubtless valid – ideas on what education should be about does not mean that your own potentially competing ideas are wrong.

You knew it had to happen, right?

I don’t want to spoil the last month of anyone’s summer (I’m certainly still enjoying mine) but it’s pretty much that time. The stationary supplies are in all the stores, laptop manufacturers are hawking their wares, and it’s officially time for back to school. It’s time for the extended version anyway – like how Christmas starts in mid-November.

A lot of students head into each new school year hoping for better results. Unfortunately, however, many students pin those hopes only on renewed determination and vague resolutions to “try harder.” While determination and resolve are certainly useful they aren’t enough on their own. If you want a different result you’ve got to change the way you go about doing things. So if you’re serious about improving your grades and performance in school, next year, this is the time to actually sit down and figure out in concrete terms what’s going to be different this time.

I can’t tell you what needs to change in order to sort out your particular problems. It might be your sleep cycle and your social life. It might mean reexamining program choices. Maybe you need to lighten up on the work hours, create a more structured study schedule, or form a study group. Even if you realize you don’t know what to change that can be a good place to start. Book an appointment to visit your academic advising office and they may be able to help. If you can visit campus during the summer that’s a great opportunity to really sit down with sometime. They tend to have more time.

No matter what else you do, if you intend to make a change you need to figure out the steps that are needed to make that change and then follow through with them. Changing your results in school is not different from any other part of your life. Whether it’s exercise or diet or even saving money you can’t get anywhere just because you wish you were better at it. You start with the desire to see some change and then you settle on concrete steps. Write them down if that’s what it takes to keep yourself honest. Treat them like back to school resolutions.

One thing I really like to do before I head back to school is read some material for a class or two on my own schedule and with no rush. Of course that works especially well for English studies but it can work for any subject as long as you’re genuinely interested – and you are interested in what you’re learning, right? You don’t need to make a special effort to start a whole class early or to read what comes first. Just pick anything from your courses and read for the heck of it. If you aren’t sure what you’ll be reading try e-mailing the instructor. Most will have the reading list already sorted.

What I’ve discovered, from doing this, is that I have far better memory and retention for things I read just because I want to. I’m sure we’re all like that. Do you remember your course work from a year ago? I’d bet not. But the novel you read that you really enjoyed? That’s a whole different question. If you can trick yourself into reading course material for fun you get the best of both worlds. And it’s not as hard as you think. Once you remove the deadlines and the pressure, and you read just because it’s the book you happen to have with you, the material is often quite interesting. And you will retain and remember it, I promise. Even if you don’t get to the text for months you’ll know it better than your classmates who sped through it all the night before.

Finally, I really recommend to everyone you try to do at least something near the end of the summer that’s productive and intellectually stimulating. If you’re doing that already that’s fine, but if summer has been just one long vacation or if you’ve got a boring and repetitive summer job you want to break out of that pattern before the first week of September rolls around. Sometimes it takes a couple of weeks to shake the dust off. When you fall behind early you might find you’re playing catch up all year long. Some people are so used to that pattern it feels natural and inevitable. But when you break the cycle and stay ahead of the game everything just feels completely different – and a whole lot less stressful.

It may be a bit sad to contemplate the end of summer but just a little time and thought about the pending school year could make a world of difference. So invest a little now to reap the rewards later. And then get back to enjoying the rest of the season.

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Questions are welcome at jeff.rybak@utoronto.ca. Even the ones I don’t post will still receive answers, and where I do use them here I’ll remove identifying information.