Five reasons why university is a happy place

For some unexplained reason, lots of high school teachers describe university as a scary place. Sometimes, after assigning a ridiculous amount of homework, they’ll say something like “I’m just getting you ready for university.”

Yeah, sure.

Why not have a bulldozer smash half your house off before a tornado strikes, just so you’ll be “more adjusted to it.” You know, in case it ever happens.

There is a lot of work in university, but here’s the part your high school teachers aren’t telling you: for a million different reasons, university is way better than high school.

Here’s the top five:

5) You set the pace

How much homework do you have in university? To a certain extent, it’s up to you.

On the first day of classes, most professors give out a detailed course syllabus. There’s a list of readings and study questions, which help prepare you for the midterm and the final. In some courses there aren’t any assignments, essays, or research papers- for the whole semester, you’re preparing for two major tests.

Yeah, I know that doesn’t sound like a good thing. It might seem a bit scary to have your entire mark resting on two tests, but it gives you a lot of study flexibility. In university, you’re given lots of tools to succeed: in addition to a detailed schedule of readings, you’re often given study questions and practice quizzes. When you’re preparing for a midterm or exam, you’ll know exactly what you need to do, and you’ll know when you’re ready.

This might sound extremely lame, but in university you’re given a formula for success. There are a certain number of steps you need to take- reading the textbook, doing the study questions, looking over the practice quizzes- and then you’re ready.

4) Bully teachers are a thing of the past

In high school, everything depends on your teacher. It doesn’t matter if you normally love a certain subject: if your grade 12 biology teacher is a bully who decided on the first day of class that she simply doesn’t like your face, or the way you exhale, you’re not going to enjoy biology very much that year.

In university, things are different.

Sure, there are lots of professors who are worth seeking out because of their enthusiasm and engaging teaching style, and there are some professors who should be avoided at all costs because they’re boring, or make it clear they’d rather be anywhere else but standing there in front of 500 first-years.

But unlike in high school, your professor doesn’t determine whether you love or hate school. You’re an anonymous student in a sea of hundreds and hundreds of first-years. It’s never personal.

3) University is a safe-haven for nerds

In university, there’s room for everybody. If you want to party, there are definitely plenty of opportunities available. But if you’d rather study and get good marks, nobody will hold it against you.

2) Four months of summer vacation

May, June, July, August. Seriously, I’m not kidding.

Sure, most of us have part-time jobs year round, and full-time jobs during the summer. But four months away from school is still four months away from school.

1) Three day week? Totally possible.

In high school, you don’t have much control over your schedule. Once you’ve filled in all the mandatory courses, you get to choose between visual arts and music.

University is completely different. Depending on your program, you still have a certain number of mandatory courses. But there’s even wiggle room when it comes to these core courses: you can often choose between a one-hour lecture three times a week, or a three-hour lecture once a week.

And the rest is completely up to you.

University gives you a chance to pursue your interests and passions, with a range of courses spanning dozens of subject areas.

Or, if you’re anything like me, you can score a three day week.

In my first year, I managed to cram all three of my labs and my physics, chemistry and biology courses into a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule.

Of course, university is an opportunity to expand your horizons and challenge your ways of thinking. But why not expand your horizons while maintaining a three day week? Just something to think about.

And in later years, there’s always the possibility of a two day week…

-photo courtesy of dave_mcmt

British college uses Facebook as a retention tool, claims a “significant improvement in retention”

Read the full story at the BBC

Also on Academica’s Top Ten

Six tips to start your year off right

My mum asked me today if I was ready to go back to school, as I will be hopping on a plane in two weeks to the day. I shrugged.

“Yeah, of course I’m ready.”

She looked unconvinced. I am rarely, if ever, prepared for anything.

“But you’ve got two weeks, and you’ll be in Vancouver this week… don’t you have a lot you need to do?”

“No. Mum, it’s a bit like having your third baby,” I said, about to inform her on the complexities of something she, after all, has experienced, and I have not. I haven’t even had one baby, let alone three.

“By this point, I pretty well know how it goes. All I have to do is pick up a bag of diapers and drag the crib out of the garage.”

I had stolen this anecdote from a couple I used to babysit for, so it has some credibility, but my Mum still rolled her eyes.

Regardless, the moment reminded me that it hasn’t always been this simple. Now, I know exactly what I’ll do the moment I get to Ottawa, but two years ago, the city was a blank slate – on which I was actively projecting my most fantastic, but also most terrifying, notions of university life.

So I have utmost sympathy and compassion if you are a first-year university student, especially if you’re throwing up right now. I threw up too. It’s okay!

If you’re like me, the most terrifying part is probably not knowing what to expect once you get to school. I’m not the best person to inform you – I had approximately two friends for most of the year, and probably went to the grand total of one party (not a success story, per se).

But, especially if you’re going into residence, I hope I can provide a few pointers, or at least points of comfort, to start you off:

1. Think of it like high-contact summer camp.

The first few days of school can be a bit mad-cap, so it’s important to get off to a good start. If you’re like me, and find socializing with people your own age nerve-wracking, this is an important time to scrounge up all your courage and be at your most social. Friend groups (initial ones, anyways) are often made within the first day or two, so that’s game time. And, uh, it’s supposed to be fun.

2. Put yourself out there. Shamelessly, if required.

First of all, introduce yourself. No, really, it’s not that dorky. Almost everyone will be feeling awkward, and sometimes you have to make the first move. After all, introductions are a tried and tested way to meet people. Don’t be afraid to go to events alone, and don’t turn down invitations because you want to write your best friend or call your mum. You have the rest of the year to be homesick.

3. Don’t limit yourself to a friend group immediately.

You want to meet people quickly, but you don’t have to commit to them. It’s easy, and in fact quite natural, to find that mid-October, you’re eating lunch with people you met during frosh week, simply because they were the first people you met, not because you actually like them. And it’s also common to be eating lunch with a different group of people by mid-October, with those frosh-friends only a distant memory.

4. Don’t hook up with anyone on your floor in the first week.

Uh, yeah. It may be tempting, but it will probably haunt you for the rest of the year.

5. Find yourself a mentor.

This is an important one. You will find plenty of people to party with, but it can be a real life saver to have an upper year to show you around and give you advice. They are often especially helpful if they’re in your program or from your home town.

Mentors are not hard to find. But they will usually require you to leave your residence room, and the other first years. Program societies often have mentorship programs. At Carleton journalism, you can sign up for one – mine took me for coffee and edited my articles when I was having panic attacks.

Even if there isn’t a program, you can get a mentor just by hanging around and looking really lost. Some of these will become your closest friends (hey there, Laura Baziuk!)

Stock up on extracurriculars (I’ll elaborate on these another time.) I may be biased – but if you like writing, join your student paper. I was an editor last year, as was Jenn Pagliaro, and we were always keen to have new students to take under our wings. In fact, it was part of what we were paid to do. So don’t be shy!

6. Get started now

Like my Mum would say, sometimes a little preparation goes a long way. You may wonder how you can get started on any of this when you’re just sitting at home agonizing. But you can get yourself in the social mindset – start talking to people at the bus stop or in the grocery store to warm up. And if you know of someone who goes to your school already, meet up with them for a coffee, and ask if they can show you around once the year starts.

Of course, if you’re heading to Carleton this fall, I would be more than happy to show you around. And stay tuned, for in the coming days I plan to extoll not just my mother’s advice on leaving for university, but my father’s as well (spoiler: it involves salmon!)

It’s official. I’m now a Yellow Shirt

The first time I ever set foot on the University of Waterloo’s campus was last July, when I attended Student Life 101.Thanks to campus tours, informational seminars, and ASK-ME booths with current students, the day long event gave me a snapshot of what my life was going to be like for the next four years.

Every student who volunteered that day was wearing a yellow T-shirt. I couldn’t help staring. Not at the shirts. At them.

They were university students. Upper year university students. When my parents and I pulled into the parking lot, I saw some Yellow Shirts handing out maps and talking to other high school kids and their families. They’re a completely different species in the student genus. I was a post high school student. And yes, I was completely intimidated by them. I remember wondering how to approach and talk to them. As peers? As wise university mentors?

This year I changed species. I got my own yellow shirt.

I knew I was going to like my placement for the day. Not the garbage bin moving part. I had an out-of-body experience during those two very long hours. My team got to be in the parking lot when the new students first arrived. I was thrilled. I got to be part of the group that first welcomed them to Waterloo.

I’m not really one of those spontaneous people who like greeting strangers. I freeze and sound like a goat trying to talk. But this was different. I really care about my school and I wanted to show them what a great home Waterloo can be. I was happy and proud to greet these new students.

Until I had an internal nervous breakdown and got performance anxiety. I had no idea what I was going to say to these new kids.

“Uh, hi. Um, Welcome?”

I tried to think of warm and engaging sentences of welcome that I could bestow upon these new students. But every great idea went goat. I was still chanting sentences in my head when I heard someone say, “Come on Andy.” I turned and was facing a new student and his parents.

I took the scene in. The parents were staring at South Campus Hall, a huge building on the hill behind me, looking a little afraid. ‘Andy’ was four feet behind and to the right of them, looking at the ground, then at the sky, anywhere but at us Yellow Shirts. I was standing in front of them with a map of the campus in one hand, and a name tag on my shirt with “Hi, I’m Jenny” stamped on it.

I was frozen. Then I made eye contact with Andy and lost any chance of passing them off to someone else. I resigned myself to knowing that I was going to sound like an idiot.

I think I smiled, maybe too much, because he looked kind of scared of me.

“HI! Uh, hi. You’re in Parking Lot A. Yeah. Oh, here’s a map of the campus. If you follow the red line, on the map there, you’ll get to the Student Life Center for the opening presentation. Um, have fun?!”

As Andy and his parents walked away, I barely had enough time to agonizingly re-live my terrible greeting 1000 times when someone tapped my shoulder.

“I’m sorry, where is the Bookstore?”

After I took the map from the lost student and turned it the right side up, I told them to cross the street, go up the steps, and take the first door on the right.

“Oh! Oh, okay, thanks!”

I think it was 40 minutes later, when I had to go refill my stack of maps, that I realized what I was doing. Maybe it’s part of my first born bossy complex. Or maybe our Yellow Shirts made us more extroverted. But by the end of the day, I was actually comfortable walking up to a complete stranger and saying “Hi, can I help you find anything?”

And I was pretty sure I was enjoying it.

Eventually, the fork becomes a utensil for everything.

Eventually, the fork becomes a utensil for everything.

Solving humanity’s problems, one researcher at a time

I just spent the day at the University of British Columbia. I was meeting with a professor who does research in environmental policy, something I’m particularly interested in. We had a fascinating discussion about how the recent rise in popularity of “going green” provides many opportunities for businesses and governments to capitalize on the trend. This can be done while actually having a positive effect on the environment, rather than simply perpetuating the largely tokenistic “lifestyle changes” already being encouraged: driving a hybrid, turning down the heat a couple degrees, etc.

His job is basically to analyze complex and pertinent problems facing humanity and come up with innovative solutions. And there are 4,000 similar faculty members at a big school like UBC, all with their own fields of specialization but all with essentially the same noble pursuit of knowledge. As my professor insisted: “Ninety percent of what we think we know is wrong.”

That’s where academia comes- trying to figure out where we went wrong and how to put it right.

Later that day I attended a lecture in UBC by a Nobel Chemistry laureate, entitled “Challenges facing human society in the 21st century.” Here was yet another example of the ongoing discussion and debate between academics in all disciplines concerning the state of the world and how best to improve it.

After the lecture, as I was riding my bike home through the good-sized town that is UBC, I began to get excited about my own imminent plunge into academia. In just over two months I will find myself in the midst of the largest academic instituion in the country, and I’ll be joining over 60,000 other individuals who are constantly engaged in and surrounded by this exciting and important research and dialogue.

I can’t wait.

n_mazereeuw@hotmail.com.

- photo courtesy of the Library of Congress