All Posts Tagged With: "residence"
If you leave me, can I come, too?
How one mother coped when her daughter left for school
Photo illustration by Taylor Shute.
From the Maclean’s University Rankings—on newsstands now. Story by Ellen Vanstone.
I wasn’t actually planning to attend college with my daughter Eliza when her acceptance letter arrived in the mail last spring. That would be creepy—like the mother in that Robert Munsch book who stalked her grown-up son, breaking into his house to cuddle him while he slept. I am perfectly aware that the parentally appropriate, non-crazy thing to do when your child leaves home is to let them go and have their own life.
And yet, I still felt there should be some kind of special dispensation in my case—since the school that accepted my child was the Savannah College of Art and Design, on the Savannah River, in Savannah, Ga.
Drunk student paralyzed by fall from bed
Sues university for negligence
An American student who fell asleep drunk and woke up paralyzed after falling more than a metre from his dorm room bunk bed is now suing his school, Fordham University in the Bronx. Kei Usami, 20, smashed his head so hard that he fractured his spine, according to a the New York Post. His suit alleges the university was negligent for failing to put guardrails on the bed. The former tennis player is now in a wheelchair. He says his goal is to walk again by the time he graduates in 2013.
Dick and Jane go potty… together
The perils of co-ed washrooms
Co-ed bathroom photo by Andrew Tolson
From the 21st Maclean’s University Rankings. Get your copy today!
Some call it “the can,” others, the final frontier of gender equality: It’s the public washroom and it’s gone co-ed. Even though single-sex facilities are still the norm on the majority of Canadian university campuses, you’d be hard-pressed to find a school that doesn’t have at least one co-ed washroom—and it usually includes shower stalls. McGill, York University, the University of Toronto, Dalhousie, Mount Allison and the University of British Columbia are just a few of the “progressive” (or backwards, depending on your lavatorial leanings) co-ed washroom providers, earning the approval of campus feminists who view mixed facilities as a positive step towards full gender equality. Others, however, are not convinced. One 18-year-old Queen’s University psychology major says she was relieved to live in an all-girls dormitory solely because of the same- sex bathroom factor. Co-ed washrooms struck her as “grosser because boys used them,” says Jessica, now in her second year and living off-campus with a washroom of her own. “The girls’ ones were generally very clean.” Jessica would regularly make the five-minute walk back to her all-girls dorm from the co-ed dorm where many of her girlfriends lived, simply to avoid using the washrooms there. “It just smelled so much worse,” she says, before conceding, “maybe I just have bathroom phobia.”
High demand for alcohol-free and quiet floors
Vindication for residence management at Alberta
Photo by mathplourde on Flickr
There was high demand for alcohol-free and quiet floors at a University of Alberta residence that decided to offer them for the first time this year. That result seems to vindicate residence management, whose consultation process was criticized last year by the Lister Hall Student’s Association, reports The Gateway.
Among applicants to Lister Hall, 24 per cent requested an alcohol-free floor and 46 per cent requested a quiet floor. That’s similar to what Residence Services predicted using their consultation process, which included a survey that found 51 per cent of the 302 residents surveyed last year would opt for a quiet floor and 19 per cent would live on an alcohol-free floor. The process began after residence management noticed a great number of people were leaving Lister in the first semester and suspected it might be due to rowdy weekend nights. Then-LHSA-President Dustin Edwards suggested there were likely other reasons for the exodus.
Continue reading High demand for alcohol-free and quiet floors
Who should teach teenagers about drinking?
Universities and parents have a duty to educate
Photo by Dave Chidley/CP
From the editors of Maclean’s
Some predictions can be made with absolute certainty. The tides will shift. The sun will rise. And young university students will drink to excess.
From Tom Brown’s Schooldays to Animal House, exuberant drinking by underage students has long been a part of the experience of going away to school. Realistically, there is little society can do to change this fact of life. But what can we all do to cut down on the harm it may cause?
Last week, Canada’s university community was shocked by an orientation-week death at Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S. A first-year student from Calgary, just 19 years old, was found unconscious in a basement dorm room at the school suffering from severe alcohol poisoning. He later died in hospital. Fellow students told reporters he’d been playing a competitive drinking game called “flip cup” and had consumed an estimated 40 ounces of alcohol during the night.
This follows two student deaths at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., last year that the provincial coroner’s office attributed, in part, to a “culture of drinking on campus.” Both men, aged 18 and 19, fell to their deaths after drinking, one from a residence window, the other from the roof of a library.
The accidental death of a son or daughter is an unimaginable tragedy. But the death of a freshman student during their first few weeks away from home seems particularly difficult for any mother or father. While a university can never become a surrogate parent, it is nonetheless expected that campus residences will be a sufficiently safe place for teenaged students to live as they make their final strides to adulthood.
The recent deaths thus raise two difficult questions: who bears responsibility for instructing teenagers in the risks of alcohol abuse; and how should schools deal with students’ inevitable desire to party.
The obvious place to begin educating about alcohol is at home, as it is with most other topics. Someone needs to let every teenager know that drinking 40 ounces of alcohol in one night is reckless and dangerous behaviour, and parents are the obvious candidates. A full and frank discussion on drinking and its consequences is as necessary before heading off to school as packing sufficient underwear and pens.
In fact, many parents believe monitored underage drinking at home is the best way to teach teens about learning your limits. Depending on the situation and teen involved, this may make considerable sense, and be entirely legal. Of course there are serious risks to this sort of parental permissiveness as well. This month, an Orillia, Ont., mother found herself facing criminal charges in New York for providing alcohol to her 14-year-old son. After being served a few beers by his mother while camping, he wandered off at night and drowned.
As for universities, most now recognize an important obligation to protect the youngest students from their wildest instincts, at least during those first few days away from home. The initial week of school was once a time of unremitting partying. Today many universities have banned alcohol entirely from campus during this time. Most have also changed the name from frosh week to orientation week to make this distinction clear.
Going further, some forward-thinking universities have declared first-year residences to be dry throughout orientation week. The University of Guelph has had such a policy in place for the past two years. Where kids once showed up at university residence with a case of beer among their luggage, Brenda Whiteside, assistant vice-president for student affairs at Guelph, says those days are now over. The new week-long regime “sends a strong message about creating a new culture in our residences,” she says. During orientation week at Acadia, on-campus activities were alcohol-free, but the residences were not, as the flip cup games attest.
It seems reasonable that every Canadian university should set an appropriate tone for the school year by eliminating alcohol from first-year residences during orientation week. And some schools should be encouraged to experiment with the more drastic step of banning alcohol entirely from all first-year residences—particularly given that a large number of those students will be underage. This might even become a marketing advantage, at least from the perspective of nervous parents.
University students will drink, and it is naive to ignore this fact. But parents and universities—and the students themselves, who have an equal responsibility to look out for one another—must find ways to make our campuses safer, regardless of life’s inevitabilities.
The biggest class ever. Are universities ready?
Residences are full. Courses are too. Welcome to first year.
Photo courtesy of Tulane on Flickr
On your first day of class, you could find yourself scanning the room for an empty seat.
The University of Regina has grown by 11 per cent this year. The University of British Columbia (Okanagan) has grown 12 per cent year-over-year. And Ontario welcomed its biggest first-year class ever this fall.
Are universities ready for the students?
Some schools have planned for the growth. Although they have 400 more students than they expected, McMaster University has added extra classes and created more study spaces to cope.
Thomas Chase, Provost and Vice-President (Academic) at University of Regina, told Maclean’s On Campus that Regina is ready too. He said that class sections are not expected to get any larger and that residences are expected to be nearly full, but no first-years have been turned away.
Things haven’t gone as smoothly elsewhere. The University of Guelph had to set up a deal with the local Best Western hotel to provide dozens of students with rooms after its residences filled up to capacity. And although Carleton University opened the doors to its new residence building on Monday, the building will be under construction until at least the end of October. Many students who were promised a single room will find themselves with a roommate until the building is complete.
At the University of Alberta, some students complain that they are unable to enrol in mandatory classes after 300 extra students signed-up this year. There aren’t enough teachers to meet the demand.
But at least one school has a potential solution to the increase. Eric Bercier, of the University of Ottawa’s registrar’s office, said that his school raised admissions standards to cut down on the overwhelming number of applications it received this year. Even after hiring 250 new teachers in the past five years, there may not have been enough resources to go around. And so, they didn’t risk it.
Rudayna Bahubeshi is a fourth-year humanities student at Carleton University.
10 things you must do during frosh week
You’ve moved into residence. Now what?
Photo courtesy of thepanamerican on Flickr
1. Go downtown. Then find your way back.
You’ll end up downtown at some point. You may not be sober the first time. Spend some daylight hours riding the bus along the essential routes, so that you can find your way back in the dark. Write down the numbers of the bus routes that take you to the entertainment areas and back. Find out when the last bus leaves from downtown for the school. Look for landmarks near stops. Store the info in your phone or on paper in your wallet.
2. Pick up a free agenda
Most student unions hand out free agendas with important dates already printed in them. If you loathe paper, get one anyway and transfer the dates into your web calendar or smartphone.
Guelph students offered residence in hotel
Crunch results from 10 per cent year-over-year growth
Sixty-four University of Guelph students will be staying at the Best Western hotel this year.
Residences are full because more students than usual have accepted admission offers — 10.1 per cent more than last year. The school guarantees residence to all first-year students.
Best Western will rename a wing of the hotel Brock House. Students will pay Guelph the standard double-room rate of $5,640 for the eight-month school year, reports the Guelph Mercury.
Residence: One giant cesspool of human interaction
A warning to first-year students
Photo courtesy of il_Morta on Flickr
Residence has its upsides. You have a built-in social life, easy access to parties and somebody in your dorm is bound to have an Xbox. But here’s what else you have to look forward to:
1) You and your roommate aren’t just sharing a room.
You’re also sharing your food. And your toilet paper. And your toothbrush. Maybe in theory you don’t mind sharing your sleeping quarters and bathrooms with a complete stranger. But here’s the question that you need to ask yourself: will it bother you that Mr. Toothbrush is right next to Mr. Toilet? Every time they flush, your brush is in the blast radius. The lesson? Guard it closely.
2) 24-7 parties aren’t always a good thing.
Continue reading Residence: One giant cesspool of human interaction
What if your roommate is transgender?
American schools allow transitioning students to pick dorms
Photo courtesy of celesteh on Flickr
Ashley Gunn, the president of the University of South Florida’s (USF) gay student alliance, is applauding her school’s decision to allow transgender students to choose whether to live in a single room, with a friend of their choice, or be assigned randomly to a dorm room with a man or a woman.
But other students aren’t happy about the idea of sleeping next to someone who is physically the opposite sex, or whose gender is otherwise ambiguous. “I can’t imagine going into a room where I think that there is a woman, but it’s actually a man,” student Mohammad Noore told Miami TV station WTSP. “I’d be freaked out by it, creeped out by, maybe even a little disgusted.”
USF is not the first American school to make special provisions for GLBTTQ students who feel uncomfortable living with roommates of the same sex. Rutgers University in New Jersey began allowing students to live with the opposite sex if they so choose after Tyler Clementi, a gay student, committed suicide after repeated taunting from male roommates who exposed his homosexuality. Genderblind, an organization that advocates for gender-neutral campuses, lists 14 American universities with similar policies.
Residence justified in kicking man out after two decades: BC Human Rights Court
BC Human Rights Court says there was no discrimination
The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has decided that the University of Victoria was right to evict Alkis Gerd’son, a 43-year-old man who lived on campus for more than two decades, but who left six months ago.* Gerd’son started at the school in 1988 and earned two bachelor’s degrees by the time he stopped taking classes in 1997. He then continued to live in residence until B.C. Supreme Court court ruled in late 2010 that he must leave his his one-bedroom apartment —- for which he had paid $655 a month until he stopped paying his rent altogether. The university told the tribunal that they allowed him to stay after graduation in 1997 “out of compassion,” because he has a mental disability, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and allergies. But they changed their minds and asked him to leave multiple times before taking him to court. Last week, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal heard his argument that he was discriminated against because of his disabilities. Barbara Humphreys, a tribunal member, concluded simply that his complaint “is not justified.” Either way, Gerd’son should have been able to afford to pay his rent — he has received disability and housing support cheques since 2004.
This article has been updated from an earlier version that incorrectly stated that Gerd’son was still living in residence at the time of the Human Rights Tribunal’s ruling.
The dangers of living in residence
Meet your kids’ new roommate: The Bedbug
Dorms face a ‘major problem’ and when kids come home, you could too
Imagine you’re a bedbug—a creepy nocturnal creature, maybe no bigger than an apple seed, that craves human blood. Times are good for you right now in North America. DDT once rendered your species a distant memory, a revolting relic found only in children’s rhymes. But you’ve evolved immunity to the short-lived, environmentally friendly insecticides of today, and you’re on the march. So where would you prefer to nest and spread your progeny? You’d look for a communal setting, one where people are frequently moving and swapping furniture. Tidiness is a minus; substance-induced inertia a plus. The ideal host population would include sheltered young people who have never seen a bedbug or learned to recognize its excreta.
“Universities are in the line of fire,” declares Don McCarthy, president of Braemar Pest Control in Bedford, N.S., and board member of the Canadian Pest Management Association. “You’ve got transient populations. You’ve got a lot of the social aspects that come with being at university—your buddies come over and sleep over; everybody’s going back and forth to parties and study sessions. There is not a major university anywhere in North America that does not know this is a major problem, whether or not they have it.”
There is no evidence bedbugs can transmit disease, and their whole modus operandi is to be noticed as little as possible. But news of their presence can ward off visitors and clients as effectively as any plague—as retailers are discovering in New York City, where flagship stores for franchises such as Niketown and Victoria’s Secret have had to close temporarily to address infestations, and as Toronto learned in August when a mere Internet whisper had Toronto International Film Festival organizers double-checking venues.
News of on-campus infestations occasionally slips through to public notice. Ryerson University in Toronto has had intermittent problems dating back to at least 2006. The same is true of the University of Alberta, which had to evacuate and treat the entire 20-storey Newton Place residence in 2008. McGill was hit tornado-fashion in 2007 and 2008, with New Residence Hall, MORE House, and Solin Hall all affected. The University of Calgary admits to a steady “one or two cases per year,” according to spokesman Grady Semmens. Humber College in Toronto is following up a positive finding last month with a campus-wide sweep of residences using bedbug-detecting dogs.
At Simon Fraser University, bug-sniffer dogs have become a familiar sight; the school uses them pre-emptively, checking every residence once a year shortly after the start of classes. “SFU has not been immune to the bedbug problem,” says Chris Rogerson, associate director of residence life. “No multi-unit housing provider is.”
But Rogerson emphasizes that universities enjoy advantages that private apartments or social housing don’t. “Universities have departments like mine whose job is to educate tenants, dispel myths and misconceptions, and organize quick reactions to problems,” he observes. “We encourage early reporting, and our attitude is, address the bug, not the person.” That’s why the dogs are brought in after the students arrive. “We don’t get into saying, ‘Well, the unit was clean before you got here.’ The best defence is to make sure there’s no stigma attached, so students don’t decide to suffer in silence.”
Routine pre-emptive inspections are becoming part of the arsenal for many schools, according to Mike Goldman, owner of Toronto’s Purity Pest Control and a pioneer of bedbug training for dogs. “Universities have to deal with students, but ultimately they also have to deal with parents,” says Goldman. (Some of those parents may be worried about secondary infestations acquired on home visits; bedbugs aren’t avid travellers, but they can be transmitted in laundry or other personal effects, a potential worry as thousands head back home for Thanksgiving weekend.) “Nobody wants to get the ‘What kind of school are you running over there?’ call.” Dogs can detect live bedbugs super-accurately, but Goldman says they work better when students are given advance notice to tidy up and minimize distraction. “They’re bedbugs,” he says. “The dog and I have to be able to get to the bed.”
It’s getting crowded in here
Campus residences are overflowing with crush of first-year students
Incoming students at Dalhousie University that were guaranteed a room in residence are out of luck as the school year starts. At least 75 students will have to sleep in common areas while the university finds a solution to an apparent overflow. It is a direct result of rising enrolment numbers, says Heather Sutherland, assistant vice-president ancillary services. “Dalhousie is thriving,” she said.
Many universities intentionally oversubscribe their residences, and temporary housing is common, as there are always a handful of students who change their minds, or simply don’t show up. What is notable at Dalhousie this year, is that the university is having difficulty accommodating first-year students who are guaranteed a room if they apply before August 1. It may take until Thanksgiving before the housing situation is sorted out. “Past practice has shown us they’re not sure where they want to live,” Sutherland said.
Dalhousie is just one of several universities across Canada that is experiencing a crush of first-year students wanting to live on campus. While final enrolment numbers are not yet available, universities are preparing for what could be a record year.
Similar to Dalhousie, the University of Western Ontario guarantees a room to all first-year students who apply, but has avoided having to resort to temporary housing, or a waiting list. With an extra 270 first-year students wanting a bed, a little over 100 will be housed in on campus apartments, normally reserved for upper-years students. The displaced older students are being moved to an apartment building just off campus that the university leased in anticipation of increased demand. “We know that first-year students want to be on campus,” Susan Grindrod, associate vice-president of housing, said.
At McGill University, the residence normally operates at 105 per cent capacity at the beginning of the year. This year they are running at 110 per cent. To accommodate for the overflow, and a general rise in demand in recent years, McGill has converted other areas, such as small study areas, into rooms. Additionally, the university has acquired three hotels, adding at least 800 rooms, to be converted to residences by September 2011.
Mike Porritt, executive director of student housing for McGill, says that while higher enrolment can partially explain the increase in demand for residence, it is the proximity to campus services that is attracting students. Students are closer to their classes and libraries, and can more easily form study groups. “We’re a part of the academic mission of the university,” he said. To back up that claim, he cites internal numbers that show first-year students living in residence boast grade point averages six per cent higher than their peers who live off campus. The retention rate, students who stay on for second year, is eight per cent higher for those who live on campus.
At the University of British Columbia, where demand has been straining the school’s resources for much of the past decade, a survey of 6,000 students last year revealed that 82 per cent recognize that it is profitable to live at school. “There seems to be a heightened understanding of the benefits of living on campus,” Andrew Parr, UBC’s managing director of student housing, said.
Across the city from UBC, Simon Fraser University takes a unique approach to campus housing. “We don’t oversubscribe,” says Chris Rogerson, associate director of residence. Instead, SFU only sends out as many offers as there are rooms available. Any offers that are declined are then sent to the next students on the list. In previous years, about 55 per cent accepted the first offer. This year the yield was closer to 65 per cent.
Not every university is experiencing rising demand for on campus living, however. York University has seen a steady decline, being unable to even fill existing rooms. In 2008, there were around 50 vacancies. Last year, there was approximately 150. This fall, Debbie Kee, director of housing, expects there to be 250 unfilled rooms. The decline is a combination of new housing developments around the campus, and the fact that York is a commuter school. Many students, who live in the Greater Toronto Area, who might have previously lived in residence, are choosing to stay home because of financial restraints. “Unfortunately it has left us a little shy,” Kee said.
Residence shortage at Dalhousie
Students forced to sleep in common areas while university solves overflow problem
Incoming students at Dalhousie University that were guaranteed a residence room will be out of luck as the school year starts. At least 75 students will have to sleep in residence common areas for as long as a couple weeks while the university finds a solution to an apparent overflow. Heather Sutherland, of the residence and housing office, told CBC that all students who apply for a room before Aug 1 are guaranteed accommodation, but even they may have to make do with temporary sleeping arrangements for the time being. Luckily for those students, Dalhousie will not be charging them for a room, until they actually have a room.
The lie of the tight-knit community
Why living in residence might not be worth $10,000 a year
When I was finishing high school, my biggest priority in choosing a university was to get out of the house and experience life in residence. Various pundits of higher education, family, friends, teachers, and counsellors, all touted the importance of experiencing that aspect of university life. You will learn as much outside of the classroom as inside of it, they insisted, provided you leave home and live in residence. Craving the perceived independence, freedom, and the idea of living down the hall from my entire group of friends in a “tight-knit community,” I swallowed their arguments whole and shipped off to Toronto.
Having now lived it, I am somewhat less enthusiastic about the value of moving away for university. In very tangible terms, I don’t think the benefits of living in residence are worth the $10,000 a year that pay the average university’s fees for room and board. Of course, I had some great times living in residence at U of T this past year. There were great parties, incessant socializing, and the comfort and convenience of not having to cook or clean.
But there were equally great parties living at home during high school, and my non-res friends at U of T can come down to campus whenever they feel like. Relative freedom from cooking and cleaning also likely exists for most of us at home. And incessant socializing, it turns out, gets old pretty fast, and can be a huge drain on one’s productivity and motivation to trying new activities rather than just chillin’ in the quad with the same dozen acquaintances.
An emphasis on the distinction between acquaintanceship and friendship is important. I think it’s fair to say that most of us enjoy real friendship with a handful of people, and that beyond that, social groups tend to consist of mere acquaintances–people with whom you are friendly, but don’t share the same depth of connection as you do with a real friend. Life in residence immerses you among acquaintances, which can certainly have its benefits in terms of honing social skills, becoming more open and accepting of differences, and so on. But it is likely mistaken to assume that living in residence will provide you with an instant, enormous, “tight-knit” network of friends.
Like in high school, people will always have their differences, and cliques still exist. The benefits of immersion into university life, such as the oft-cited creation of a “tight-knit” community, deserve to be scrutinized before you (or your parents) drop $40,000 or more over the course of your undergrad.
Why students should get the H1N1 vaccine
Set aside your invincibility complex and protect those around you
Yesterday, I started thinking about the H1N1 vaccine. The “swine flu” is something I’d only been sort of considering and only in the abstract. It would cross my consciousness now and then when I read a news report or saw a mass-mail email from Dalhousie in my Inbox. The news would filter in one ear and out the other. It felt far away, inconsequential. All of that ended this week when I found out that the swine flu has landed at my school.
Since we’re small, we often end up feeling separated from the outside world. As I learned today in a class from another student, H1N1 showed up at Dal residence in September. “It’s not a new thing,” she told me, in that patient tone I get a lot from Dal students.
I guess it’s not. We have been hearing about this full-blown pandemic since June when the WHO declared it. We’ve become experts at sneezing into arms and pumping the Purell as we traipse down the hall. And this month, we’ve started hearing about the hows and wheres and whens of the promised vaccine.
I never get the flu shot. Instead of getting the flu shot, I make fun of my friends who do get the yearly vaccine by telling them “Congratulations! You won’t get the flu last year”. Especially for young, healthy people like me, I have real questions about the efficacy of the usual flu vaccines. I think that this led to my blase attitude over the new H1N1 vaccine.
I’m not the only one lacking much motivation. Macleans.ca tells me that as the first wave has died down, so too has vaccine excitement:
A recent poll shows that, as of the first week of October, only one in three Canadians plan on getting the H1N1 vaccine, according to Harris/Decima. That’s down from 45 per cent in late August.
The picture the WHO painted for us seems sketchy now. A lot of people have been getting H1N1… and then recovering. People we even know. And now as cold and flu season sets in, we get… the normal cold. Where is this pandemic of appocalyptic proportions I was worried about? I don’t see it. So I stopped worrying.
When my degree of separation to H1N1 went from triple digits to single overnight, I woke up. There is more at stake then my health, or worse, my midterms. If I woke up tomorrow and realized that this head cold is actually H1N1, even if I immediately went into quarantine, I would have exposed a lot of people to my illness already: all of the people in all of my classes; all of the people I rode on the bus with; the little girl I met on the quad; the little old ladies at the church. My illness affects more people than just me.
The residence honeymoon is officially over!
How the hell are you going to get anything done in this place?
So, your adorable sweetheart of a roomie has turned out to be a total slob who turns on the lights when she comes home from partying at 2:00 a.m. The shared bathrooms have degenerated into shambles. A guy who lives down the hall spent his scholarship on a booming stereo and has terrible taste in music. Some other guy spent the entire last week sleeping on the couch in the lounge because he spilled water from his fish tank all over his mattress. (True story!) What you don’t know yet is that he’s going to be too lazy to put his bed back together and will sleep on the lounge couch for most of the semester.
Well, maybe it’s not that bad (yet) but the welcome parties are winding down and the excitement about meeting so many new people is wearing off. It’s becoming clear that not only are you going to have to live in this crowded place for the next two semesters, you’re actually going to have to read, work and think clearly.
How the hell are you going to survive?
Some of it will just be a matter of adjustment. “You become good at sleeping through anything as a matter of necessity,” says Jesse, a graduate of the University of Alberta who lived next door to the guy who spent his scholarship on a stereo. “You get to know people really quickly and you become comfortable with sharing a bathroom.”
But it will also be a matter of discipline and strategy, particularly when it comes to studying and getting your assignments done. Residence can be an incredibly social place, which is great, until you have to get some work done.
“I realized pretty quick that I could not study in my room, so I would leave,” says Lizzy, a University of British Columbia student who is a four-year veteran of living in res and has spent two years as a residence advisor. “You can try to shut everyone out, but there’s a push on the floor for everyone to be involved in the community. If you have a hard time saying no to people, the easiest thing to do is leave.”
“For the first little while, I tried to tough it out, but it got harder to ignore the noise,” says Danielle, a St. Francis Xavier graduate who moved out of res after only one semester. “I put on music, but even that’s kind of distracting in itself, so I would go and find other places on campus like the library or the student union building — anywhere where there was a quiet desk.”
Starting university – it’s just like summer camp!
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!)
Volunteerism 101
How to survive your selfless act
I’ve done the unthinkable. Instead of doing what I usually do with my fantastically busy Saturdays (sleeping in is very important to me), I’ve gone and done something I knew I’d regret.
I’ve volunteered for Student Life 101 at uWaterloo.
Student Life 101 is an event hosted by students, for new students to help with the university transition. The event runs for the whole day with guided tours of the university campus, presentations about residence, living off campus, and tons of other events to help make the leap into university life as easy as possible.
Two students started Student Life 101 thirteen years ago. They felt that incoming students could really benefit from a tutorial day full of info about their new home. The event brought in 100 visitors its first year. This year? Over 6,000.
I went to SL 101 last year. It was definitely worth it. The place was swarming with upper-year student volunteers walking around campus in those yellow shirts, offering to answer any and all questions about the place that would become my second home. The day gave me a chance to get to know the campus before classes started.
So this year I wanted to return the favour.
The directors of SL 101 are smart. It was too easy to volunteer. All I had to do was fill out an online form with my name and student number, and feel good about myself. They even bragged up the free shirts you’d be wearing, in a very flattering shade of yellow, for the day.
But their greatest idea was to have the form available to fill out about two weeks before the actual volunteering event. It meant I had 14 days to forget about getting up early until I got an email about a training session. That’s when it all came rushing back.
Oh yeah. I volunteered. On a Saturday. And have to get up at 6:00am.
During the training session we got to meet the Student Life 101 directors, go through practice scenarios, and learn what team we would be on. There are over 20 teams, including a media and ASK-ME team. My team? Very glamourous. We’re crowd control, garbage patrol, and parking attendants.
