Taking Advantage of what's available

One difference between High School and University is that here, no-one really seems to care about how you do. It's hard, actually, to see how the Profs really could. With hundreds of students, there's no way that they could keep track of everyone like High School teachers do. But it's easy to get depressed, and to feel you're left there all on your own, not knowing what to do. Well, if you take that view, you're lost. Or you can take control again. So if you're not sure of something in a course, or if you have problems with something in it, it's really important that you take some action before it's too late.

First, there are the TAs -- Teacher Assistants, who are mostly Grad students who are there to make a bit of extra money. There are times and places posted where they'll be available, and most of them seem to know the Prof quite well: what he wants and and how he likes things done. Not all are any use. Some aren't interested in you, and just seem to brush you off. If that happens, you just have to find another one, maybe at a different time. On the other hand, if you're sneaky and make nice with some of the TAs, they'll maybe end up giving you more help than they really should.

When I was a freshman coming here, I realized my second semester that it is all about learning what your Profs want. It’s not about how you write but it’s how they want you to write. They each have their own personalized favourite way of how students write. You just have to learn what they want. So it helps to talk to TAs who know the prof and to people who have taken the course before with that prof. They can tell you the real rules which are often different from what the prof says at the start of the year.

Next, there is something called the Writing Center. You can take a paper there that you've written, or the part of it you've done, and someone there will look at it and tell you if it's any good and make suggestions about how to improve it and how you could go on from what you've done.

These are the ones I've used. Looking back, I'm not sure they've actually improved my work all that much. But what they have done, though, is made me feel better and given me confidence. I'll probably continue to use the TAs, but I don't really need the Writing Center that much any more.

I've looked around a bit more while I was preparing to tell you about all this, and I've discovered that the University has quite a few offices to help people who need it. In fact, there's a special office for students who are transferring here from somewhere else, or maybe just doing a course or two here that their own University doesn't have. Another special office deals with people with disabilities of various kinds, including learning disabilities. It helps them work around some of the things they can't do easily, and it also contacts the Profs and asks, for example, for extra time on tests and maybe a quieter place to do them. For people whose problems go a bit deeper than mine, there's a Study and Tutoring Center. I talked to someone who went there, and he said that they helped him organize his time so that he could get down to work and not just waste time worrying about not being able to even begin to do his work. As well, there's an Office of Student Support which amongst other things helps people who are ill, depressed, or whatever.

Those are just the places I've found out about so far; there are probably more. This University makes a real effort to keep you in school and not have you drop out. I'm sure other Universities have the same kinds of services as well. But nothing is any use to you if you don't take the initiative to go wherever it is, and use whatever is there. I'm glad I found out about all these other places. I don't expect to need them myself (hope not anyway), but maybe there'll be friends who are having trouble that I can send to the right place for some help. And, knowing that these things are there makes me feel a lot better about myself and my time here than I was feeling in September, when everything seemed so big and impersonal.