Dear Diary

September

One of my problems is my perfectionism. Just last weekend I broke into tears for no apparent reason. Upon coaxing from my boyfriend, the real reason came out. I was feeling very bogged down, frustrated and discouraged by all the work I have to do. My boyfriend, who is at the beginning of his second year of university, tried to help me realize that I can’t possibly expect to do everything and still remain sane. Mainly, I have to come to terms with my feelings of guilt when I don’t do everything that the professors expect of me.

October

I don’t know what to do. I am going to my classes and trying to do all the home work but I am going crazy with the amount of work I have to do. The time management is really hard.

This week I have an English essay due and a psychology midterm. My chem prof just posted a whole new chapter online and I am scared we will have a pop quiz today. I don’t know what he expects because his English his so broken. He says to look at the slides but what is the point of coming to class if I can look at the slides online? I feel so stressed and don’t know what to do. You think you are on top of it and then all of a sudden you go to class and there are a whole bunch of readings to do and you have done none of them. There don’t seem to be enough hours in the day to do all my reading, my assignments and studying, and still find time to sleep.

It is just so overwhelming. I’m looking forward to Christmas break.
__________

Well the psychology midterm is over. I don’t know how I did on it, but right now I don’t care. All I can think of is sleeping in tomorrow.

What’s the sense of worrying about it now? It’s over, I did the best I could, and there’s nothing more I can do now.
__________

I’m so happy! I got 86.6% on my psych midterm. It didn’t even bother me that I only got 69% on my English essay. I guess that just goes to show that I’m not as dumb as I was beginning to think I was.

November

I’m so glad I did well on all my midterms. Overall, I have 3 A’s, a B+ and a B. Now I feel much more optimistic and confident about my work. I am hoping to keep my marks up so that I can get another scholarship next year.
__________

It’s that time of year again. Assignments and readings keep piling up so high that I can’t even see tomorrow any more. This is the time when I should be working overtime to reduce the demands on me, but I’m getting so tired of everything. I just want the year to be over so I can have some time for myself to do what I want to do. Every time I sit down to do homework, my mind refuses to function efficiently. I keep thinking of all the other things I’d rather be doing, like sleeping or reading a novel. I’m sick of thinking critically, or even thinking at all.

I never realized how much university monopolizes your life. When you’re not attending lectures and tutorials, you’re doing homework. If you’re not doing homework, you fell guilty about it (or I do anyway). I seem to be obsessed with my schoolwork. Of course, I want to succeed, graduate, get a job and get on with my life. I also want to make my family proud of me.

The worst part of it is that I can’t even enjoy my weekends anymore because I’m either doing homework or feeling guilty about not doing it. I’m so depressed that by the time Monday comes, I feel worse than the week before. I guess I’ll just have to keep going and just look forward to the end of April.
__________

I’m so bogged down. I’ve got too many demands on my time: school, work, and my personal life. I can’t do much about school except quit. I need to work to get money to go to school and I need my personal life for my sanity, which I don’t have much of anymore.

I find myself wanting to scream at the top of my lungs at least three times a day. There’s too much to handle. I’m not used to this. I wish I was little again. Things were so much easier then.

December

I feel a little more optimistic this week. I don’t know why. The next two weeks are going to be sheer hell. The week after next I have a lab due, an exam, two essays and my writing project. I’m going to be a mental case. However, I don’t feel too bad right now. Maybe it’s just the calm before the storm. Hopefully, by getting organized and using my time wisely, I’ll be able to survive with my sanity intact.

January

I’m just so tired all the time. I want to sleep in the evenings and I want to sleep late in the mornings. Whenever I think about all the work I have to do, I either feel very panicky or I just want to sleep. I’m sick to death of all the B.S. Sometimes I’d like to just say to hell with it. But, unfortunately, in order to pursue my career, I do have to get a university degree.

Now I’m not so optimistic.

February

I’ve been trying to study for my psych midterm but I just can’t seem to get motivated. I know I should be studying my brains out but every time I siet down to do it, my mind wanders to other things. This is a pretty sad situation considering the fact that I want to major in psychology. I like the course but I have absolutely no energy.
__________

No wonder it’s called the February blues. I just can’t wait until reading break.
__________

I feel kind of guilty. I haven’t missed a class all year and this week I skipped three. Monday the weather was bad and I only had one class, so I didn’t go. Wednesday I had three hours off before my English lecture so I didn’t go to the lecture. Thursday I hadn’t read a 256 page book for my history tutorial because I didn’t know about it until Wednesday and I didn’t have time to read it because I was studying for psych. I guess I could have gone to all of these classes, but I had other things to do and I just didn’t feel like going.
__________

I finally got some information for my history essay. Now, I just have to get motivated and write it. I just don’t feel like doing anything.
__________

At last I feel like I’ve accomplished something. Today, I sat down and wrote the rough copy of my history essay. It took me about six hours altogether. I must have been on a roll. For the first time in about a month I feel like I’ve accomplished something, and it feels good.
__________

Except for my history essay, my reading break was a total waste. I got almost nothing done. The only thing I did do was get caught up on my sleep. I probably would have done more work if I had been going to class. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I just can’t seem to make myself sit down and get to work. I’ll be glad when the year is over.

March

Finally some good news in my life. I got 87% on my psych midterm and 90% on an anthropology quiz. I was really worried about psych because I didn’t think I’d studied enough. I guess I knew it better than I thought I did.
__________

I took yesterday off (I only had two classes) because I figured that I could get a lot more done. Fortunately, I was right. I typed out the whole rough copy of an essay and the whole good copy of my lab. Boy, did I ever have cramps in my wrist by the time I was done, not to mention a splitting headache. But I felt good. I had gotten a lot of work done finally. I guess I’ll be able to struggle through the rest of the year after all. The thing I really dread is exams. Oh well, one thing at a time I guess.

April

I’m really starting to feel panicky. I feel like I’m just spinning my wheels and not getting anything done. The crying fits are starting again. Sometimes I wonder if I was cut out for university. I feel so pressured, not only by my family, but more so by myself. I left home a Golden Child but it has been hard to maintain that image. I was used to marks in the 90s but now I struggle for marks in the 80s. Maybe the goals I’ve set for myself are too unrealistic.

May

Looking back on the year, I guess it wasn’t all that bad (although it seemed like it at the time). I had a lot of things to learn and a lot of growing up to do.

The biggest thing I had to learn to do was to organize my time. Without organization, there was no possible way to get anything done. If there had just been readings to do, everything would have been fine, but essays, exams, labs and tests kept getting in the way (not to mention a personal life). Balance between school work and a personal life is very important. Too much school work and you lose your sanity. Too much personal life and you flunk.

I’m not saying it’s easy to find that balance. Your personal life is infinitely more attractive and it’s hard to get down to work sometimes. First term I may have partied too hard, spent too much money and stayed out too late, but after getting some marks back I quickly realized that something had to change.

Another thing I learned was how to deal with my procrastination habit. If I put everything off, I had to deal with it the night before the deadline. I soon learned not to procrastinate as much as I was tempted to.

Finally I had to learn what was absolutely essential, moderately essential, and definitely non-essential. You just can’t do absolutely everything that you professors would like you to do. You have to decide how necessary each item is; a bonus I didn’t expect was that once I’d done that, it was much easier to organize my time.

A few last words from someone who has been through it: you feel rotten sometimes, you feel great at other times; but remember: if you keep working you’ll get through. You can meet your expectations but you have to realize that University is much different than high school and that 70’s and 80’s can be good marks! You can’t stress yourself out; you’ll just drag yourself down. So don’t stress, work hard, have fun, and make some time for yourself. Summer does eventually come.

June

I got my final marks back today, and they weren’t too bad. My overall average was 79%. My highest mark was 88% in psychology. I guess all the worrying I did all year wasn’t really necessary, although I don’t see how I could have avoided it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t always achieve the ever-elusive mark of 80%. Well, at least my anxiety is over, and I didn’t do as badly as I thought I would.

I received a very nice letter today from the Chairman of the Psychology Department congratulating me on scoring in the 99th percentile in psychology. And although I had doubts during the year, I definitely plan to major in psychology.

University is a Class in Race Relations

INCORPORATED WITH RACE AT UNIVERSITY: FOUR VIEWPOINTS, SEPTEMBER 12 2009

People Who Haven't Done the Work

In first year university, you have to take courses right across the academic spectrum. You have to take science type courses and you have to take arts type courses. And what makes a class good is not the same for each kind.
In anatomy, for example, there is very little scope for discussion and class interaction. You just have to learn the parts of whatever is being discussed and how it works and that's all. On the other hand, political science if done that way with lectures and slides, would be an almost complete waste of time. And I am glad that in my class, I can learn most of what's important by its coming out of a discussion or argument.

On the other hand, I am irritated when people who have not done the readings state opinions as though they were worth something. They don't know anything about it, so how can they have an opinion? The worst is when there are marks for class participation and people who are completely ignorant of everything spout out stuff that you are supposed to listen to but there is nothing at all in it. They don't know anything and they are just talking so that they can get their marks. It's obvious to all of us what's happening, so the prof must realize it too. It's all a complete waste of my time.

Most of all, I hate it when people who haven't done the work interrupt the prof. Of course, if you haven't done the necessary work from previous classes, you probably won't understand what's being explained in this one. But don't interrupt the prof; you're just wasting time for everybody who is trying to do the best they can.

Memories of Exams

One odd moment I recall from first year came during December exams. It was one of the first exams of the month and it was in a class that nobody really cared about but that many people were forced to take. My section wrote in the gym, so there were tons of students writing. There were a zillion desks and it was really overwhelming when you first walked in.

Anyways, I was about three-quarters through writing and the fire alarm went off. People were confused about what to do at first, but then we were all directed outside. Of course, everyone started talking about what was on the exam and what the answers were. After an hour of standing outside we were allowed back in to finish the exam. It was tough to get back on track after taking a one-hour break, but I managed to get through it.

Afterward, there was talk about what would happen to the exam. I heard stories of other students re-writing exams after such an incident. I even heard about a similar situation a few years earlier at my school where the students were not allowed to come back in after the alarm and they marked the exam out of however many questions you had finished. Fortunately, this time we did not have to rewrite the exam; they just took what we handed in at the end and ignored the fact that everyone had been able to talk about it part of the way through.

I also remember the final exam period of first year. Everyone has their own way of preparing and I tend to get started early so I am not stressed when I have to write. My roommate, however, was not so prepared. I would laugh as I would come back to res late at night from the library, ready to go to bed after a hard day's work. But there was my roommate, just leaving -- bags under his eyes, coffee in one hand, chocolate covered coffee beans in the other -- ready to get in some all-night studying for his exam the next morning. This happened many nights in a row and I would often catch him snoozing at his desk in the afternoon. It didn’t seem to me like the most efficient way of studying, and he would agree; but we both made it through first year. To each his own, I guess.

A Pause in my Plans

I dropped out of University a few months ago. I have to admit that more than one thing went into the decision. It's really hard to be at one University and to have the person you care about the most at another. Chat, texts, free IP phoning and videoconferencing: nothing comes close to being together. But I was seemingly thriving, and getting high marks, so it was all quite a shock to lots of people: parents, friends, Profs.

High marks were part of the problem. I could have continued, but I came to the point around Christmas that I'd just lost academic steam, and wouldn't be able to put out my maximum effort to get the kind of marks that I was used to. The choice that I was facing was getting mediocre marks or accepting a pause in my studies. And I needed space from the academic world. Really needed it. Really needed it now.

I'd felt the problem coming on for a while -- each semester seemed more uphill than the previous one had been. Actually, I'm quite proud that I lasted as long as I did. I do wish, though, that the University had some scheme or some counselling or at least some information that would have brought the idea of time away into my mind so that I could plan ahead, make the decision at leisure in an organized way, get the arrangements made for money, travel, whatever. Then I could feel good about a rational choice, as opposed to what I feel now, which has an element of defeat and humiliation in it.

In other countries, I've learned, what's referred to as a "gap year" is rather common. It's an accepted and normal part of University life, most commonly just before people go, but also as part of what students can do while they're there. There are some who never come back, of course, but also others who make decisions while away that radically change their University program from what they'd intended and expected before. Presumably, the new direction is one that suits them better than their original one.

I know I will go back to school and finish. I still have the same goals; I haven’t changed direction. And I have begun to miss it. I miss learning things; even though I can always find other things to learn and fill that gap, it's not the same as being in a class I like. I feel now that when I am ready to go back to it, I will go back with new energy and focus and be able to graduate with honours in both majors.

The time away so far has been wonderful for me; I have had a chance to travel and do things that I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to do. Maybe I'd never have had the chance to do them; I'd probably have just gone straight into a job, a career.

I'm far from the only person who could benefit from the course of action I'm taking. Mostly, I would think, no-one else would ever know what was happening, but it would show in lower marks as the person's enthusiasm declined.

My advice to freshman students would be: be aware that this might happen to you. If you see it coming on, consider the options well ahead of the time when you need to decide. Tell people what you're considering, and benefit from their reaction to what you say. Then in the end, if time away seems to be what you need to regain your enthusiasm, go for it.

Unusual Combinations of Courses

My academic career is rather unusual. Many of my friends are majoring in subjects that lead rather directly into a particular career, such as engineering, or social work. Most of them knew before they came here what they wanted to do with their lives afterwards, and then built their program around that. They have a vocational perspective on being here.

I've often envied them. I can't do what they're doing, though, because I'm not interested in any of these things, and I don't want to be spending my life doing these kinds of things. It's not wise, and maybe not possible, to try to do something that continually bores you. You have to listen to your brain, and play to your strengths.

So what excites me? What does my brain latch on to? Well, it's English literature. I've always devoured books, I'm excited by new literary movements and new techniques. I love literary processes such as textual analysis. No way will I give these things up.

But I am stressed when I think about the future. I've been quite envious of people in engineering, architecture, and the like; people will pay them to do what they love doing -- at least that's what they can justifiably hope and expect to happen. With one major, I could be a year closer to graduation; I'm not stressed about that because a degree in English by itself wouldn't lead me into any money-earning work I'd be interested in. University teaching: not my thing.

With these thoughts in mind, I decided to broaden my program and do a Double Major: English and Biology. It's not a combination that directly leads to a job, but it's one that I can at least hope will be marketable if I do well and if can match myself up with a suitable career track.

I've been lucky, or maybe I chose the right University in the first place. I've found that I can do a wide variety of courses that will count towards my Double Major. I have a lot of bio, a lot of Chem, and of course a lot of English. I'm also taking anthropology, psychology, and quite a bit of sociology.

The combination suits me extremely well. I'm continually seeing insights that come from one subject and pertain to another. I can discuss things from points of view that others can't have, because they're too narrowly specialized. The insights from anthropology, for example, pertain surprisingly often to what I'm reading in literature. Another example: physiology, psychology, and sociology. All have insights they can offer the others. You do have to have the kind of brain that notices these interactions, or be able to train yourself so you can see them. Two or three trees, sometimes of different species, but with branches that are intertwined with each other in lots of places: it's lateral thinking, thinking outside the box and not everyone can do it. This message is not for them. Even some profs can't do it, and don't notice when I do it. Just seeing these things is rewarding on its own, though. But the times when someone you respect is impressed with something unusual that you've seen: they're truly exhilarating.

In the end, I'm banking on some of these abilities and skills being useful to other people -- and that I can get paid for doing them! My track isn't simple like the architects or the social workers. But then I'm not one that ever goes with everyone else in a straight line from one place to the next. I have confidence in myself, though, that I'll look back in ten years or so, and be able to say, "Yes, it hasn't been easy, but I chose my program well and I've done well since."

Getting Sick

During the very first week of school I caught what I thought was a minor cough. I could not let that stop me from experiencing University. I was attending classes, going to grueling track and field practices, and getting involved in anything I could. I came to accept the fact that I had a cold and would just have to fight though it. But it persisted and two months later I was still sick.

It was Halloween weekend and I was excited to get dressed up and go party. (FYI: Halloween in University is almost as important as when you were six, so start thinking about your costumes now). However, by this time, I was feeling very sick. With a pounding headache and my first-ever earache I decided to forego Halloween. As much as I wanted to go, I knew I should rest. First thing on Monday I headed to student health services at the university. Apparently I simply had the University Bug and I was prescribed medication that fixed it.

Another problem came along later in the year, and followed me into the summer before I realized what was going on. At first, I was hesitant to tell my family and friends about it, but now I realize that there was no reason to hide anything.

It began in the run-up to exams; I'd wake up in the night in a panic - literally in a sweat. Sometimes I could go back to sleep, but not always. Of course, the panic was always about the exams: had I forgotten to study something? Was I properly prepared for the various kinds of question there would be, and so on. On one level, I knew that these feelings were irrational and unrealistic, but they easily consumed me. I didn't study any better because of it, in fact it was quite the opposite as I was often tired and dispirited. I ended up doing quite well in these exams, but it certainly was an unpleasant process.

When they were over, I thought that because the exam worry was gone, the panic attacks would dissipate. I went home, got the usual kind of student summer job, and settled down to enjoy the free time I hadn't had much of during the year. But I'd still wake up with the same panicky feeling, except that now it centred around other things, and not always the same thing. What if I had an accident that totalled my car? What if my mom lost her job? What if there was a terrorist attack that blew us all up?

Well, I'm exaggerating, but I think you get the point. No one could guarantee me that these disasters could never happen. But nothing in my situation was much different from the previous years and none of these anxieties involved anything I could do anything about. Yet there they were. And they sucked.

More insight came from my grandmother in a nursing home, who we all knew wouldn't live much longer. She always seemed to be afraid of one thing or another. One time it would be that someone was stealing things from her, so we had to change the locks. Then it was that she imagined there had been an argument between me and the home's Director. And what would happen to her if her two children were killed in the same car accident? Who would be there to take her to the occasional restaurant or to have her hair done? Obviously the worry came first, and her brain was trying to make sense of it by coming up with all these unfounded anxieties.

It took me a little while to realize that what my grandmother was experiencing, I also battle with every day, but still had not told anyone yet. It was more obvious in her case, but really not much different. We all knew that there was something wrong with my grandmother’s brain and I thought that I might be having the same problem. This caused more panic, could a tumour really be eating though my brain?

By this time I was back at University. The frantic scramble to get everything done on time began again, and this time I wasn't coping well at all. I went back to the Health Center to see a professional and was informed that these panic attacks were in fact not uncommon at all, especially in University students because they are in such a stressful state. She gave me a prescription and told me if things persisted to return to the clinic.

At first I argued. I’m not a psych case! "Look," she said, "if you had diabetes, you’d take insulin for it even though you wished you didn’t have diabetes. This is a chemical imbalance in your brain, and the medication will probably deal with it."
 
I was still hesitant about taking the medication, but I did understand what she was trying to say. If it’s a physical problem, it’s not embarrassing. But if it’s mental, it’s a whole other story. After a few days, the attacks subsided and I realized the pills were helping.
 
I'm still taking them. I learnt there's no point in being ashamed of something you have no control over and that before you become involved in everything around you, you need to remember to take care of yourself first and foremost.

Living Far Away

Going to school nine hours away from home come be tough, especially when you see friends going home for the weekend or just for a family dinner.

That's the way it is for my roommate. He began to miss home, so he just went back for a Saturday. Then he was sick, and he could go home to his own bed. Everyone feels more comfortable in their own bed.

I hadn't expected to feel this way. Ever since I was 13, I just couldn't wait to get away from my parents. I loathed the restrictions they put on me, and whenever I was with them in a public place, I found it extremely embarrassing to be with them. I would spend most of my teenage years in my room chatting to my friends.

Now I was on my own. I had my independence, the thing I'd been wanting and waiting for all these years. I could stay out as long as I wanted, and wasn't responsible for feeding the dog. No-one asked what I'd been doing that day or that evening. And suddenly it didn't feel so good.

Despite the friends I'd made, I felt more alone than I ever had before, and much more than I expected. I didn't have a support system right by my side any more. I hadn't expected to miss my parents, but I did. A lot. And my friends at home, and the street we lived on, even the dog. I hadn't expected to feel that way, so it hit me hard. The only thing that kept me going was my new friends. Without them, I don't think I would have been able to make it. Actually, there was one person I knew of, a loner, who just gave everything up and went home. Before, I would have been totally unable to understand that. Now I do.

The worst time was the first long weekend, and there was only a small group of people left on campus. I was surprised to find that most of them seemed to feel the same way I did. We talked about it a lot. Worst of all was everyone coming back, talking about how great it was to see their families. I was even more down. I was soooo envious of them all, especially my roommate.

So when Christmas came, I couldn’t wait to be reunited with family, friends and my own bed. But since several of my new friends opted to stay at school, I felt I should tough it out too. It felt like a competition; who was strongest or most independent?

Something my mom said stuck with me when I mentioned this to her, "You don't win any medals for staying at school or being miserable." I decided she was right and booked my train ticket for 6:55 am the next day.

Homesickness

University was my first time away from home and I had never been homesick before. I didn't expect to cry when my parents left for good. It was a feeling I'd never experienced, and was not expecting. Even though I had already made some friends, I was a mess and had never felt so lonely.

I just wasn't used to all the partying, all the running around from event to event, being surrounded by new people all the time, all the late late nights and early mornings. I even had thoughts about transferring to a school closer to home. I also thought that I was the only person feeling this way. It helped to be open to the friends I had just made; being with them made the feelings go away somewhat and they were really supportive. Lots of them were feeling the same and I wouldn’t have made it if it weren’t for them.

But still, I couldn't wait to go home that first weekend and be with the friends I'd known all my life. I even missed a huge concert with a popular band to go home. I was scared, though, that I wouldn’t want to come back.

My parents came to pick me up, and as soon as we turned down the familiar roads leading to my house, I suddenly wasn't homesick anymore. I thought, "Why did I miss this so much? I was so excited to get away." And from then on I was never homesick again, even though I did call my mom every day at first and kept in contact with my friends from home. But by the end of the year, those daily phone calls had turned into weekly ones.

So, the moral of the story is that homesickness is a normal feeling that everyone will experience at some point and that you may be scared and uncertain. But trust me, by the end of the year when it's time to move out of residence and go back home, you're not going to want to go, and you'll miss it.

Mature Students Waste My Time and I Don't Appreciate It

We are in classes with people who already work in our field of study. So they think they know it all even though they are only in first year classes. One guy barfs up information all the time whenever the prof explains something. Another one asked if she could use the calculator on her cell phone for an exam. Stuff like this makes me cringe.

I don’t know if it’s because they are older that they are so keen and annoying.

Some of them can never just listen to what the Prof says. They have to drag up stuff they've seen that they think has something to do with what he's said, and they tell long and detailed stories about stuff that half the time is nothing to do with anything.

In my criminology class, the Prof asked who knew how to roll a joint; the lesson had something to do with what we learn in our lives. The only person in the class who raised her hand was this 60 year old woman who says, “Oh, I know how to roll a joint”. Apparently she grows weed on her farm and smokes up with her adult son.

Then there are the times that the professor tells us that he will let us out of class half an hour early unless there are any questions. And guess who raise their hands? Quit wasting my time people! If you have a question, go up after class.

In my English class, there is a forty some old lady who I swear to god is hitting on the Prof. She keeps saying that she is going to bring a bottle of wine to the exam and that she wants to go over to his house for dinner.

And then you get this girl who sits in the back and always asks the stupidest questions. You can’t help but laugh even though our class is so small that everyone can hear you laugh.

They just don’t get it though. Just because they are older doesn’t mean that they know everything.

A Mature Student's Perspective

I must surely be unique amongst the students here. Before being accepted, I'd never been on the Internet. My University Application form must have looked a lot different from most others too, and I wondered what the admissions officers would think. The last time I had attended full time studies was seventeen years before, when I finished two years of college. I hadn't been in paid work for four years. I was a single mother, with toddlers still at home. I had no money, having split from my former spouse, who had become a different person from the one I married, and who wasn't in a position to provide child support. Fortunately, I'd landed in a safety net which had fallen from the sky, via several levels of government and some quite amazing people working for the various agencies.

The plan was that I would start as a part time student and move to full time after I transitioned into a life of studies. It was time to continue my pursuit of knowledge, something that I'd long wanted to commit myself to. The dreadful last few years were over; what was done was done, and my future was the only thing that I could change.

I was standing in the driveway, holding my daughter, when I opened the letter: ‘We are pleased to offer you ...’. The admissions officer wouldn't have known it but he or she had contributed to ending the vicious cycle of poverty and abuse that I was trying to escape. Of course, the safety net provided by several layers of government played their part as well, but it's the University that's completely altering my life.

I started out wanting to teach ESL abroad perhaps in the Middle East. I fit the demographic: right nationality, right gender, right religion -- muslim. The way to get there also suited me; in Anthropology, you develop cross cultural sensitivity and awareness of practices and policies of different countries as well as the sociocultural origins., Anthro has a Bio-anthro field, an archaeology field and a sociocultural field, the sociocultural being my major now along with Linguistics.

It was exciting and scary to think about the prospects of returning to school. Looking back on some of the things I'd previously done, I felt fortunate to be at a stage in my life where I could enjoy being a parent and find fulfillment at the same time as pursuing studies. To bystanders, I was borderline crazy to even consider going back to school. I began to understand that it was a matter of perspective and if it was the right thing to do, then doors would open to facilitate the journey.

It was important to stay balanced in every aspect of life. Going back to school was a way to regain more intellectual balance, along with the emotional and spiritual. In realizing and recognizing my abilities, the prospect of going back to school was no longer scary. Staying in my current circumstances was much worse. This was my chance to do something about it and to take responsibility for the future.

Once the initial shock wore off, it was time to plan. It boiled down to two very important things:

First, Time Management: balancing family time with children and time with studying, not wasting time with TV, cutting down on social gatherings and letting friends know the time is limited. Babysitters would have to be found -- oh, how fortunate I've been in that! There would have to be a schedule for managing homework and assignments, and the schedule would need sticking to.

In my attempt to balance time, I found it was a matter of attitude, of perspective. I made my study time my "Me" time. It was a chance to learn something new and build towards a goal. Studying is not a chore. Learning is a vocation and a passion. From what I've seen, mine is not a common way of looking at things. Certainly, studying has its share of what some might call drudgery; perhaps it was an advantage to know and to be experiencing the hours of far more extreme drudgery that go with bringing up babies and small children.

Second part of the Plan, Damage Control: things would go wrong. Sure there had to be a schedule, but it would have to be flexible enough to accept changes, sometimes major ones. If I couldn't make it to class, I'd need to have arranged someone to get notes for me, make explanations to the Profs; I'd need a plan to get caught up and, if that wasn't possible, to modify my timetable. Schedules wouldn't always proceed at the pace assumed by optimistic plans. Flexibility and multitasking would have to come into play. Fortunately, as a single mother, I'd had lots of recent experience with both. Children, and even adult students, can get sick. For example, in my second year, I suddenly got really ill. It felt as though I had blown a fuse -- affecting my eyesight, senses and speech. After tests revealed a neurological disorder, it was time to weigh the options. Working through the new challenge to the best of my modified abilities, and I made a radical reduction of my timetable for the rest of that term.

I'm lucky with the Profs I have. They do vary, mind you, in their understanding of their students' needs. I had to leave one three-hour class 20 minutes early to pick my daughter up from kindergarten. The professor was new to the country and to her profession. She decided to punish me by deducting participation marks. She was quite a bit younger than me, and I attributed her rigidity to her own insecurity. (Ironically, the last laugh was mine. She became visibly pregnant, and some months later began to appear with bags under her eyes. Somehow her attitude towards me seemed to change.) For the most part, though, Profs seem glad to talk with me, and they seem to want to get to know me better; there are not too many mature students in the class. They do know that I face greater challenges and some have asked me how I manage.

Some people expressed doubts as to whether I would find enough time for the children. Clearly, a good babysitter would be needed, and I had to set aside enough time for them before I left for school and when I came back. And I hope and believe that my student endeavours don't come at their expense; I still see my time reading and writing as providing a useful role model for them. They see what a normal day is like: work brought home, and plenty of time spent doing it. As well, my doing this was my only chance as a sole-support parent to bring them up into a life without the dependency and hopelessness that many women in my kind of situation seem to fall into.

The irony is that what was once upon a time going to be a hobby ended up becoming something I absolutely had to do in order to secure a future of gainful employment as a sole support parent. It was my opportunity of a lifetime to do something I'd wanted to do and intended to do once the children became more independent. Not everyone gets this chance. And through it all, I maintained the same perspective I'd begun with.

Although my ultimate aim was to reduce and eventually eliminate my dependence on others, ironically, there were two groups of people that I was completely dependent upon at the moment. First of course, my wonderful babysitters. But then in the University itself are the people I think of as my Alliances. I sought out the students who were serious about their work, and whenever a group had to be formed, chose them to be with. We take notes for each other, and often we constitute ourselves as a Study Group. I like to think our group isn't always people doing things for me. Sometimes, being older and having different life-experiences and a different religion, I can contribute ideas that the others couldn't have come up with on their own. So although there's an imbalance in my favour, the Alliance is reciprocal.

A couple more things strike me. First, I don't think I could have made it this far if all my classes had been large ones, with no chance to get to know the Prof or to interact with others just as serious about their work as I am. Sit, learn, write tests, graduate and leave. I could never have done that. I needed smaller classes that let me interact and gain validation from the encouraging comments Profs offered.

Second, if I didn't love the material I'm studying, then carrying on would be absolutely impossible. My advice to other mature students in a position like mine, unless you're sure you have a commitment to your studies, and consistent enthusiasm for the work, then don't do it.

I'm proud of what I've done. I tell people that I have a degree in domestic engineering. Sometimes they get the joke. Now I have my degree, and employment that required the qualification and uses at least some of the things I leaned along the way. I can’t adequately find words for my journey. My proudest moment: my daughter graduating from kindergarten the day before I graduated from university.

Ultimately, my returning to school was an investment I made in myself so I could do more for my family. I am thankful for others investing their time in helping me realize my goals and providing opportunities to put the knowledge I have acquired into practice. And now I am paying it forward by doing the same for others who are in my situation. But that’s another story.

Learning Styles Again

You are about to check your first university exam grade…Please please let me do well, you’re thinking. Your palms are sweating, your mouth is dry and you’re squinting your eyes in an effort to try and not look at your mark. The page is loading, inch by inch…here it is! WHAT…I got a 52%? The tears start streaming down your face, uncontrollably shivering, scared of what’s to come next. I studied sooo hard for this exam and I’ve never gotten a mark so low in my entire life.

That was my first university mark experience. I was in shock and I didn’t know what to do. Here is the thing, ladies and gentlemen: you can study hard and fail or study less but correctly and ace. That was my problem, I did not study correctly. The moment I changed my learning style, my grades went up to the A’s…I kid you not.

There really is no right way to study…each person varies. But I have a few tips to help you ease into your learning style:

1) Do you learn best when listening to people talk?

- When attending lecture, sit up front to avoid any distractions from people around you
- Record the lecture (ask permission of the Professor first; some do not allow their lectures to be recorded)
- Listen to it again afterwards, fast-forwarding though the parts you're sure about

2) Do you learn best by writing things down?

- Use different coloured pens and highlighters emphasizing different concepts
- Print off your notes as opposed to typing them up…this way you are actively writing as opposed to passively typing (trust me -- there is a difference)
- Use sticky notes to summarize (in point form) what is on a page

3) Do you learn best by reading things?

- Read your lecture notes before and after class
- Read the textbook to look at the same concept from a different teaching perspective and make summary notes

4) Do you learn best by a combination or all of the above? Or are you unsure?

You can use some or all of the tips suggested above and see what works for you.

Don’t be too proud! Laundry and independence

The first day I arrived at University, my mother helped me unpack my bags, set up my room, and was ready to leave. Before she left, she tried very hard to show me how to do laundry (the right way), but I assured her that I already knew how to do laundry. In reality, I didn’t want to be embarrassed being taught how to do laundry in front of all my new roommates. Eventually she left and didn’t end up showing me how to do laundry.

What a mistake that was! Two weeks later, I ran out of clothes and decided to do my laundry. I didn’t have any technique or know-how, and after the first load, I ended up with 8 pink t-shirts that were supposed to be white! Apparently you cannot mix your whites with your colours; I wish I'd listened to mom! Make sure you know how to do laundry so you don’t have to learn first-hand and ruin a bunch of good clothes.

University is not the Sex Show I Thought it Would Be

Going into first year I had been dating a girl for about a year. The last weeks of summer were stressful because I was worried about what would happen to our relationship when university started. Troubled thoughts of co-ed dorms, partying, sex, and the infamous ‘turkey dump’ overflowed my thoughts. Other friends of mine were in relationships too, but ours felt more serious. University was approaching, and I did not want our relationship to end.

Once frosh week got underway, I wanted to make sure that I made as many friends as possible, and yet still make time for Jane. We talked—even if only for a bit—every night. Frosh week was much different than I had imagined it. Going in, I pictured my girlfriend being the only attached girl in her residence and at parties I assumed she would be surrounded by 27 horny guys at all times trying to get her to have sex. However, university was not the ‘sex show’ I deemed it to be. Sure, there are other guys and girls around if you are interested; but, there are tons of other first years with girlfriends and boyfriends too. There is no pressure to hook up with other people. The only stress caused by the relationship was that created by my thoughts and assumptions.

I talked to Jane often and visited her when I could even though my program was a very time-consuming and intense one. I was still able to have fun and go to the bars; what made it even easier was that we trusted each other.

A lot of people are unsure whether they should continue with their relationship going into university. All I say is ‘be true to yourself’. If you both want it to work, then try it; you will be surprised that it's quite possible to make a relationship work if you both want it to.

One thing I took from the experience was that I should not worry about the unknown. I spent the whole summer and the first-half of first year agonizing until I realized that university wasn’t the sex-show I thought it would be. And now it’s three years later and my girlfriend and I are still dating.

Relationships With People Back Home

My roommate doesn’t feel that her relationship with friends back home is any different now that she has gone on to university and they have stayed back for another year of grade 12 - the victory lap, as they call it. When she goes home, she says she still feels like she is in high school. Her friends are talking about the same old teachers and the same old stuff but it doesn’t feel like that long ago that she was part of it. So she can still relate.

But I feel the total opposite. I get frustrated with friends who are calling all stressed out about something. I think, seriously, you call that stress? They are complaining about having to do an English assignment and all I can think is that they have an extra year to do all the courses that I shoved into one year. So they would be having an easier year than I did and still they are complaining. And I have two midterms tomorrow and an essay due the next day. Really! Get real people!

I have moved on from that stuff but they are still there. And when I’m on the phone with them, I am thankful I got away. Even though you never really get completely away from the drama. Highschool. University. It’s just a different kind of drama. But it’s still drama.

Hacking your Brain

Quite a few people I know take drugs. None are druggies, because they're rather careful about what they take. I haven't seen any of the addictive ones like coke or heroin – it’s ot hard to get them, of course, and some people have tried them, but nobody I know uses them regularly. The most common one you see and smell is weed. People use it to relax and to have a more enjoyable time on the weekend. A good thing is that you never see anyone who's loud or violent because they smoke up; you can't say the same thing about drinking. But bad things are that you never know quite what you're getting, and that it's illegal. Cops swoop down on some places where they know drugs are being used, and I sometimes think about what would happen if they sealed off the Res and searched everyone's stuff on a Friday night. A lot of people would be in a lot of trouble.

Other kinds of drug that you often see are amphetamines. These have quite the opposite effect: they make it easy to keep plugging away at your schoolwork for hours longer than you normally would, so you can get that paper done or that exam studied for. These are not illegal drugs, and some people can fake ADHD and get a doctor to prescribe them. Taking them if you're a normal person is called "off-label". The companies who make them say they don't like this off-label use, but they probably don't work very hard to prevent it. They certainly make a lot of off-label money around here. Mostly, the people who take them haven't begun their work soon enough; they've partied and procrastinated for too long, and now the pills are the only way to get it done in time. Then the next time they have to get schoolwork done, they know what worked last time, so they think they can party more and leave the work until the last minute again, as long as they've got the pills.

But there are those who have a different attitude. They’re serious about their work, and for some, their work is never good enough to satisfy them -- the kinds of people who think of an A as not good enough because it should have been an A+. These people will tell you that they are actually smarter with the drugs: they can work a lot longer, better focus, and get things done that they wouldn’t have been able to complete otherwise. I said to one of these people, "Hey, you're making yourself into a person you're really not." He agreed: "self-enhancement", he called it. "I just want to be the best person I can be." He told me that he could maintain a 10 hour a week part time job in the cafeteria that otherwise he wouldn't have had the time for, and that without that money, he didn't think he'd be able to come back at all next year. He talked about people who are naturally depressed and negative about everything; they take antidepressants and then suddenly are different people from what they really are. That's true, I've seen it. I had an uncle who was bad-tempered and down on everything, and he suddenly became a changed and much-improved guy. Later, I heard it was because he'd starting taking antidepressants. So what's the difference? Hard to answer that one.

But where will it end? If too many people have this attitude, everyone else will have to work longer and harder to compete with them. Profs will see what these people can do without necessarily knowing how they do it, so they'll increase their demands on everyone else as well. That way, there will be pressure on everyone else to take these drugs. Or maybe they'll ban them and make us pee into a bottle before every exam. Another thing: the competition to get into this University is brutal, and I know some parents who get weekend and summer tutors for their perfectly normal kids at age 15, and will do anything at all to make them get higher marks.

"Kid enhancement": it scares me to think of it.

Students with Different Backgrounds

Students from the city, from affluent suburbs, and from the more rural areas seem a lot different when they first arrive. City people are more aggressive, they do everything faster, they talk louder and faster, they walk faster, and they seem a lot less friendly to the others. I know that because I'm from the city myself. There, you just can't say hello to people you meet in the street, and your habit is to just focus on wherever you're going and whatever you're doing. Nobody looks sideways or acknowledges anyone else: actually you just can't as sometimes if you look at the wrong person in the wrong way, it can be dangerous. As well, you don't have time to stop and be more friendly because everything is so fast.

People often complain about us city kids and think we are arrogant but it's not really arrogance, it's more a certain confidence. The fact is, in the city, you have to look confident. If you don't, there are always people who will instantly recognize it and look for ways to take advantage of you.

And city people tend to look down on suburban people, and the other way around too -- especially people from the wealthy suburbs who always seem to expect the whole world to revolve around them. Well I guess, if you have enough money, your whole world really does revolve around you most of the time, and you expect all the rest of it to do the same and that shows in the attitude they present to the rest of us. On the other hand, rural kids are often mistaken in assuming that all city kids are rich.

Now here at university, you can notice all this stuff at first. But everyone is in the same situation, and we're all close enough in background to make where everyone is from unimportant rather soon. The university is in a smaller city, and it's big enough so that when you're walking around or taking the shuttle bus from one part of it to another, you don't see very many people or things that aren't part of the university. Our residence is in one place, and at the other end of the bus route are most of the classes, so you tend to be meeting mostly the same people every day. You don't know who most of them are, but you do recognize the same faces day after day. And it's strange: people nod their heads and smile at each other as they go by; for the ones who aren't from the city it's the same way it's always been, and even for me, I didn't really notice the change until I went back home again at the end of the term when my friends told me I had changed. You do change (people at home told me I was talking slowly!), but it doesn't take long for you to just start behaving exactly the same way you had before: resuming the old habits in the old environment.

But back to the university: once you get to know someone and take the time to try to understand them, working with them or socializing with them, you often forget where they're from. It doesn't matter whether the other people are rich or poor, or African or Hispanic or Caucasian, or even male or female (except in a few cases!) They're just the people you're with at the time. They do come from different backgrounds, and they've had different experiences. So you can learn new things or new ways of looking at things by being with them. Instead of being a problem, the differences are now an asset and an enrichment for your life.

Militancy

This University isn't the place to be militant. Nobody needs to be; they'll be accepted anyway. For example, there are gay people, but we don't see people yelling slogans or wearing flamboyant clothes. I know a student from Turkey who's a Muslim. He respects his religion and practises it, but not in a splashy way. He fasts during Ramadan, but I get the feeling he does it because it's engrained in him. He's very much like the rest of us: open to discussion and new ideas about almost anything. People want to keep an open mind to learning new things -- that's why they come.

Maybe some of it comes about because it's a small University. Suppose you behave in strange ways, or you try to impose your view onto someone else. Tomorrow, you'll see that person again who you might have offended. And next term, you might be in the same seminar and have to work together.

You feel an obligation here to find out more about people who you would normally be suspicious of. People who are set in their ways tend not to come here, and when they come, they get to know other students as people; they see the genuineness of the person, and realize that stereotypes apply a lot less than they'd perhaps thought. When you look at people like that, you get more tolerant as time goes by.

Integration

This University prides itself on its diversity. As well as people of african and hispanic origins, there are special programs for minorities, for refugees from dangerous countries, and a big international department as well. My Major is in International Development, so for me having all these different kinds of people around is a big asset.

I have to say, though, that the integration is only partly successful. There are lots of cliques and they are mostly racially dependent. Asians, Middle Eastern kids, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, city kids - they all stick together. The profs suggest coming together but there is not enough dialogue. People don't want to go into other people's zone. There are staff people in the University whose job it is to promote it, and I can't help feeling that if that's what they want, they need to do something a bit more than what they're doing now. I think that you can't prevent a lot of the segregation by teaching students about it while at college; it has to come before they get here. They have to ask the right questions on the application form to get the right people to come and maybe, do a bit more to prepare them before they get here. What actually would be done, I'm not sure. Perhaps it might also help if they did something to prepare the rest of us too, but again, I'm not sure what.

In class, it doesn't matter much. As I've mentioned, I'm in classes where having different kinds of people from different backgrounds all over the world is a big asset. Having someone explain their own life to you is a lot different from reading about it in a book.

But it's outside class, in the cafeteria and other places where people socialize, that you see people from the same ethnic group congregating together. I wish it didn't happen that way, because I'd like to get to know some of these people better, who I've met in classes and seminars. I guess the reason for it is that everyone feels more comfortable with other people with similar experiences. You know how someone will react to something you say, so you don't have to worry about offending someone or being taken in the wrong way. I know it's easy for me to complain, because I'm part of the majority and most of the time I don't need to pay much attention to these things anyway.

And I have noticed that the older people get, the more integrated the groups get that they form. Maybe my ideal of complete integration isn't hopeless; it's just harder than I'd thought and will take more time than I'd thought.

Ethnic Origins

There's one thing I do see here that at first I didn't like. Most of the time, if you see Asian students, they're all hanging out together in a group. Part of it is language. I think some of them feel that their English is a lot worse than it actually is. Talking to one of them, you can understand everything, they don't accidentally cause offence by saying something in the wrong way, and as far as you can tell they understand everything you say as well. OK, so there's an accent, but it doesn't get in the way of communication. One of my friends is from the South, and it tends to show in the way she speaks when she gets excited about something. Their accent is the same way: yes, it's there, but it's not a problem when it comes to understanding. They often think it is though. They're wrong, but they think their English gets in the way of things. So you tend to see them most of the time in groups of their own people, speaking their own language.

I don't want to exaggerate this as a problem. People from one group don't dislike people from other groups, or look down on them -- at least not as far as I can tell. Perhaps they do, of course, but they know better than to say anything. But I really don't think so.

We're all in the same classes and when you are in class, you don't care what ethnic origin someone is of; once in class, everyone is in the same situation; you are all here to learn. And sometimes we have to work with each other in groups chosen on a random basis. Once you start working with someone, both of you forget the differences and concentrate on the work you've got to get done together. While this is going on, it's no different from working with someone from the suburbs or the country. And it's usually not different working with someone from another country, although there are exceptions. Another friend of mine was extremely disturbed for a while when she was working with an Asian student who contributed very little. When he did, she just didn't see how what he said could be fitted in with what was already there. A real cultural divide, but that's unusual. Most of the time, we can all work together with the people from various backgrounds, and either everyone can gain from the different perspectives, or it at least makes very little or no difference.

But once the task is finished, you're less likely to socialize together outside of class with the person from the other country, even though you could make the effort to do so. Next day, there she is, in the same group as before with the same people speaking together in their own language. Too bad in one way, but I guess we're all more relaxed and more comfortable the more the people we're with are like ourselves in more ways. If you're familiar with it and comfortable with it, as humans, you will automatically connect with it.

In fact, one experience I've had gives me a bit of insight on exactly that. My family is from Romania, and even though I haven't been there since I was very small, I did grow up in a Romanian environment -- our house is full of Romanian things, and we all speak Romanian together at home.

Here in the university, for the first time in my life, I met another person my own age who is Romanian as well -- from the same part of Romania even. In fact she's more Romanian than me; she goes there every summer and lives with her relatives, which I've never done.

Instantly, there was a bond between us, an instant connection, different from what I've ever experienced with anyone else. It was wonderful because this was the first time I found someone my age who spoke Romanian. I just knew that she and I had so many things in common, more than we could ever talk about. Mind you, we did talk about quite a few, and we laughed together a lot, especially about some of the things our parents do or say. We just felt s - o - o close to each other. And that helped me realize how it is that all the Asian students from the same country can feel so much more comfortable in their own company than they are with people who've lived here all their lives. Because I could easily imagine myself going to university in an Asian country and seeking out anyone else from this country to hang out with. Very tempting. Almost irresistable.

All in all, a couple of things. First, the closer people are to you in background, the easier it is for you to socialize with them. In our social life, we tend not to look for challenges, rather we go for comfort, reassurance, closeness, and easy relationships.

But second, it's all up to the individual. Once you get to know someone as a person, that's all that's important; the other things are not. And I am told that, as a freshman, you see the differences between people according to where they come from but later, when you are a senior, you notice it less.

Get to Know Your Profs

Your Profs are not like your High School teachers. What you notice first is that most don't know you, won't know you, and can't know you. Especially in first year, classes are much too big for that to ever happen. That doesn't mean that you can never communicate with them though. There are office hours, and there are TAs, whose job it is to work with you. In my courses, I've always been able to find someone who could help me when I needed it. There was one awful course that I really shouldn't have taken because I didn't have the background. I couldn't understand anything at all about what was going on. Help! I didn't even know what questions to ask. I was going to talk to my Academic Advisor and drop the course, but then I thought, well, maybe it's worth one more try. So I went and had a talk with the TA; much to my surprise, she seemed to understand exactly what was going on (or not going on) in my brain, and she seemed to want to help and to think she could. She was right; it took a lot of her time and mine, and I never did at all well in the course, but my mark ended up being respectable.

Now, from my position of enormous experience and wisdom as a second year student, I make a point at the beginning of every course to see who there is to talk to about it. Sometimes it's the Prof, but most often it's a TA. If I do have questions or problems later on, I have someone who can help. It hasn't happened to me very much, but if I found someone who didn't seem to know the work or couldn't explain it, I'd look around for someone else. But it's better to find someone at the beginning of the course, so that all the way through, you know that there's the Prof or a TA who can help with any problems. I also make a point of talking to a TA whenever I get a major piece of work handed back; it's good for them to know you're serious about your marks, and it can be surprising how useful their comments can be. Even if they can tell you that the mark you were upset about is actually quite good for that course, it can make you feel better.

Sure there are vindictive Profs, worn-out Profs who don't care about their students, Profs who don’t want assignments based on your opinion but rather on theirs, and Profs who are just plain lazy and disorganized. One of mine always seems to jump from one topic to another, and to go off on a tangent. Either he just reads from his slides, or he just babbles on. You ask him a question about one of his slides, and he doesn't seem to know what to say about it. He contradicts the text, and contradicts what he's just said. You think, "How did this guy ever get a PhD? How did he get hired? What were they thinking of when they chose him to teach us this work?".

But here at least, there aren't many bad Profs. Most of the ones who seem that way at first are quite different once you get to know them a bit. There was one of mine who seemed quite distant and unfriendly, and I got the impression he didn't care about how we did, or even maybe was pleased when people didn't do well. It was getting to me; it made it hard to go to the class, and hard to concentrate properly on what he was explaining -- quite difficult things actually, even on a good day. I went after class to ask him a question; he seemed quite friendly and eager to explain the answer. He even thanked me for asking the question, and said that it would help him explain that point better in the future. I also found a fourth year student who had been in some of his smaller upper-year classes; I found out that this Prof was a shy person, and found our enormous first year class quite intimidating. The previous year, a Prof-rating website had trashed him, which made him feel nervous and insecure. Also, he was depressed about his research, which wasn't going well at all. After hearing about this, I began to look at these lectures in a different light; I enjoyed them better and learned more too.

Another advantage of getting to know Profs and TAs is that they have contacts that can be useful to you in ways you can't necessarily foresee. One of my Profs gave me a Reference letter, and a friend of mine got summer work as a lab assistant. The Prof wanted someone he was sure could do the job, and he was working closely with the TA my friend knew.

So getting to know your Profs, or at least something about them, pays off in many ways. It's well worth the time and effort you put into it.

Profs: Don't Be Scared of Them

“So class, that is all for today…”. A line said by the Professor that brings a wave of relief after lecture is over for the day…but is it over? You still have to review your notes and make sure there is nothing that you do not understand. But I have a million questions and none of my friends know how to answer them and my textbook is a waste of my life, and I don’t know what to do or where to go!!! I neeeeeeeeed heeeeelpppppppppppp! Where better to go for help than to the person that taught you the lecture…your professor?

If there is any advice I would give anybody going to university is to get to know your Professor. They are there to help you and guide you through the material. Sure there are lots of students in the class and if all of them tried to get help, the Prof would be swamped. But very few students actually take the time to go to their Professor’s office hours to ask questions so you are more likely to be able to get the help you need than you originally thought.

Professors can be really accommodating. If you are unable to make it during their office hours, many are more than willing to schedule time for you to come in and get help. I have a few Profs who are like that and they make life sooo much easier for me.

Many of my Profs are concerned about how their students are doing; if the student wants to accomplish it, they will help facilitate. They want you to succeed and they want people in their class to get good grades and they want people to take their classes next semester. They also want high ratings on that well-known website that reveals all about Profs.

It’s all a question of whether you are going to take that step to talk to them.

Prof-rating Website

One of the most amazing but yet strangely unknown things about university is a website that rates the profs. You might think there will be a lot of people banging on their profs because they got a low mark. Sure, some do but you can tell who those people are who are doing it. For most profs, there are so many ratings and comments that the general picture that emerges is pretty accurate. That's what I have found, anyway.

I look the profs up on this site every time before I choose my courses. It has saved me from taking a few classes with professors that got rated pretty badly by many students. I've been able to choose a different section of the course, or a different course altogether. Once you're in the course, there's actually valuable information about the prof to be found as well -- like if they're a hard marker, what their exams are like, if they're willing to help you on an individual basis, if they go off on tangents a lot, if they favour people who participate a lot: all the things you need to know.

Look at the website now! You'll be amazed, fascinated, and enthralled.

I am in Control of my Own Space and I Like it

I'm a highly-strung kind of person. I always have been, and it was worst in the last couple of years of High School. We only had one computer and my sister was always on chat; "Oh, just this one more reply ... oh, look what she's saying ... hey no, she shouldn't say that ...". It seemed to go on forever, and I could never get my assignment begun. Then there was my dad, "let me get my mail for a second, oh I accidentally deleted your assignment". Then of course there were the chores, "Before you begin, you should ...", "I'm going to the cleaners' tomorrow and I need you to ..."; none of them respected the fact that I was serious about my school work and needed to work myself up into the right frame of mind for it. It was impossible for me to organize my life as I had no control over my environment. I have to admit I made it worse for myself; whatever it was that happened to me, I could always find a reason why it was my sister's fault, or my mom's, but not mine. Most of my reasons were partly true, but sometimes I blamed my family for things that were mostly my own fault.

Now life is my responsibility, and only mine. It's a lot more under my control. I live in a house with other people, but I have my own space. We share some of the chores and some of the food. But I can decide for myself when I do my part of the tidying and the cleaning and shopping. I have my own space, my own laundry to do, most of my own food to make, my own desk, my own computer, and my own life to organize. If something goes wrong, there is no one else to blame, just me.

In the first two weeks, it was all completely overwhelming, but made better by being so much fun, and the fact that everyone had told me it would be fun but would settle down once people got into their routines. And that's just what did happen. Now, I feel in control of my schedule and my life more than I ever have been before. I have the power as well as the responsibility for my life.

For one thing I'm not in class for as much of the day, and I can choose where I do my work, sometimes back here in my room, sometimes in the library or some other place. At home, I had to be in bed at 10 pm because to get the bus, I needed to get up at 6 into complete chaos caused mostly by my sister. Now I can go to bed at 2 am; if I have a 9 am class I can just get up at 8.50 and go. Shower, hair, breakfast, etc can be done at 10.

I can completely time manage myself. When I get an assignment, I can block it out. Same thing with studying for a test, which in my program I have all the time. I put it into that week's timetable along with classes, parties, and other scheduled things. I have to say, "OK, I’m setting my alarm for 8.30, I’m getting in the shower and eating and I’ll take an hour to do my own thing in the morning and then I’m going to the library to study from 10 until 5 with classes in between, and then I’m going to come back and maybe have an early dinner, an hour with my friends, and then get back to studying." Everything goes on my schedule, and each night I look at it so I know what the next day will be like.

If I am disciplined enough to follow it, then I’m not stressed out because the day got away from me. But sometimes it's not so easy to discipline myself; I constantly need to be working at it. It helps to be living in a house with just five other people -- from what I've seen, the various floors in the res can be chaotic, with loud music and people coming by and dropping in all the time. I'd have to learn to resist all that; I could do it, but it would be harder. Now, the computer is the hardest thing. Unless I'm using the internet, I disconnect. And unless I have using the computer in my schedule, I put it under my bed.

I used to stress out all the time because I had no control; somehow I had to get the four-hour assignment done in two days, but I never knew exactly when, so it stressed me out for the entire two days. Now I'm in control, I can block it in and not feel stressed out all the time I'm not doing it.

I'm happy with my life, and I'm proud of being able to organize myself so well. Responsibility, power, control: they all go together. Or they should.

Professorly Advice

I've always been a focused and driven student. If I had a goal, I was determined to reach it. I learned a valuable lesson after taking Pathology 240. It was an upper year restricted course and the rumour was it was by far a tough and intense course. However, with my high marks I was allowed by the Admin to enrol in my second year. After the first class, the professor called me into her office. She was very polite about it, but her message came out loud and clear. “You’re only in second year. You don’t have the knowledge and I strongly advise you to drop the class.” I was shocked at first, but as we had our conversation I realized that she was not trying to kick me out of her class, but warning me of how difficult it would be without already having the second year foundation courses.

I went home and considered my options. I thought long and hard, but I rose to the challenge. During the course of the year, I had to work doubly hard to keep up with the older students and at times found the material extremely challenging. The professor had been speaking from experience and now that I've been through it, I completely agree with her. I was not as prepared and experienced as the older students. However, once I'd made the decision, she worked hard to support me. Even when I needed help, she did not once say "I told you so, but you didn't listen…" Instead, she offered me help and encouraged me.

It came close a couple of times to being very different. One night, I went to sleep having decided to quit the course. Something must have happened during the night, because I woke up having decided not to. I was at the limit of what I could do, but not beyond.

So I discovered inner strength as well as my limits. I was always an overachiever, and I was determined that I could beat this course as well. It's important to always believe in yourself, but it's just as crucial to discover your limits and take advice from those around you. I learned that you need to be smart about which challenges you accept. Long story short, I loved everything I was learning in that course, and my final mark was an A-.

I Could Have Been in Residence, But I Lived at Home

I live in the city that my university is in. I decided to save money by living at home, about 25 minutes one way, 45 in rush hour. When other students heard that, they would ask, “Really? At home? Don’t you feel like you are missing things?”

Well, at first I thought that I might be. But I soon realized that, no, I could be just as much a part of the University as anyone else. During orientation week there was a huge group of students in the same position as me. I had all the same programming as students in residence; I just had to take an extra step to get there. At the end of Orientation week I felt confident that I was going to have an incredible University experience despite the fact that I was living at home. There are students who don't do that. They come, go to classes, and then go home. Most of their friends are the same people as before they came. They're not part of the campus community, and they seem totally disconnected from the University. I was determined not to be like that.

It is harder in some ways. For one thing, everyone else is in residence; that's where they form most of their friendships, and that's where they make decisions about where to go and what to do. Also, unless you've arranged to room with someone for the night, you can't enjoy the parties the way others can; you still have to drive home.

These are all problems that can be dealt with. I was on a varsity sports team, which provided me with a great social network, and the Off Campus program put on lots of events that I was always anxious to go to. I was on campus far more than I expected to be, I felt like I was living there. I stayed with my friends in residence some nights to get a taste of what it was like, and I had a meal plan so I could eat on campus a lot. I didn't let where I lived affect how I ran my life. I took initiative, and I made the most of the opportunities the campus offers. I definitely do not feel like I missed out.

What I'd say to others in the same position would be this: the University experience is what you decide to make it, so don't let where you're living affect what you want to get out of it. Take the initiative yourself to get involved, take advantage of the opportunities presented to you, and enjoy the first year experience that you create for yourself.

I Could Have Lived at Home, But I Chose Residence

It was interesting for me when I came to University, because I was given the option to stay in residence even though I lived in the same city as my University. It wouldn't cost me anything, because I had a scholarship that would pay for it. I wanted to stay in Res, because I wanted to get involved with the university and I thought by being closer to the university it would easier to get involved. Also, I wanted to meet people at the university and by staying at Res I thought it would make it easier. Everyone I talked to who had lived at home in their first year regretted it. Many had tried to get into Res but couldn’t because it was full.

I expected that living in Res would save me time, because I wouldn't have to spend well over an hour each day commuting. However, I hadn't considered the social life, which often used up a lot more time than that. On the other hand, commuting is wasted time; social life isn't.

Another big advantage: I didn't have to be totally organized for the entire day; forgetting some small but necessary item just meant a quick trip back to Res. And now that we have a bus strike going on, seemingly for several months, I can’t imagine how the off-campus kids manage. Most of all though, most of my friends are people I got to know in Res.

There are annoyances and frustrations though. Most obviously, the noise. In my first month, from Thursday night to Sunday night, it was so loud that I could not fall asleep. I went out and bought a fan to drown out the noise. I did find that after the first set of midterms, once everyone got their marks, people started to quiet down once they realized they had done worse than expected. Another Res problem is the temptation just to hang out with people because they're there and fun to be with, while actually you ought to be getting on with your work. Fortunately, that's not a problem for me because I'm organized and I know how to control my life. But for lots, it's a huge problem. On the other hand, chat and Facebook can be tempting in the same way, and they'll still be there wherever you're living.

Oh yes, the dramas on the floor. They seem to be about everything: schoolwork, marks, needing to drop a course or change a timetable, problems at home, partners and ex-partners, sleeping with someone and regretting it afterwards, coming out as gay. All very interesting and very intense, but these dramas aren't things you can ever walk out on, and they do use up a lot of time.

For this year, my second, I have decided to live at home, for financial reasons as well as thinking I will be more grounded and relaxed at home -- I will be better able to focus because the drama and stress of being in the Res floor won’t be there.

Just my choice. If the scholarship had paid for another year, I might have stayed in Res, or perhaps rented an apartment or a house with people I know I could live with. But I'm glad I spent my first year in Res.